Page 40 of Runes To Rain
I remain where I am, still facing away from him as waves of hurt and anger crash over me. The knot of emotion in my chest tightens. I hesitate to speak because I don’t know what I’ll say if I open my mouth. Whatever words might escape, I’m confident they won’t be kind.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he finally growls, and my last shred of control snaps.
I round on him. My voice is low, quiet, and sounds like steel. A tone that sounds dangerous to me, at least. “Of course I don’t fucking understand why you’re angry.”
Who knows what he hears in the tone of my voice, but I refuse to scream at him and argue in the way I know he prefers. Instead, I keep my tone steady as I continue, “I don’t understandanything about you, and your behavior toward me certainly isn’t making me want to get to know you. Furthermore, none of your anger at me is logical unless somehow you see something in me that you relate to and that makes you angry at yourself.”
My chest heaves as I glare at him. He begins to open his mouth, but I quickly say, “Taking out your self-loathing on me is the only thing that makes any sense.”
He snaps his mouth shut and glares back at me, neither of us breaking.
“You didn’t need to make this personal,” he finally snarls.
“You’re the one who made this personal,” I say. My tone is still quietly dangerous.
I see his jaw tick; he’s so still he seems to barely be breathing.
“I came out here to offer to teach you self-defense,” he finally says.
I reel at the change in topic. The ground feels unsteady under my feet. “Why would I want you, a massive prick, to teach me anything, especially when you clearly couldn’t defend yourself?” I ask, gesturing weakly at the bruise on his face.
His expression darkens, and he tenses. He takes a step forward as though he wants to strike me, and then suddenly he turns on his heel and leaves the room.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Fem says quietly behind me.
He says it softly enough that I don’t know if he intended for me to hear him. A part of me wants to ask him what part of the argument was unexpected, but instead, I heave in a breath, count to some undefined number until I feel like I can breathe again, and then proceed to my room.
Once we get through the door, Fem asks me quietly if I’ll be ok, and I nod without looking at him. After reminding me again that I’m to remain in bed and get some rest for the next two days, he leaves, shutting the door gently behind him.
I undress awkwardly, undoing as few buttons as possible and pulling the shirt over my head carefully with more whimpers asevery part of my body hurts. Now that I have a chance to see myself in the mirror, I note the deep bruising already showing on my abdomen around the healing wound. My hand is slightly swollen and stiff with dark red bruising showing.
I’m just settling into bed when I remember Fem’s instructions about the salve. I locate it in a drawer in the small table next to my bed and carefully apply an ample amount to both new injuries.
Then I lay back in bed, close my eyes, and try to rest despite my inner turmoil. Now that I’m lying in bed, I have nothing to distract me from my anger at Dio and how he’s treating me. I also don’t like who I just became when I responded to him.
As I lay in bed with tears dripping down my temples, I’m confident it’s going to be a long two days.
DIO’S JOURNAL - ENTRY 193
Annum:5614
Entry 193 - vera colora
Fuck she’s a bitch. I don’t believe a single word Malam said about her not being an addict. Her behavior continues to be so odd that I don’t know what else could possibly be going on. The only thing that could explain her behavior is if she’s using. On top of her odd behavior, she is also a manipulative little bitch. Even if she’s managed to fool a fucking demon, she’s not fooling me. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on her from now on.
The plan was that she’d stay behind when we held our record signing. It was for HER OWN SAFETY and because we couldn’t be distracted by protecting her. Instead, she went to Reem and begged him to let her go with us. There were probably tears. I’ve seen her use them to her advantage before. However she did it, Reem caved. I really need to remember to talk to him abouthow he handles her. This giving in is just making things worse for all of us.
We were all distracted by her being there, or at least I know I was. Then, because she didn’t follow orders, she ended up getting trampled by the crowd AGAIN, and I needed to rescue her. It's not like the other guys are physically as capable as I am, so it was a task I reluctantly volunteered for.
To add insult to injury, after we got back to the mansion, Reem and Lent cornered me before I could talk with her and scolded me for how I’d “treated her” when I rescued her. I honestly couldn’t believe they came at me instead of scolding her.
After that, I went out of my way to try to be nice to her, so as to mend things with the other guys. I even offered to teach her some self-defense. I’m quite proficient at boxing and thought maybe teaching her some of those skills could help prevent this sort of situation in the future. I also thought maybe if I got to know her a little, got a little closer to her, I could keep a better eye on her.
It doesn’t matter though, she turned me down. Instead of taking it as the peace offering it was intended to be, she pushed me away and spewed venom about me. She even made it personal.
She is observant, I will give her that. Meanwhile, she has the others wrapped around her little finger,pulling their puppet strings and getting whatever she wants.
I won’t be so easily fooled.
