Page 47 of Scent of Desire
“You know how it feels to want revenge so badly on… everything.” He towered closer, trying to manipulate me with his intoxicating aroma. But I wouldn’t take his side anymore. I would take mine and mine alone. “I need to show them how weak they are. They need to pay. I need to expose their true colors. I can’t renounce it.”
He was a masochist, taking pleasure in inflicting pain on the sinners—the same kind of people that inflicted pain on him during his childhood. He was playing god, bringing his own sense of justice.
“This is again about your father? He’s still owning you, Radcliff. If you release the aphrodisiac, it’ll destroy you too. I’ve smelled it—it’s pure chaos. A concentrate of darkness. Only one drop and it’ll reveal and amplify the worst inside you. You’ll create monsters. It’s like dropping a nuclear bomb on humanity.”
“Perhaps this is exactly what I want,” he retorted, being the soulless man he promised he’d be. “It’d change everything.”
“Then, I don’t want to witness any of this. What’s the goal to have all this power if it’s for being a lonely god?” Because I would never stand by his side as the goddess of hell and destruction. Not anymore. I wouldn’t witness his downfall, the step too far that would take away from his redemption.
“If you had to choose between your perfume and me, Lily, what would you choose? If you had to give up something.” He squinted his eyes, already knowing the answer.
The window of his office slammed open. The cold air burst inside and swayed my hair, but our burning stares remained locked on each other. The elements were meddling in our war, the sky grounding our hatred.
“You can’t compare the aphrodisiac with the perfume, Radcliff. One is pure evil while the other—”
“Both are for selfish uses. There is no light without darkness, Lily, just like there is no right and wrong. Do you think it’srightthat these people don’t get punished for their crimes? You think it’srightthat they get to hide who they are and therefore deprive others of the ugly truth?”
He was gnawed by hatred. The blackness had ensnared his soul so deeply that no one could reach him anymore.
I finally answered his question with a knot in my throat. “I can’t give up my dream.”
I wouldn’t give up everything I’d accomplished. It would always be my dream. It was the reason I was still alive.
A sinister grin curved his lips. “See, we’re the same. Ambitious and wicked. With me, I’d never ask you to give up your obsession. I’d encourage you to chase after it. You’ll be free to show who you truly are. Dark and—”
“I’m not dark.” I refused to believe it.
“I know your thoughts and how you feel. I know your pain. Your betrayal. I read your soul. I can help you get revenge. Together, we’ll—”
“This is not me!” I screamed. “I’m not you, Radcliff. I refuse to become like you.”
I refused to give up on hope and humanity. I would seek revenge for my mother, but I would never take his path, or else I’d risk losing my soul too.
“Why did you make the aphrodisiac, then? You could have left. The day you jumped from the cliff, I gave you a choice. Why didn’t you?” He squinted his eyes, his mouth thinning.
“Because I couldn’t give up my dream, and I… I wanted to save you,” I admitted with a trembling voice. “I didn’t know the effects the aphrodisiac would have on humans back then, but I thought by giving you what you wanted, I could save your soul. That I could show you that life was much more than that.”
Radcliff let out a thin laugh. “You wanted the weak human behind the beast. You’re delusional.”
“No, I wanted every part of you. The monster, the human, and the Devil. I never wanted to change you, but you’ve let your hatred and the memory of your father kill your entire being. You’re stuck in the past. You’re worth better than this. But you’re right,” I added. “I can’t ask you to renounce who you are, just like I can’t give up everything for you. I could beg you to not release the aphrodisiac, but it wouldn’t change your mind. I get it. I get you. I get why you feel that you have to do this. But our universes are too opposite, Radcliff.”
Together, we were a destructive outcome from the start.
The worst part of it all was that his darkness attracted me as much as the tiny bit of light that resided in him.
“We’re taking opposite roads,” I whispered. “This… it’s not possible.”
Radcliff didn’t try to change my mind. Instead, he went back to the window, watching the nightmares he was bound to. He knew I was right and that we were both wrong for indulging us to exist in the first place. We were an illusion, and now we’d have to get back to the scentless reality.
“I always knew you’d be my downfall, Lily.”
And I always knew I would lose my heart to him, and that one day, he’d break it.
“I need to leave, Radcliff.” I didn’t let the chaos inside me show through.
He turned his head, his profile only visible to me. “Don’t you understand? You’ll never be able to leave.”
“So, you’ll hold me prisoner in a golden cage?” My voice was laced with bitterness.
