"Alessandra, please speak to me." I just shake my head. I've been moved to a hospital residence room, with pale paper covering the walls, and black sheets covering the bed. There is a mirror on the other side of the room, and the girl I see in the reflection is terrifying. It's not me, the girl in the mirror has hair in a million different directions, and eyes filled with the memory of death.

"What did Titan do to you?" He is whispering to himself, but I can hear him clearly, and it kills me.

I just shake my head again. I can't look away from my reflection in the mirror. I am pleading at the girl to help me, to tell me what to do, to choose a life different from my own.

"God damn it, Alessandra." He slams his fists down on the sides of his chair and I flinch. "Just let me fucking help you."

"That's the problem." I choke out, and my voice is foreign to my ears, the sound of tin cans being crushed under some stranger's foot.

He pulls the chair right next to my side, and grabs my hand in his. But I can't bring myself to return his squeeze.

"What is?"

"If you help me, it will hurt everyone."

"What the hell are you talking about?" His forehead is crunched into lines of worry and memories beyond his years.

"I-I can't." I cough slightly, little particles of blood shining on the white surface of my skin. My skin looks like paper, with the ink of red and blue veins bleeding through.

"Alessandra, please." His voice cracks a million times in so many seconds. "I'm going insane."

"You're going insane?" I laugh, my voice full of anything but humor. "Octavius, I've been insane for more years than I've lived. I was an iceberg, and I've been split in two, and now I'm just sinking further into madness."

"You're not insane." He hisses, grasping my hand tighter. I wonder if I would feel pain if my nerves worked. "Just tell me what happened."

I stare at him for the first time, but his eyes aren't gold, aren't black. They're the blue that I love, so dark and deep you feel like you could float for centuries in their beauty. Love is cruelly kind.

"He's alive." I croak.

"Who?"

"My father." I feel the ghost of tears and salt on my skin.

"What?"

"He's alive." I snap, and yank my hand from his hold, the warmth of his skin burning the ice of mine. "He's alive, but not safe."

"Alessandra, you had a bad dream, your father is-"

"I wasn't dreaming!" I scream, insanity dripping from vowels and consonants. "I was awake and breathing and dying."

"Who the hell-"

"Titan." I snap and the taste of his name on my lips sends me flying for the bed pan, emptying the contents of a shallow stomach. I feel his warm hand on my back and I shift away. I don't deserve his touch. I don't deserve his warmth.

He doesn't deserve to have a mate that would consider Titan's offer. Even for a moment.

"My father is a liar." He growls.

"I don't know how," I whisper, crudely wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my hospital gown. "But I know it's true. It has to be. He wouldn't risk lying if his request was that intense. He wouldn't lie about it. He couldn't lie about. Would he- no he wouldn't-"

I am muttering to a voice that cannot respond, I can't even be certain that I'm speaking aloud.

"What are you talking about, what request?" He grabs my chin, forcing me to face him. The sparks that once gave pleasure just remind me of how much I'm killing him, even now.

"If you won't tell me what he did to you, maybe he will." He hisses, standing up quickly, the chair emitting a piercing screech as it slides backwards.

"What?" I choke out.

He turns to me as he stands in the doorway.

"You are refusing to tell me what he did to you. So my only option is to force him to tell me himself." He turns to leave.

"Octavius!" I scream, kneeling on the bed.

"Yes?" He turns back to me.

I open my mouth to confess, my tongue so desperately wanting to form a statement filled with danger. Letters fall from my mind in Ts and Us, leaving me with a language even I don't know how to speak.

"I have to protect you, Alessandra." He states, his voice even and unwavering. "If you won't help yourself, then it is my duty to do it for you. I will protect you to my dying breath."

"Octavius-" I whisper, pleading with each curve and cross.

"Alessandra, no matter what you do, I'll do anything to save you from danger, because I love you."

"Then stop!" I shout, and my mind has jumped out of my body.

He freezes.

"Stop what?"

"Stop loving me!" I am screaming words that I have not seen, do not mean. But even still, they fly from my mouth like bullets from a gun.

His expressions are silent, telling me nothing.

"And why would I want to do that?" His voice is that of a machine, programmed to avoid the insanity of my words.

"Because it's just going to hurt you! Everyone I love gets hurt, and I can't do that to you. Not you. Just let yourself be free from me!"

What the hell am I saying?

What the hell am I doing?

Who the hell am I?

"Then let me die. I'll dig my grave myself if that's what it takes to love you. I will point a gun at my head, if it means I can save you. I will tie bricks to my shoulders, and drown in an ocean of black, as long as I know that you're mine."

I have no words. A dictionary that once gifted me with Xs and Qs has burned in the fire of his words, pages are ashes and letters are dried ink on cement.

"Please-"

"No, a promise made, is a promise kept."

And he walks out of my room, my screams following him down the halls.