Chapter 14

Meredith

I was fast asleep in my bed. Something woke me up and I shot open my eyes. I was startled seeing someone sitting in my room’s corner chair.

His long coat hanging at the chairs back. His elbows rested on his knees and he played with his pocket watch, swinging it around.

His eyes shot at me when he heard me move.

He was smirking at me devilishly. His face showed the most expression it had ever shown.

He put his watch down on the side table and stood up. His thin black sweater didn’t hide anything of what was underneath. Sculpted Greek god. But how could I expect death to look bad?

He walked up to the edge of my bed. “What are you doing here?” I asked him. His right side of his face illuminated with the moon’s shine.

He huskily laughed while drawing his hand through his silky black locks. “I am here to take what’s mine.” he said, changing to a completely serious tone, his voice almost echoing in my room.

It was dark but enough so I could see his every expression.

I felt more daring than usual. Not scared of him. Not afraid. He walked up to me and leaned down to me. I quickly sat up and his arm leaned in my bed slightly brushing my thigh.

I let out a nervous breath. His other hand rose up to meet my chin, with just his fingertips, he lifted up my head to meet his eyes. “Tell me that your mine.”

I couldn’t speak, he had complete control of my words. His hand traveled to my neck and to the back of my head. Tangling his hand in my hair and guiding my head to wherever he pleased.

He lowered his head so our faces were inches apart. Only our noses slightly brushing each other.

I felt my breath increasing. My chest was rising up and down in the little silk top I wore. I felt too exposed in front of him. The fabric on my body felt like a joke.

His one hand remained at the back of my neck and the other traveled down my back and suddenly gripped the side of me right under my breast. I let out a surprised gasp and he huskily smirked at me. “Tell me…” he repeated.

His hand went up to my shoulder grazing his fingers over my silk top strap. His lingering fingers glided at my collar bone.

My Goosebumps rose as his finger went lower. Across my breast not even caring that the fabric was so thin he could feel everything.

My heart kept speeding up as his hand went lower. Caressing his finger at the bottom of my stomach. Only ever so slightly touching my shorts waistband.

His hand finally slapped my inner thigh. Gripping it tightly. Soft moan escaped my lips. This made him lose it and he shifted in my bed and like I was light as a feather he tossed me into his lap so I was straddling him. Now he sat in my previous spot with his back leaning against the wall. So close I felt my chest breathing against him. Our faces barely apart. And his hand dug in my thigh.

“Tell me!” he growled at me.

I roughly put my hand at the sides of his face. “I’m yours.” I said out loud breathlessly.

I pulled his face towards mine and crashed my lips… I crashed my lips…

…

I shot up sitting in my bed. I looked around my dark room. Sweat formed on my forehead. My cheats rising from my rapid breathing.

It was a dream… a dream… just a dream. A strange dream…

I pulled my blanket up. What was happening? What kind of dream that was… about him…

Nobody was near yet my face was red. I felt it burning.

I didn’t feel tired. It felt like I had never been awake. It terrified me.

I laid down on my side pulling up the blanket over me. What was happening to me!

I couldn’t sleep all night. Only in the morning did I managed to get a few hours of sleep. How could I sleep when my dream kept replaying?

Maybe it was the potion that made me imagine Death… like that.

He was actually touching me…in the forest, his hand wrapped in my hair. It felt too much. I was under sedation and couldn’t control my feelings.

If I was sober I would have stayed in his lap.

My mind wandered further to yesterday. I was cursed. Who would want to curse me? Even more when I was a child... who curses a child?

I walked downstairs and as I took the last step down I heard knock on the door. “Will you get that?” Magdalena asked, peeking her head around the corner.

“Yea.” I said and he headed for the door not thinking much about it.

I opened the door and the person I least expected to show up at my door stood there in all of his glorious self.

“Death...” I said surprised but thankfully I was able to not scream it out but just whisper. Even saying his name sent shivers down my spine, never I thought that I would be calling someone by that name. I stood there not knowing what to say because he wasn’t saying anything as well.

I felt blush creeping up on me thinking over my dreams. I didn’t know what got over me to dream of something so… unholy.

Magdalena walked beside me and looked around outside. “Probably some pups joking again,” she said.

“I’ll go to Vincent’s” I said after her and mom walked out of the corner making me roll my eyes.

“I am not letting you go out without breakfast,” she said and I noticed that she had that same hair clip she always used on me. “What will Xavier say seeing you with messy hair?” She asked and pulled my hair back, making me look like some kind of child. I just wished this didn’t happen in front of Death. “Come to breakfast.” she started pulling me away. And Death finally spoke.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said and Magdalena shut the door in front of his face.

I rushed my breakfast to get out faster. “Don’t eat so fast” my mother said, “and straighten your back... look at Magdalena she is acting like a real lady.” I was not her and I was sorry that I would never be like her, it wasn’t in my blood… I wasn’t built to be like that.

“Mom....stop,” Magdalena said, defending me. We didn’t always want the same things but she found a place in her mind to understand how important those things were to me. I was thankful she tried.

“Why all of a sudden are you teaching me on how to be a lady so much?” I asked her. She has always done that but it was always just a thing she did sometimes and always discreetly not like this calling out my every flaw.

“Because we want Xavier to have a good wife,” my dad said. “And it would be helpful if you actually would listen to what your mother is telling you,” I knew my dad didn’t like Lockwood’s that much. Why was he so keen to make me the ideal wife for their son?

“You think I won’t be a good wife?” I asked them both, looking from one to another.

My mother pulled her lips together. “Of course we think you will be a good wife...” she was interrupted by my dad.

“Well... partly,” he said, muttering but everyone still heard him.

Mom got right to it, trying to fix his rude remark. “We just think that Xavier would not like you acting like this, you should look more like you did yesterday, with your hair nicely done and your clothes nice and not always the same thing.” Mom said pointing down at my dark blue dress in half disgusted and half annoyed face.

Magdalena’s sigh made me give a side glance at her. “Always the same thing,” she muttered but still I needed to answer them even though I understood how annoying this must have been for her... to always be in the middle of our arguments.

“You don’t think that anyone could ever love me for the way I am?” I asked them.

“We are saying that it will make him unhappy if you keep your behavior like this.” Dad said. “It is sacrifice as it is for him to marry you...” right as my dad said that he put his hand on his mouth cutting his sentence short. Why did my family make me cry so often? Why was I never enough?

In a few seconds my tears rose up and started to fall. I didn’t have anything to answer him. I stood up with tears running down my face. “I’ll go to Vincent’s,” I said and no one even tried to say anything to stop me.

Why was it that family is the thing that breaks me the most? Inside out they were molding me to be hollow, they wanted to make me how they want and not how I want or what I am.

I walked outside on the way to Vincent’s. I quickly steadied my cries.

I forgot that someone was waiting for me and I came face to face with him. A little too late I realized how awful I looked with my eyes that must have been red by now. I looked around me and there were few people around me so I couldn’t talk with him now. I looked down on my feet and pulled the nasty hair clip out for the purpose of covering my broken down face.

“Follow me.” I said and started walking with Death following.

I walked to a place where there was a huge abandoned garden. Once one of the pack members lived in this territory and he made a huge garden with plants that were two stories’ high. When I was little I liked going there because it seemed like a labyrinth and only rarely anyone else came there. While walking I pushed all my cries aside and I hope my face wasn’t as red as I thought it could be.

I stopped at my favorite spot and turned towards him. “Why did you come?” I asked him. “I need to go to visit Vincent soon.”

“Why were you crying?” He asked completely ignoring my question and I did the same.

“I asked first,” I reasoned with him, mainly because I didn’t want to answer that question.

“I’m more powerful,” he said with his expression blank.

I crossed my arms in front of me. “I’m not scared of you.” I said and this time it was really the truth even though he seemed to be surprised by it.

He narrowed his eyes on me. “Why not?”

“Should I be?” I asked curious, I wanted to know what was going on inside his head to know if I was just being too naïve to think that he was not a threat.

He neared me, making me back away into the bush. His hand clutching in the branches on the side of my face.

I felt his breath fanning me… he was too close. Too close for me to act as if it didn’t bother me.

“How about for a change you answer my question?” He asked and I gave up. Couldn’t really do anything when he was so close.

“If you want to kill me then do...you will be giving me a huge favor...” I said and regretted it right after, closing my eyelids of my stupidity of having such a big mouth.

“Do you think that there is no other person who cares for you?” He questioned as I turned my stare down and started fidgeting with some tree leaf I picked up. I didn’t want to say that because I didn’t want to be pitied.

“They care for me... I know they do... they just don’t need me when I am… me... “I said quietly. “They all want me to be somebody else, but that is not what I can give them... I tried to.” I said and tears started to fill my eyes, getting hot, but I didn’t let them escape.

“That’s why you were crying? That’s why you are always crying?” He asked quietly but I knew he didn’t need my answer. And I didn’t want to talk about it.

He looked concerned, still remaining at his spot he searched for my eyes. “I hate when people kill themselves...” he said. “Those watches that everyone has... when a person dies, it vanishes. It has served its purpose. When someone commits suicide it doesn’t vanish... it just breaks, the glass breaks leaving it glitches between seconds.” He talked as if he was imagining that watch in his hand. “Those watches are stored in the afterlife in a pile of million others, in a soundproof room... they don’t get peace even there... the cries and screams there are unbearable to hear for too long... they are the souls that left too early and now they are trapped there...” he explained. “I don’t like to take souls of those whose time didn’t stop, but broke.”

”I am not… actually going to kill myself…” I felt the need to say that but I wasn’t sure about that. He leaned away from me.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

Death didn’t speak for a long moment but I wasn’t going to say anything else about it either. “Jasmin arranged a meeting with the Moon Goddesses right hand on earth,” he finally said quietly. “The same spot, the same time,” he added.

I didn’t like this idea but I agreed to help and I wanted to get out of this awkward topic of me wanting to end my life because the air still seemed too tense. “Okay,” I nodded.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said.

“I know,” I answered, sparing him a glance before dropping it down again.

“Okay then… see you later, Love,” he said again with that nickname and he was about to walk away but I called out to him.

“Death... can I call you in any other name?” I asked, trying to sound as polite as I could.

”Call me anything you want I will still answer.” He smiled at me. And for the first time I noticed such softness in his stare.

.”Death. That’s who I am. Created to roam the earth for all eternity. Vicariously living a thousand lives,” he talked slowly, savoring each word.

“Don’t you have a name?” I asked. “Every person needs a name.”

He chuckled at me and then his eyes got stuck in the distance before returning to me. “I’m not really a person now am I.”

I shrug. “You are still a person, with thought, feeling and voice.”

“I am not a person, not where there isn’t anyone to answer me. But you happened. Gods must have been in a playful mood to put your seeing eyes in my direction. I will dread them each day for doing that. “

I would lie saying that those words didn’t sting a little. “I know you don’t care for me, or like me… but…”’he quickly cut me off.

“I do not mean it as an insult to you. But as a mockery of myself. That’s what they are doing.”

“A mockery?” I asked.

“You will never understand the joke I have been made when all my life I am invisible and then they put you on earth. You will never know the punishment I have to live every single day.”

“What punishment?” I asked, not understanding what he was talking about.

He sweetly smiled at me. “To be on earth not being able to feel.”