Devils Roses 01 - Cursed

out. I could hear the thoughts panicking in there, but no one responded to their demands.
    He smiled. “What’s your name?”
    I nodded again.
    He stood up, taking the sudden warmth away from me. I began to shiver, as all of the light inside of me went to the other side of the room with him. It was still attached to him.
    He stood there by my door and held his hands out. He smirked at me one second, and in another, he was across the room. It was not a big room, but I didn’t even see him take a step.
    He knelt at my bed again and smiled. “I am not like you,” his voice was a whisper.
    I didn’t know what to say, he had lied to me about so many things. I didn’t understand why he had to go to such extreme places, to make up stories. Not when the plain truth was there, in front of me. He was a con man. I was cool with it.
    "I don't know how to be with you, but I can't seem to be without you."
    The disappointment and severity of the feelings I was having, was too much to take. I felt angry hatred filling me, no doubt from the physical reaction I had to him every time I saw him. I lashed out at him, hitting whatever I could make contact with. I hated him, I had such ardent feelings for him, I didn’t even recognize what they were. I was able to go from love and adoration to despicable hatred, in between the beats of my heart.
    As I clawed out at him in my fit of rage and screams, I felt the wet, hot tears pouring down my cheeks. He pulled me into him to muffle the screams and picked me up. I tried to fight him, but his face had grown stone hard and stern looking. He looked at my open window, and before I could properly talk him out of a murder suicide, he jumped.
    I saw the ground in a flash and then I didn’t see anything. My grip on him was hurting my hands and I felt like I would throw up any second. We moved so quickly, I couldn’t see anything. The motion was too much for me to bear. I closed my eyes screaming into his laughing chest. I couldn’t believe he would laugh at this moment.
    I felt a hard bump and then I felt myself being lowered and the soft sand. Lastly, as the fear and terror started to subside, I heard the ocean. I looked around me. I was at the hidden beach. I knew it instantly because it was a sandy beach. On the Northwest Coast we did anything we had to, to find one. It was the only one I knew of.
    It had taken seconds for us to get there. Or had it? Had I blacked out? I knew it was a forty-minute hike through the roughest terrain from the side of the highway, on the outskirts of town. Had he hiked with me in his arms? Had we driven? Had he drugged me again?
    The night air was cold against my panties and tank top. The cold sand sat firmly beneath me, but I still had to touch it to be certain I was really there. A million thoughts flashed through my head, mostly they were warnings.
    I looked at Aleks who stood with his arms crossed, watching me silently.
    He stepped one small step closer. Before I could even decide if it was what I wanted to do or not, I jumped up and started to run from him. My bare toes hit the sand and dug in, as I screamed, “Someone help me. Please someone help me. It's Aimee James, please help me.”
    Aleks was in front of me somehow like he was toying with me. I ran back the other way but again he was in front of me, somehow. Defeated, I dropped to my knees and started to cry.
    He walked to me slowly with his hands out, as if he were approaching a crazed person with a gun.
    I wished for a second I had a gun, but I wasn’t entirely sure whom I would shoot, him or me. My body shook with sobs.
    He dropped to his knees in the sand. His hand reached out to my face and lifted my chin slowly. “Aimee, I told you this once before—I could never hurt you. I am here for you.”
    I cried harder. “Oh my God. It's like City of Angels, I’m dying. You’re here to take me to Heaven, aren’t you?”
    He pulled his huge, blue sweater off and put it over my head. I pulled away from his grasp, but I was dressed in it before I could argue. The warmth of the sweater was relaxing.
    He put his arms around me and pulled me into his bare chest. “You’re not dying. I’m here because you’re not coping. You and your family, in a way, called to me when your mom died in the accident.”
    I sobbed, I couldn’t control myself. I understood what he was saying, but it contradicted everything I knew in life to be true. Well, except for the fact we weren’t coping, that part was