"How long have you known?"

"Since last night."

Sighing out heavily through my nose, I tugged my hair with my hands in frustration. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"You were indisposed and from what happened later today, it completely escaped my mind."

Narrowing my eyes into an icy glare, I was going to argue that he had many chances in the morning or at lunch time to tell me, but I decided not to. I was too tired to start picking fights with him today and besides, there was no point fighting him if I didn't need to. He wasn't the enemy anymore.

I stared deeply into his dark greys and I could tell he was telling the truth. "Okay. Let's go."

Alexander paused for a second. "Tomorrow."

"Why?"

"We all need a few hours to rest."

I looked away from him, thinking, and despised the fact that he was right. After everything that had happened today, everyone was bound to be exhausted and if we kept going at this pace, we were going to get sloppy and make foolish mistakes.

"Fine." I bit out sharply, accepted his reasoning, then headed towards my closet.

I rummaged through the clothes I had hazardously thrown around in the closet while I was packing, and quickly found my sports bra, a random t-shirt and shorts, then proceeded to change into them. When I walked back out of the closet, Alexander was still standing in the exact same position he was a few minutes ago.

"Heading down." I grumbled, barely coherent, as I walked past him and headed towards the basement to hopefully let out some steam.

My eyes quickly zeroed in on the large punching bag and I jogged immediately towards my target. After wrapping my hands, I let out all the pain and frustration crawling under my skin.

*

I was so focused on beating the hell out of the punching bag that I didn't realize someone was behind me until I felt a hand on my shoulder. Without thinking twice, nor bothering to register who was behind me, I quickly aimed a kick at the back of their knees. The person fell and I rapidly brought them to the ground then pinned them under me.

Upon understanding what had happened, I sighed out utterly pissed.

I was sitting on Alexander's stomach with one hand clamped over his throat and the other raised in a fist, ready to throw a solid hit.

"What the hell were you thinking sneaking up on me like that?" I growled, thinking that he could have been seriously injured and how unaware of my surroundings I was.

There was no emotion on his face.

"You called me and I didn't answer." I inferred and eyed him carefully.

"Yes." His answer was short and brisk.

"Why were you calling me?"

"Dinner's ready."

Guilt gnawed at my stomach and I cringed just slightly knowing the he came to offer me dinner while I knocked him down flat on his back.

"Next time, fight back. You were always better at hand-to-hand combat than me anyways." I grumbled bitterly as I was about to get off of him, but his muscles tensed under me and before I knew it, he was sitting up straight with me right on his lap.

"It'll make things worse because you'll perceive me as a real threat." He commented, his voice smooth and steady, holding truth.

I felt hand his hands slide from waist down to my hips, leaving a light trail of fire. Unable to help myself, I stared into his dark greys with curiosity. We were both mesmerized by each other, leaning in closer to one another unknowingly, some force pulling us closer together. His breath fanned over my lips and just like that, reality snapped back into me. We were mere millimeters away from a kiss when I realized that I was literally straddling his lap, so I quickly leaned away from him with my heart pounding against my chest.

I couldn't look at him as I tried to stand up to get away from him, but Alexander's hands on my hips tightened its hold.

"Angel..." His voice was a little lower and huskier than usual as he trailed off.

I shook my head, unable to meet his gaze and I tried to pull away from him. This time, he loosened and I jumped away from him like he was on fire.

"Um, you said dinner." My hands clenched and unclenched. "Yeah. Dinner. I'm hungry," I commented lamely and quickly made my way upstairs, my heart still beating furiously.

*

It was awkward. After our little situation down in the basement, the atmosphere around our dinner table was tense.

"Angel," he began, as if he couldn't take this tight silence between us, but I cut him off because I was afraid of what he was going to say.

"I think I missed your cooking more than you," I taunted as I tried to change the subject, twirling some more noodles and putting them in my mouth.

Alexander didn't comment back, but he stopped eating and I started to feel his eyes on me.

"Stop staring at me." I frowned, looking at my plate instead of him because I was still not able to look him in the eyes.

"Angel, look at me." Alexander's tone softened as he tried again.

"I'm good," I replied back and stuffed the last forkful of noodles into my mouth.

I heard Alexander's chair scrape against the floor as he stood up. Still not meeting his gaze, I kept my eyes on his legs as he walked around the table to stand right next to me and I flinched when I felt him turn my chair so that I faced him. He went down on one knee and tilted my face up to look at him.

I felt my temper flare because he had separated me from my dinner. Chewing forcefully, I crossed my arms over my chest and give him an icy glare.

"You ask me why everyone was personally involved, right?" He stated rhetorically because he damn well remembered that I had asked him on the car way home from dinner with his parents. Still, he waited for me to confirm.

I nodded briskly, weary of where this conversation was headed.

"I'll tell you," He began, "if you give me something in return."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Nothing about Cadence or about the conversation today with Wolf."

"Sure," He answered back quietly.

"I'm not going to give you a kiss either, Red." My glare faded and a simple, uncertain frown took over my features.

"That's fine." He agreed and I saw the sincerity in his dark greys.

"Okay. Take it away." I shrugged. As long as nothing about Cadence came up, I was good and if I had it my way, he would never find out what Wolf and I's conversation over lunch was about.

Alexander took a moment to gather his thoughts before he started and I saw the gears turning in his head. "Before you, we had a different person on our team," he began. "He made a big mistake and your father stepped in to pull us out of trouble. After that, your father took it upon himself to oversee our team and became our supervisor. Both Emmaline and Victor go close to him."

"That's it?"

He shrugged his powerful shoulders slightly. "Yes."

"Okay. Thank you for telling me." I answered, grateful for his honesty. "Now, what do you want?"

He looked at me carefully for a moment and gut twisted at the tender look he was giving me. Whatever he wants to ask for must be something I don't like.

"I want to see your back." His voice was so uncharacteristically gentle for his cold and distant demeanor that I saw at work.

I stiffed in my seat and sat up straight like I had a metal rod up my spine. "What?"

"Your back." He repeated. "I want to see your back again, Angel."

Frozen in place, I couldn't move until I felt his hands enclose over mine. Flinching out of his touch, I stood up and turned so my back faced him.

An exchange was an exchange.

Taking in a deep breath, I whipped off my t-shirt. Since I had changed from my sports bra to a regular bra, I felt even more vulnerable and naked under his stare. There was also the fact that even I didn't know how mangled up my back looks because I could only summon enough courage to take a quick peek, only seeing the big cross marks.

I swallowed a large lump in my throat. "You done staring, Red? Can I put my shirt-" My words were caught in my mouth as I felt a finger trace over a line on my back and from the length of it, the scar was long.

"Can you tell me how this happened?"

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and tried to keep my voice steady. "Nope. I can't."

He traced my back in silence, taking in visually what had happened, seeing more than what I had saw.

"Disgusting, right?" I let out a sadistic laugh as my fists clenched and my head hung downwards.

Suddenly, I felt something soft on my back and I knew it wasn't his fingers.

"What the hell are you doing?" I stiffened and I was about to step away from him, but I felt his warm hands spanning around my waist, holding me in place.

He didn't answer, instead, I felt another kiss on my back, most likely right on top my scars. "Proving to you that you're not disgusting." With that, another kiss. "You're strong and-"

My heart squeezed and this time, by successfully stepping away from him, I interrupted whatever he was about to say.

This was too much.

I turned around to look at him and I immediately regretted it. There was soft, tender look in his eyes as he stared at me. Not wanting him to see that the way he had treated me affected me, I put a blank mask over my features.

"I'm heading to bed, I'll see you tomorrow. If you don't want to do the dishes, leave them in the sink." With this, I quickly turned around and headed to the refuge of my room.

Right before I got out of ear-shot, I paused. "Warning for next time. Don't ever stand in my line of fire, Red."

On purpose or by accident, no one has survived.

*

I woke up yelling and Alexander shaking me awake. My breaths accelerating and becoming shallow instead of slowing down. I clutched at my chest and my heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest.

The dreams were always the same. No, not dreams. They were flashbacks of reality, of my past, mistakes and pain. Lifeless eyes of the dead coming back to haunt me.

"Hey." The voice was muffled and I couldn't concentrate.

"Angel." I felt hands cup my face and force me to stare into stormy grey eyes. "Breathe with me. In. Out."

I followed his instructions trustingly and felt my heartrate climb down from the erratic beating to a slower rhythm.

"Good." His low baritone voice soothed me as I felt his thumbs rub my cheeks lightly.

As soon as I came to my senses, I quickly stumbled off my bed and scrambled away from him.

"I-I'm going to take a shower." I mumbled, looking at my closet door instead of him, because I was caught in my most vulnerable situation and I didn't want to see any kind of pity in his eyes.

Alexander was silent for a moment and from the corner of peripheral vision, I saw him clench his jaw.

"I'll check on you in thirty minutes." He informed, stepping closer to me so that I had to face him.

"I'm okay now." I finally looked at him and narrowed my eyes.

He stared at me without saying anything, but his silence told me that he would indeed be back in thirty minutes to check if I was still doing okay. Alexander left my room and I slowly picked up some clothes, then proceeded to head towards the bathroom to take a shower.

As the water poured down my body, my only thought was that he couldn't ever find out.

When I came out, Alexander was already back in my room, reading on his phone while sitting on my bed. I had now noticed that he was a wearing white t-shirt paired with light grey sweatpants.

"See? I'm okay." I spun around so that he could have the full 360-degree view of me.

Alexander got off the bed and instead of heading towards the door, he walked towards me.

"Red?" I took a step back, unnerved by the odd emotion in his eyes that I couldn't decipher.

"Come here," he demanded instead of asking.

Eyeing him wearily, I took a small step towards him. Before I could blink, he pulled me firmly towards him and wrapped his arms around me.

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. "Red, I told you, I'm fine. In fact, I feel fantastic and smell like coconuts or maybe flowers. Whatever shampoo you bought anyways."

Alexander didn't let me go, instead, I felt one of his hands at the nape of my neck, pulling me closer to his muscular chest, while the other slipped around my waist. I held my arms to my sides and didn't move.

"How often?" He asked firmly, yet gently, as he buried his face into my hair.

I stiffened at his question and didn't give him a response.

He waited for a moment and when he realized that I wasn't going to give him an answer, I heard him give out a soft sigh. "I hope one day you can trust me enough to tell me."

I bit the inside of my cheek as I felt the prick of tears. "Yeah, whatever. Now, let me go." My voice cracked near the end even though I willed myself hard not to.

I felt his soft lips plant a soft kiss at my temple and he lingered for a long moment before I felt his breath fan over my ear. "Angel, it's okay to cry."

My hands lifted to clutch the edge of his white t-shirt and when I realized what I was doing, my arms dropped back to my sides. Biting back my tears and building the barriers high around my emotions, I closed my eyes as I got my voice under control, blank like an empty canvas.

"Cadence's dog tag." I took Alexander's silence as a cue to continue.

"It's a reminder to me of something I should never forget."

Silence took over the two of us as I took his arms off me and stepped a good arms' length away from him.

"Tomorrow," I started with conviction as I steadily met his gaze with fierce determination. "I'm going to get him to crack and I'm going to find them. With what you told me, you're right about one thing, Red. We haven't hit a dead end yet."

****

That officially concludes chapter 12. Chapter 13 is mostly done and hopefully, it will be up soon. :D

Please don't forget to comment and vote if you liked it!

Until next time,

InvincibleBunny