Chapter 84: Why don’t you... love me?
T/W: at this point, I’ll like to remind everyone that this book deals with a lot of angst, traumatic topics and mental health topics (although not explicitly stated).
Elias’s POV
I’m bleeding.
The amount of blood I’m losing is making me lose control of my surrounding.
My brothers are unaware of my state of mind.
We had a mission to kill a man named Shin Yechan in South Korea. The meeting was too important. Too pressing. And too demanding that I couldn’t wait and talk to Noah first of all.
I wanted to talk to him so bad. But he was asleep. Asleep and angry at me.
"Come on" Damien calls.
My older brother is smiling brightly. He enjoyed the killing. He spent too much time playing when all I want to do is go home.
I want to go home. Everything here is slipping out of my grasp.
I slide into the car, slam the door shut and sink into the leather seat.
There’s a burning in my eyes and it’s not from the smoke coming out of the building my brothers and I just blew up.
The burning has been there for hours now. There’s also a strange burn in my sinus. It feels like wanting to cry.
I don’t cry. I don’t feel emotions like other people. I only feel a possessive need to control. But Noah...
That man, Noah Deus...
I swallow back the lump sitting in my throat. The lumps has also been there since Noah said those words to me: I think I’m falling in love.
How can he say those words to me and it’s not even after I stopped him from seeing Roman.
"Elias?" Kai calls and I lift my head.
"Are you okay?" he asks and I drop my head again.
"I’m fine" I say, grinding my teeth and tilting my head backwards to stare at the ceiling. My hand seeks out the metal watch I’ve been holding ever since I came out from that place.
It is the only object I learned to understand and the only thing I kept with me.
Memory: (13 years old Elias)
"Make it stop! Make it stop!" I scream with my hands over my ear.
"Look at him. This is the only time he has ever raised his voice in a while" the woman who has been watching says as Julian comes closer.
The unpredictable noises in the room are too much.
I have anxiety. He knows I have anxiety. He has taken me to the family therapist many times before.
"Are you ready to talk now, Elias?" my parents’ former righthand man asks, and I sniffle to stop the flow running down my nose.
I want to go home now.
"Elias. It’s going to be easy. Just tell us everything you know about mommy and daddy, and you get to go home" Julian says and I stare blankly at him.
He knows I won’t talk.
"He’s worse than he was before. Less emotional. Look at him, he looks nothing like a teenager" the woman says with enthusiasm.
I don’t give her a reply. Why would I? I already know what they’ll do.
They’ll attack my parents and kill them.
I want to go home. But I want to go home to my family. I want my mother to be there and I want him to tell me that it’s okay to be odd.
"Elias" Julian says my name, squatting in front of me and tilting his head to the side.
I subconsciously mirror his action and he chuckles softly.
"Look at everything here..." he says, but I don’t look back. I can already see them in my mind’s eyes. I can see the rusting cymbals. The color jack-in-the-box. The snow globe. The old T.V.
I’ve looked at everything long enough to know what they look like.
I’ve figured most of them out. But that jack-in-the-box. That television. That clock. They are too much for me.
They suddenly work when I don’t know when. They make me scared. They make me anxious. And I can’t control them.
"I can make everything stop" he says in a softer voice and I wipe the tears off my face with the back of my hand.
I’m breaking. But I’ll have to do better. I’ll be strong for everyone.
"I won’t tell you anything" I say, going to a corner and sitting with my arms around my body.
"Alright. He’s really Siren’s boy. Lock him up again" he says and I lift my head to watch him leave.
He doesn’t leave immediately. Instead he grabs his hair and lets out a roar.
"Oh...search his pocket too" Julian says and I move backwards, trying to melt into the wall.
The dead cherry blossoms are still in my pocket.
This is my only living possession. The lives are dead, but the voice of the boy who gave them to me is alive.
"No! Get away from me!" I scream as two men come in.
They don’t care that I’m years younger than they. They force my hands out of my pocket and I fold my hand over the plant. I can’t lose it.
"Don’t take it, it’s mine!" I scream and bite down on one of the men’s shoulder.
The guard gives me a violent slap with the back of his hand. I fall into the wall and scratch my face.
I want to go home.
"I will take everything that is remotely yours. YOU THINK YOU WILL ESCAPE? I will haunt you. I will haunt your family and I will be all that remains" Julian yells, pounding the bars as his men fight me.
He’s struggling with a grudge he holds against my family because of me, and I’m struggling for what’s mine.
Present:
"Hey! Hey!" Damien’s voice shakes me out of my head and I drag air into my lungs.
I don’t understand why I’m suddenly slipping. I had gotten hold of myself after years of numbing myself and watching Noah from a distance. I had succeeded in killing my emotions.
I’m sure I had gotten over it.
"Move" I say, pushing my brother to the side and falling out of the car to empty my stomach contents.
"Mom? Eli is sick again" Kai says in a frantic voice into the phone and I place my hand over my chest.
It’s beating too fast.
"He’s dry heaving right now" Damien says and I count in my head to bring myself back.
One car.
Two men.
No cherry blossom boy. No cherry blossom boy. No cherry blossom boy.
I already own him but why won’t he let me completely let me own him? Why won’t he love me?
Is it because I’m odd?
The world doubles. Then triples. Then goes black as I pass out.
Why couldn’t he have said those words ’I think I’m falling in love’ to me?