Elias POV (continued)

Dante looked at Tania with an approving smile and he snatched the envelope I still had in my hands. I watched him dumbstruck as he cast those files into the blazing fireplace on the other side of the room.

"I see, well this woman is Ambrosia's Aunt, Tania, she will be taking over the house," Dante said calmly eyeing the puppet of woman. Tania was truly a shell of her former self, hollowed out to play a role in Dante's devilish dream.

"I manage to salvage an agreement with the weapon dealers and they'll start shipping their supplies in tomorrow. Then the house and the money belong, Tania, since Ambrosia is out of the way."

"I'm moving this company to the Westcoast, where I can expand," Dante continued pushing himself off of his desk to pace around.

"And you and a few others, are coming with me," he finished clicking his tongue in satisfaction.

I watched him with strained vision, my fingers ached to latch themselves within his face and press into the cavity of his eyes. Dante cocked his head and scratched the side of his mouth with his index finger.

"I thought you'd be a little happier than that," Dante laughed and searched me again with a calculating stare. "You've always been so loyal to me Elias, do—do you remember how you got here?"

I said nothing, I didn't dare move myself an inch to answer this man. I recalled everything he had done to me, manipulation through drug fixation, and my illnesses just aided his control. However, I couldn't breach the memory of my origin in the cursed house.

Dante clapped his hands together at my lack of reaction and placed one on the shoulder of Tania. She winced back into her seat and her face shattered underneath the intensity of her fear.

"You worked for Ambrosia's grandmother and Tania this early summer, a gardener? No no, a hitman right? Grandma Hill was splitting her cocaine business with Tania and Tania needed some protection!"

Dante laughed and waved his hand into the air as if it was to take flight. "You and your mother were then settled into the picture and all seems well...until save the day and kill the old bitch in charge," Dante paused and trusted a finger in my direction.

I felt a searing hot knife cast itself into my chest.

"I'm hurt that you forgot, how Ivy introduced you to Avril and he brought you to me. We had a good chat about...plants and shit," he laughed again.

"Do you remember why you agreed to kill her?" Dante questioned.

Why did you do it?

Why did you do it?

Why did you do it?

Why did you do it?

"Because you said you'd kill my mother if I helped you." My voice was unrecognizable, a hoarse and pitiful cry of a weakened baby. I felt morbidly ill, a kind of sickness that taunts to rise in your throat carrying the burning acid of your stomach.

"That's right, and did I follow through Elias?"

"Yes."

There was silence for a moment and Tania stirred in her seat watching the two of us with full attention.

"I was either going to have you killed in the woods Elias, or kill you right now," Dante sighed his voice was now void of all humor. My heart stuttered to a halt and I struggled to regain my breath at that moment.

Dante opened a drawer to a desk on his right and pulled out a glass and a small plastic bag. "But I— I admire the unbridled side of your illness, the killer who needs guidance."

"An unstable mind is an easy mind to manipulate Elias and your mother always had that power over you, remember that..." A pitcher of water was already set out and he poured the water into the glass before setting out a small pill beside it.

"I can guide you, help you take back your power Elias," Dante stated and if it weren't for that fact I had retained my memory I would have never noticed that those were the same words he had spoken to me the day he asked me to murder Ambrosia's grandmother. His gun came out onto the table and he leaned forward.

Without another word, I took the glass in one hand and the pill in the other. Dante's eyes were interlocked with mine as I placed the drug in my mouth and downed it with the water.

Dante grinned and looked to Tania, "I told you he would do it, he killed Ambrosia himself."

Tania only nodded and twisted her mouth into an equally fake smile. Her eyes held no feeling, she was nothing.

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I nearly collided into the door as I busted into my bedroom. I stumbled into the bathroom collapsing over the sink and gagging violently. I shoved two fingers down my throat and continued to urge my already sickened body to revolt against the laced substance. In no time my body had finally made way for the contents in my stomach to come out and I threw up. I threw up until I could I find the pill that Dante had made me ingest and then I flushed that down the toilet.

Out of breath I slumped onto the floor and pulled my sweat-soaked hair from my face.

I have to get out of here.

It was the only pure truth I knew at that moment. I didn't have a full vision of what was to happen to me and Ambrosia but the goal was to escape and start somewhere new. My first instinct was to grab my phone and call the police.

I stood with my phone in my hand, unable to dial anything because I knew my identity would be automatically linked to Dante I would be as good as dead. I placed my phone down and got up out of my room.

I needed help, I couldn't do this alone. The cold air was beginning to seep into my blood I couldn't stand it, everything itched and I was somewhat skeptical of my own sanity at that moment.

It was only a matter of time until I found Daniel, he sat outside by himself flipping through a wad of cash he had most likely been paid earlier. Daniel raised his brows in surprise as I approached him.

"You look like shit man."

"F-fuck you," I stammered glancing around in paranoia to see if I had been followed. Daniel looked around as well and pulled down the hoodie of his jacket.

"Alright, if this is about the photos man I don't care, I won't tell anybody—"

"Shut up Daniel just shut the fuck up—if you don't I don't know I'll kill you like I did those people in the photos, I promise I'll fucking gut you like a fish and I-"

Daniel was silent, eyes widened, and mouth slightly ajar. I attempted to calm myself, I had been screaming at him and my throat itched to do it again.

I closed my eyes and ran a hand over my face, the paranoia was overtaking me. Had I not spit out the pill, maybe I had waited too long and its chemicals seeped into my stomach already.

I rubbed my twitching hands over my head and smiled the best I could at the moment. Which may have resembled the smile of a drugged circus clown.

"I just need your help okay, I need to build a raft," I stated peering at him through the stringy curls shading my eyes.

Daniel frowned deeply and crossed his arms. "A raft?"

"I-I need to get out of here, without anyone knowing, and if I take my truck they will know," I explained rather vaguely and watched as Daniel wrestled with what I was telling him.

"Okay, I...I'll help you, man."

I clutched onto his shoulder and held him firmly in front of me my face dangerously close. I needed him to help me, he was the only one who I had seen to find some emotional interest with Ambrosia. What I did next would reveal to me if I could trust him, if he was willing to help us.

It was after I had demanded us go into the kitchen and take some food with us into the woods. Daniel had continuously questioned my motives but I urged him only quietly to the shed.

My thoughts were all jumbled now, I had no real intuition to who I was. Yes, I am unreliable even in my own perseverance to escape. I was stretched between two identities to which only in my action could I differentiate who I was. I unlocked the shed door, and even in the dimly lit area, Ambrosia looked heavenly.

A wilting flower wounded by own hands; even in that state of delirious pain, she smiled to me and Daniel. It was then where I had understood what I had done to her, that I had ruined the soil my flower once grew so strongly from.

Daniel made a mad dash to her side and he took it upon himself to run his hands over her face. His face was somewhere between fear and relief as he watched her struggle to sit up. Ambrosia brushed her hair back over her shoulder and she grabbed eagerly at the food we brought her in napkins.

"I can't believe you're alive Ambrosia," Daniel's voice quivered as he touched her cheek. I clenched my jaw for a moment, watching them, watching her allow him to touch her so tenderly.

"Daniel, what are you doing here?" Ambrosia whispered and I was reminded of the sweetness of her voice. The silkiness of its touch on my heart.

"I'm helping," Daniel looked at me for a moment then focused on Ambrosia once more," I'm helping you escape."

Ambrosia nodded as she ate, but I could tell her mind was barely grasping his words. Daniel stroked her cheek and an inner voice snapped.

Would she let you do that?

Daniel moved his hand to a dark stain of her blanket and move it aside. Her dress was riding up and he was able to see the bandage wrap around her thigh where the wound was still damp with blood.

"Holy shit, so this was why you were so bloody," Daniel commented running his fingers gently over the bandage.

Would she love you?

After you shot her?

"I had to," I murmured.

"What was that?" Daniel asked I took notice of his hand placement on her bicep and darkness tempted to cloud my mind.

"I had to do something to save her, she told me to-to..."

Would things ever be the same?

"Yeah..." Daniel trailed off and rolled her blanket back over before standing up. He looked around the shed for a moment and walked over to a pile of logs.

"We're going to need to cut a few more," he said before picking up an ax that had been resting on a workbench.

"Yeah, I'll join you in a minute," I huffed watching him make his way out of the shed. I looked back at Ambrosia who had finished eating and watched me. I kneeled by her side and took up her hand, squeezing it.

"Everything is going to be okay," I claimed.

"Okay."

"I have a plan to get us out of here, alright?"

"Alright."

Ambrosia's words had fallen flat in repetition and her eyes were almost as cloudy as Tania's. I began to panic my throat started to numb.

Was she upset with me? Was she deciding now, right now that she hated me?

"Do you still love me my flower, sweet flower?"

"I do."

My heart was irked in impatience. Her blunt agreements were not enough, why were they not enough?

What was wrong with you?

What was wrong with me?

"Say you love me Ambrosia," I pleaded. "Say you'll love me and never leave me."

Ambrosia's eyes were glazed as she looked into me, she was figuring it all out, it was unraveling right before her. I was unraveling right before her!

"Say it, please!"

"Elias, Elias you're squeezing—squeezing too hard, Elias!"

I looked down at her hand, our hands now molding into one in my vision as I pressed her finger in between my own. I could feel her heartbeat withing those slender palms and I shuddered because I thought I could feel the baby's as well.

It will never be the same.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry flower," my garbled words slipped from my mouth.

I released her and Ambrosia drew herself back to bob her head to the side and cough. I touched her forehead and felt the extreme heat emanating from her skin.

"Shit."

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