Page 20 of Dominion

If I wasn’t already looking at Cillian, I would’ve missed the wince that came after her words, but it disappeared in the blink of an eye, replaced by a look of complete indifference.

You didn’t need a degree to see that the man in front of me was struggling with more demons than I did, but he never talked about it. Whatever it was that haunted his mind wasn’t something he wanted to share. Even when he was high, snorting more coke than I have ever seen another person do, as if he was chasing death with open arms instead of trying to stay alive, he never talked about the darkness in his mind.

I could understand it. I could understand bottling everything up, hiding in plain sight, and telling yourself that everything was okay. That was what I told myself every time I came into his room, quietly sitting down by that little coffee table, where the three lines would already be prepared for me. We didn’t talk, barely even acknowledged each other, lost in our own worlds, our own misery, and I liked it that way.

People often had a tendency to ask what was wrong and how they could help, but it was rare that any of them actually meant it. What good would come out of me talking about all the miserable things I went through, only to be faced with this now? My sanity was holding on by a thread, waiting to snap in two. I knew that the only reason I still stood on my own two feet was the fact that Ash and Dylan needed me alive rather than six feet underground.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Chiara suddenly said, pulling me back to reality as she walked toward me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Let’s find something to wear for our trip.”

The way she talked about it, you would think that we were going to Lake Tahoe or for a random road trip that didn’t need fifty armed men to save Ash and Dylan. But this fake sense of serenity was exactly what I needed. With one last look at thefrowning Cillian, I turned around with her and started walking toward the house, into the entryway and all the way to the room she took once she got here at five this morning, located right next to mine.

“I didn’t really have a lot of time to talk to you earlier today,” Chiara said cheerfully, opening the door to her room. Between the meeting she called the moment she walked inside the house to the preparations that were ongoing, of course, she didn’t have time. It’s been almost five hours since she first arrived, and I admired the fact that she could function this well from an early morning.

Indigo looked like someone had slammed into him with a sledgehammer, grumbling the entire morning, while Zoe rushed around, getting everyone their coffees. Cillian didn’t sleep, and neither did I, but I could slowly feel the effects of exhaustion lingering on the edges of my mind. If I could stay on my feet right now, today, I could do anything.

I would sleep once they were safe and sound, not before that. My well-being wasn’t important right now. They were the only ones who mattered.

“You look like you could use some coffee,” Chiara stated, going through the things in her suitcase.

Coffee, right. Coffee wasn’t what I needed right now, but if she noticed the dark circles around my eyes and the twitchiness in my right hand, she wouldn’t comment on it. I had to talk to Cillian before we headed out. Memories from the days when everything seemed pointless slowly started slipping through the defenses I’d erected in my mind.

“Maybe you should eat something while you’re at it,” she added, her emerald eyes narrowing at me. “You look like you’re about to keel over, sweetheart.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, but I couldn’t eat. My appetite wasn’t something that was omnipresent these last couple ofdays. Even before, food wasn’t the thing I thought about very often.

I didn’t comment on her remarks, and I didn’t flinch when her usually cold gaze took a turn to a worrying one. I was well aware of the way I looked and the weight I’d lost over the last couple of months, but just like all the other things, I didn’t want to talk about it. Or that I could feel my ribs every time I ran my hand over my chest.

Or that the taste of food became less and less tempting, until it completely lost its appeal.

“I had breakfast today.”

“You ate an apple,” she grumbled, pulling out a couple of black pieces of clothing as she stood up. “I would hardly call that breakfast.”

“I do eat,” I argued, but the look she gave me told me that it would’ve been better if I’d kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t anything new that I hated having people trying to dictate how I lived my life. It was apparent when Dylan tried, Ash, all of my friends, but I was too stubborn to accept that they were only trying to help.

“But not enough.” Chiara walked backward until she sat down on top of the bed that was still fully made, and stared at me for what felt like an eternity until she spoke again. “I was like you once.” Her? There was no way in hell. “Scared, frail, unable to eat because the nerves ate at my stomach. I was lost once, a long time ago, until things changed.”

She extended her left arm, holding what seemed like some sort of a vest and a long-sleeved shirt. “Take it,” Chiara instructed, my body moving on its own accord.

My fingers wrapped around the silky material of the shirt, but when I lifted the vest, I realized that it wasn’t just any kind of a vest. It was a bulletproof vest. That she carried an extraone around with her gave me an answer to the questions I had earlier.

She definitely wasn’t an Italian princess, even though she had an air of royalty wafting around her.

“I never knew my real parents.” She spoke again, while I turned the shirt to the right and then left, looking at it with more interest than I actually had. “I grew up in the streets of Ventus City, hungry more often than not, stealing everything I could, just to eat. Just to taste the food.”

My eyes lifted up to hers, seeing the truth behind what she was saying.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all of this, bothering you with unimportant things when every part of you is itching to get out of this house, to go and save the two men you love.” She practically read my mind. “But the reason why I’m talking about this is to let you know that things get better. Things change. It’s up to you how you’re going to use every single opportunity that falls at your feet.”

“How did they change for you?”

She stood up and came closer to me. “They didn’t, but it’s only because I chose the path different from the one my mother always wanted me to have.”

“And which one is that?”

Her somber face revealed nothing, but her eyes… Her eyes revealed a life filled with all kinds of monsters that I couldn’t even imagine.

“I chose revenge, sweetheart. Looking at you now, you will as well.”

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