Umm heyyyyyyyy. It turns out I needed a confidence push and yesterday when I uploaded I got that. Thank you.

I'm aware some of you have pm-ed me asking for a playlist to the songs I put in the chapters. So at I'll do a dedicated chapter or part to songs

Location - Khalid.

BIDEN WON GUYS!!!!! 💙💙💙💙

On with the chapter...

************

😈

I awaken from my slumber feeling satisfied and proud. I was proud that I got a good night of sleep for the first time in a while.

I'm not too sure if Aspen has anything to do with it, after our spiritual kiss I managed to sleep like a baby.

And oh boy, that kiss was sweeter than honey; better than anything I've tasted in a long time.

"Asp..." I shake her gently. Her arm was secured tightly around my torso with the covers pulled up to her neck. The mass of ginger/red and luxurious hair scattered everywhere.

"What?" She grumbles pulling the covers over her head.

"It's morning," I whisper in a croaky voice. She finally huffs loudly and sits up rubbing the sleep away from her eyes. She blinks for a few moments letting her eyes adjust to the luminous blue shade reflecting inside the tent. It was from the colour of the tent walls which were dark blue.

"I hate mornings," she growls routing through her bag and pulls out a bottle of water which she gladly takes a rather large gulp of.

"Don't we all?" I sit up straight and play with the ends of her hair. They were gorgeous.

"I guess."

"Stop that, it hurts," she jokes slapping my hand away from her hair. I fold out my bottom lip out in response.

"Hey, h0es!" Josh violently drags the zip open shoving his entire face through. I could see that his face was all droopy and red probably from sleeping on his face.

"Josh get out!" Aspen pushes his face out, she digs her sharp talons into his cheeks leaving a pale indentation mark. I couldn't blame her, she didn't have a shirt on other than a red bralette so she was revealed to him almost. We were both indecent by our lack of clothing.

"Ow!! Aspen, you're a bitch!" Says Josh. I gasp when I see a foot imprint on the side of the tent and everything rocks side to side. Even the water that she was drinking, was now exploded everywhere washing the walls making the deep blue colour a lot darker.

"And your sister's-

I cut her off before she says something she regrets. Aspen had no filter on her words and when she speaks, she says everything on her mind. It's good in some cases, but mostly it gets us into shît.

"Don't speak of her," I say to her calmly.

"Sorry, I forgot about yesterday. I can't believe she tried that," she sighs in disbelief.

"Yeah, that's not the only thing she tried," I scoff recalling what happened when she tried to kiss me. I felt so ill and contaminated. It felt like I needed to wash a layer of protective skin away from my body.

I thought everyone was joking when they were teasing her about 'liking me' but this is just crazy. Even if I did like her (which I most certainly do NOT) she's still my besties' younger sister and that's just wrong. There's alike and she's crossed one too many times.

Just think, my baby sister could've died. And if she dies, I die too. I'm not quite sure how I survived without her before but now? She's embedded into my life and I never want her to escape. I love her too much to see her go.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aspen gives a sour and bitter look, squinting at me which her mouth agape.

"It's stupid," I dismiss her wishing I'd of been reticent and silent.

"No... tell me," she insists. She doesn't want to know, I figure she'd be angry is I told her especially after we kissed last night. It's not what you tell someone the day after you've kissed. And besides, I should've kept my mouth sewn shut and not said a word.

"Don't worry about it-

"Blade..." she gives a pointed look telling me that I'm in deep trouble if I don't tell her. She looks like a goddess when she's furious. Sometimes I just like to make her angry just for the sake of it. It's highly attractive to me. What's more attractive is that she has the same temper as I do - she's very impatient and snappy when things don't go her way. She doesn't take any crap from anyone either.

"She tried to kiss me. I pushed her away though. Please don't be angry-

"Oh I'm not angry, I'm furious. In fact, when I see her at school after the weekend; I'll drown her and see how she like the taste of her own bitter medicine. How about that? She needs to keep her hands off of things that aren't hers," she gnarls stripping bare of her clothes and putting a new set on.

I shouldn't be looking.

I shouldn't be looking.

I shouldn't be looking.

I shouldn't be looking.

And I'm looking.

My eyes inspect every inch of her body but whine when she pulls the shirt over her body covering up her cleavage. She hasn't changed in front of me since... since the last time, we shared a bed which was just before we broke up. So this was something I missed. Her as a whole, I missed her so much.

We still haven't exactly 'put anything out there' or talked about where we are right now or what exactly happened last night but we love each other. That's a matter of fact. We do love each other.

Even when we were broken up, I still loved her and I'll always love her. That won't ever change, despite everything and despite cheating on one another, if anybody talks bad about her who isn't me, you'll get my fist in your face.

"Stop looking then. Be a gentleman," she chortles jumping up to button the jeans. I never understood why girls do that. Just put them on normally, the jumping is unnecessary. Was it a way to burn calories while getting ready?

"I wouldn't be me if I didn't look. Besides, you look great with nothing on. It's just how I like it," I wink suggestively.

"True. But I'm not here for your pleasure. I'm here because I love you, or did you forget that already?" she crawls overdrawing a nail down the side of my jaw.

"Yeah?" I question with a tint of humour.

"Yup. Now get up you lazy bîtch," she slaps my cheek hard and I release a low rumble of pain and rub the area promptly trying to relieve the staccato of pain.

I remember staccato from Luca when he talks about music too much. Something about staccato and legato. Staccato being short and snappy and legato being long and smooth. Staccato just fit my pain well.

"Aren't we going to talk about last night?" I ask, she pauses and what she's doing.

"What about it?" She avoids my eye, pretending as though we didn't kiss or snog.

"We kissed. You really gonna pretend we didn't do anything?" I was offended she was doing this, she confessed her love for me while we were kissing and I was half-naked.

"Well... it was just a kiss, nothing more right?" That hurt me, she claimed it was 'just a kiss' and nothing more. What was I expecting?

I've never being pied off like this before. I'm Blade Russo, people are supposed to love me and worship the ground I walk on. Kiss my feet even. She stabbed me with her sharp words.

"Right. Just a kiss," my tone falls deeper with every word I spit.

"We're best friends... and it was just a kiss. Nothing more. We were able to be friends before so we can do it again, I really don't want this to ruin anything," she whispers ever so softly like a cloud - sotto voce - just perfectly gentle.

"Right... 'friends,'" I make quote marks around my words.

"Correction: best friends," she smiles softly, leaving me heartbroken. I'll get through it.

This feeling was foreign to me, I'd never been friend zoned before. She said she loved me. She led me on just to pie me off. Not going to lie and say I haven't done this before, but I've never been on the other side of the friend-zoning.

It hurts like a gunshot and trusts me, I'd know exactly what a gunshot feels like. I'm pretty sure I still have my scar from when I was shot by a local gang that I robbed.

Girls. I needed one to take my mind off of this but I'm fvcking stuck here and can't calm my hook up.

It's just one girl. I have many, I'm not sure why I'm going crazy over a girl that just wants to be friends.

"No hard feelings?" Her voice squeaks being hopeful.

"Sure."

*************

Once I'm dressed and drowning in half a bottle of deodorant - since I can't shower yet but I guess I could jump in the lake - I securely wrapped myself up so I was nice and toasty for the day. I even made sure to double up on socks today since it was only 1°C.

I open up the tent adjusting my black beanie and scan through all the little children in a search for one in particular. Not that Emilia was a child, because quite frankly she's quite mature for her age. You could say she's more knowledgeable about the world than I am. It's crazy how her mind works, it truly is. I wish I could just watch her mind like a day at the cinema but she's like a guard not letting anybody inside.

I find her sat up straight on the damp bench just looking out into the distance of trees. Her fork violently and vigorously stabs at the burnt sausage until it's shredded into little pieces.

"Em... are you okay?" I sit next to her and gather her in a hug.

"Perfect," she stands up pushing me away and takes her plate throwing the entire thing (including the plate) into the bin at the end of the table.

"Em?!" I shout after her. There's something off about her, I can't blame her. Someone tried to kill her so I wouldn't be surprised if she's traumatised.

She turns around while walking knowing I was shouting her but she decides ignores me moving to another bench.

I squint at her and planned on moving next to her but Felix beat me to it. I would do anything to hurt him.

Ooh, the satisfaction I would get from jumping on his face and kicking his teeth from his gums and dislocating his arms and legs. Sweet joy.

It was weird how I got pleasure out of hurting people. But that's just me. I'm Blade Russo and I don't exactly feel any kind of remorse whatsoever. And that's my life.

When you're in this 'business' as Alessandro likes to call it, there are no turnbacks. And yesterday when we were in the car and Felix brought up his parents, it was awkward. But we had no choice but to buy that company his mum worked for

- I think it was a manufacturing company - but either way, the more we buy, the bigger our empire is and we will be respected a lot more.

You see, when we buy these high end and low-end companies, we're also buying respect and honour with it. When someone tries to mess with us and take us down, they simply cannot. We're unstoppable. And at the rate we're moving now, we aren't stopping until we get to the top.

Is it selfish? Yes. Some may consider our work 'disgusting' but this is the game of life. We go through hell and storms and we're lucky to make it out alive. We need to do things to get through this 'storm' -metaphorically speaking - no matter what the costs are. No matter what the costs are.

Some wonder what we do when we buy these companies. We simply make more money, supply more gangs, grow bigger branches, profit from these bought businesses and that's it.

We do some things on the side which are most certainly considered illegal. Fraudulent actually. We also sell many kinds of drugs, to put them in categories, we have the depressants, the hallucinogens or psychedelics. Even stimulants and opium-related painkillers. Quite the variety.

I'm no stranger to drugs I'm friends with them. I've done a few in my life and I'm not proud of it but we all make mistakes and we all learn from them and improve to make ourselves better people.

But whenever I mess up, I always find it hard to make one of those inspirational messages in my head like 'I can be better' or 'I'll benefit from this and shake myself into a more mature person' because quite frankly, that's impossible for me. I cannot be a great person when I've sinned way too often.

I'm no saint and I know that, but sometimes I just wish my life was somewhat a cool and the boys' lives in movies. So simple yet so chaotic and fun. Don't get me wrong, my life is fun but when it's 'fun' all the time it tends to get quite boring and old.

You can only do something so many times before you get tired and lose interest. If I say girls in this context am I going to die?

I can only do girls so much before I get bored with them and ditch them. Call me heartless, but it's the plain, brutal truth. I am a brutal person. I can't change that.

"You should calm him. Axel I mean. We all know Axel is the only one who can get through to her," Diego shakes the hair out of his eyes.

"Huh?" I snap out of my glorious daze confused. "Oh right. Do you think? I don't want to get into trouble. I'm meant to protect her remember? I've failed everyone at that job."

"He's going to find out sooner or later. And you should tell him now before he gets angry at you that you didn't tell him before. You get me?" He advises.

"Strangely enough I do," I tap my nail on the split, greenwood contemplating telling him. I should do the right thing and tell him what happened. Right?

"Yeah, I'll give him a call if I can get service. It's pretty shit over here," I take a small glance back to Emilia who was rubbing her throat. Bless her. My baby sister was hurt. And I couldn't protect her either, that's just depressing. It's my job as her brother to protect her from these things.

I'll be better.

*+*+*+*+*+*+

✨Emilia POV

"What's up? You have a very... sour face this morning. I never really got a chance to ask how you were from yesterday, but are you okay? Just so you know Kelsey will pay-

"Pay for this? I know she will. Stop reminding me, please. I have the worst migraine and more sore throat anyone could imagine," I rub my throat eagerly. It hurt when I tried to speak hence why I wasn't talkative this morning. Or afternoon. I wouldn't know since I turned my phone off.

"Sorry... I hope she dies," he mumbles tapping a hand on my knee, just rubbing the area with his thumb slightly.

"Well... I wish I could say something inspirational about how you shouldn't wish death upon anybody but I'd be a hypocrite nor am I in the correct headspace to even consider respecting her or standing up for her," a terrible habit of mine was ranting on.

I tend to speak a lot - and I know it's a bad habit - but when you've been silenced for so long you find this will power in being able to release thoughts from the cage you call your mind. They just... flood out I guess.

Words are the key to expressing myself. And painting. But I love words. They're so strong and powerful yet they can affect someone's life just in a few short words.

"Shall we like gang up on her or something? Meet her down an alleyway and knife her or something. We can get away with it if you like...?" Tempts Felix who whispers a chilling allurement in my ear.

"Hmmm tempting but I'll get her one day. And you'll all see," what I was thinking was confronting her at school. And if anything happens from there, it wasn't me.

"Creative. Mysterious. I like that," he wraps a warm, long arm around my shoulders.

"Guys!! Round up!! Everybody!! Come here!" A middle-aged man with a slightly grey stubble rings a bell drawing us into his attention. Chill with the bell, I can hardly hear myself think at the moment and this isn't helping. I needed paracetamol. Urgently.

I stand up stretching my legs far and wide, then trudge lazily behind Felix who was so happy and jolly. How can he be so happy when it's so... bleak and dismal?

"So!! How about we all do a fun camp activity?!" He shouts and it rings through my ears, echoing in my brain.

"Can you just shut up? My head hurts," I rub my head intensively. He mumbled me an apology to me and then coughed, adjusting his tone of voice.

"So, how about we do a camp activity?" He repeats himself a little lower this time and I was grateful.

"That is...?" Another camper asks. He must've been the twins' age or maybe a year younger. Floppy blonde hair that shaped his face perfectly into the chiselled face frame. It was messy but neat at the same time. Heavy black boots that popped out his beryl, lush, emerald eyes. And his black band hoodie with 'Nirvana' printed on it looked five sizes too big. Interesting.

He didn't look thrilled to be here. He looked uncomfortable and out of place almost.

"A checklist. Once you've found everything on the list, come back and claim your prize," the camp leader or whatever dazzled us with his yellow-tinted teeth. All that coffee I tell you, but coffee is delicious. Despite not being allowed it often, when I could have it it was bitter but great.

"So a scavenger hunt?" The boy deadpans.

"Yes... basically. Thank you for the commentary," the camp leader starts by handing out the checklist every camper.

On the list, it stated who we were partnered up with. It must've been at random, so I had no idea who I could be paired up with.

I was partnered up with a boy named 'Colby' I think. I hadn't a clue in the sun who the heck 'Colby' was. Colby was a nice name, it gave me quite a charger feeling to the name.

"Are you 'Colby?'" I ask a random man who pulled a caustic face at my question. Chill, dude. I was just asking a simple question.

"Do I look like a 'Colby' to you?!" he screams in my face making my ears ring.

"Didn't your mum teach you manners? Stop assuming things," he jeers walking away stubbornly.

Jokes on you.

"I heard you're looking for me?" That guy from earlier watched the man that was ever so rude to me, walk away in an angry mood.

"Colby?" I ask hopefully just wanting this to be over already. I just wanted to go home and get tucked up in my bed.

"That's me. Emilia? I presume," I nod wearily looking around for my brothers but they were already setting off on the trails.

"Uhh yeah."

"I won't bite. C'mon, unless you don't want to win at all?" He left me behind bad he started adventuring on his path with the sheet of equipment we need to find.

"Okay then," I squint skipping behind him, following on a random trail which led us into the deep endless woods.

*************

"Are you going to help at all?" He asks making me a jolt. I was trying to look for an acorn but it was so confounding for me. I couldn't pull one off. The checklist said we needed a perfect acorn.

I found the best one; it was hiding amongst the ugliest and rotten acorns which were sharp against my fragile skin.

"You realise we can just pick one up from the ground...right?" He picks one up and throws it at me shooting me right in the eye. He laughs at his perfect aim but I on the other hand lose my balance and propel my around myself to focus on my balance.

"OW!" I stumble on the jagged rock I used to prop myself up. It helped me reach the trees.

My ankle twists, scrapping against the chalky boulder and my knee plummets through a jutted section of crust making me wail in pain.

I fall, head first, to the leafy and soggy ground, exactly on my shoulder almost like my torso folded down the middle.

"Shit," Colby cusses pushing down his hood to see better. Charming.