of me saying every thought in my head to the holder, it would seem.

'You—' Stopped.
The world stopped. The clock hands stopped.
Time stopped. Everything just stopped.

When I saw the red-blue wires peeking out of from behind the brown body of the artifact.

Smirking at my incompetence. Smirking at my self doubt that would cause the lives of four people. Smirking at the fact that no matter how hard I pushed back my chair, no matter how fast I tried to run to them with my gown weighing me down, no matter how loud I screamed for them to get away.

I was too late.
Again.

·······•✦•······

Boom.

·······•✦•······

"LET ME GO!" No matter how much I cried or fought against Ezra's grasp or Grayson's hold, I wasn't able to get there. No, even if they didn't hold me back, it wouldn't make much difference. I was too slow.

I was the reason four kids were dead.

The guards came sharp at eleven, not a tick later or before.

The rich were escorted away and protected.
Like the most valuable diamonds and jewels.
But what about those bodies?

You see, those children were insignificant. They were poor middle-class 'helpers'. The press was wild with flashes and shouts. The old Jarob shed crocodile tears as he made up a sob story for the bodies that were burning.

Mine were an entire flood.

And even worse so...

When Wendy Martha woke up to look at me with the most horrified expression possible.

·······•✦•······

I should've never agreed to Alisa. I should've never left Oren. I should've never come here. 
I'm stupid. Why do I always do this to myself?

"Our best move, right now, is to go back to the Manor," Ezra kept his voice soft, glancing at me ever so often. As if I was made of sand a breath would scatter me apart.

I doubted he was wrong.

God possessed Grayson because he remained by my side not so far away. And close enough at the same time. "Agreed. A lot has happened, it wouldn't be wise to stay longer." A gentle hand was placed on my shoulders. "Ready the car, Martin. We're leaving."

We're leaving. 

Leaving after a psycho clown stabbed a woman.
Leaving after four children were killed by a clock exploding.

Leaving after the pill started working.
I started remembering.

"Yeah... about that," Ezra's face twisted into guilt, shock, and confusion all at once when he held up his phone. "We can't."

We can't leave. 

"What?" I spoke for the first time. And for the first time that night, my voice terrified me. It was low. Too low. Too dangerous, like a hungry lion on the verge of devouring. A simple word felt like a thousand splinters dragging across my skin.
I could only imagine what good actors Ezra and Grayson might have been to keep a blank face.

But even Ezra's hands betrayed shakiness. 

"We..." He himself noticed how tense he sounded and cleared his throat, "We can't leave. The Hawthorne Manor has been put on lockdown."

 The hand's warmth left my shoulders, "What the hell do you mean, Martin?" That smooth voice was as calm as the ocean. And yet storms of anger, panic, and fear swirled deep within.

"Look at me, mia rosa. Look at me."

A voice cooed. He was kind.
He was fairly young. He had my nose.

My cheeks. My smile.
My eyes.

His eyes were warm with gold.
He looked too much like me.

"I meant what I said," Ezra's tone was daunting. In fact, the columnar pillars on the walls were starting to grow and tower me. The ceiling started flying higher and higher. The ground started to sink. As if the world was being pulled apart from both sides. "The Hawthorne Manor is under strict lockdown because..."

My world was being pulled apart.

"See?" His rough, calloused, big, and yet
oh-so-gentle hands held my once round face.

"It'll be okay again, mia rosa." His fingers

caressed the apple of my cheeks.
His face was loving.

His touch was gentle.

His hands were warm.

"It'll all be over soon."

Only when I opened my eyes did I see the blood staining them.

"Avery Kylie Grambs... was shot."

·······•✦•······

Talk to me about movies.

Talk to me about the fury they show in them. Screaming, throwing a fit, crying. Maybe even some people laugh? Most movies I've seen show rage in the most expressive form possible. The emotion is blazing. The emotion is radiating heat. 

Has it ever radiated cold?

Has it ever been as silent as nothing? Has it ever been so much to the point you don't feel it? Has it ever been till the extent it's not rage, it's wrath? 

Has it ever been to the point where you can't speak?
Is it normal... that all I could was a dead blue.
I wished it was.

I wished it was normal to feel hollow at the words he just said, to wonder how the most painful demise could be imposed upon a person, and to want to hate yourself so much—for not being there, for being here. 

I wished. I wished so badly that I had not a person I could love.
Not a person I could hurt.

Aside from the clown at my feet.

I could tell you how I ended up here. How I ended up bloody, panting, murderous. How I ended up covered in red and holding those very same scarlet feathers, using their edges to the fullest, cruelest potential.

How I ended up remembering every little thing about my life before fifteen.
The pain. The bodies. The killing.

The Deadly Doll.

It's no joke, now is it? I was foolishly trying to believe—beg my mind, hide myself away from the blatant truth. Really, even you could have guessed who I was, and you don't even know me. But you know me so much more than I do. 

That's our little secret, dear.

I suppose the matter of the dying man in front of me is of some importance.

 "You're back," his lips curled too high, and his eyes were too dark with glee. "Oh, you're back."

"I thought mimes had a thing of keeping their mouths..." The feather was no feather. The blade was the world's most deadly weapon in between my fingers. Spinning like a pen, light as it was. 

And yet it weighed a thousand planets inside the Mime's flesh. "Shut. You really are more of a clown, huh?"

The shrill scream of agony didn't faze me. Nothing did anymore. Nothing troubled me. I've been through it all. Four years were not so long ago; more like yesterday, if you see.

What did tick me off was the immediate creeping grin that came back onto his face. How stubborn. 

"Doll," he drawled, "Oh sweet, sweet dolly." His white-painted face leaned disgustingly closer. "I missed you so so much, sweetheart."

I couldn't help it.

I twisted the blade.

"I should've finished you off," I missed myself when I had no memory. Maybe you're so confused right now. What happened? How? When? Why? Or perhaps you're not. Perhaps you've known from the start. Perhaps I'm talking to myself.

After all, I never realized what white and black were.

"I should've finished you all off." The snarl escaping my lips was inhumane. What was I doing? I was... I was not myself. Then again... Arlene Amira Grambs didn't exist. It was all a lie.
All a game.
A show.

Show worthy of a stage.

The next two incidents that happened. I couldn't remember. 
What did I do to that thing?
What did I...?

No. 

The only thing that mattered to me now was: red. 
I walked through the burning flames.

I limped past the falling ceiling.

I watched as the world set fire around me. A distant memory, just out of reach.

I really am a shitty thing, was the only thought looming in my empty head. 
I wasn't there for her.
I couldn't protect them.
I was—in the simplestly put:

A monster.

A monster. Someone—something that should be so so distant from them. A rabid dog that deserved to rot in a cage, somewhere far away. A demon that dared find peace in a piece of heaven.

They had no idea what I was.
If they did...

"Arlene!" If he did.

There was a weird sense of comfort and protection, starting at a rainy sky. Maybe even a soft ice on your wounds. I particularly had a thing for the color blue.
But nowadays, grey had a special place in my heart.

I never would've expected the hit into my being as his arms wrapped tightly around me. As those golden locks brushed against my cheek, those cheekbones as sharp as my weapon long forgotten, buried between my neck. I wondered if something changed.

Because suddenly every bone in my body dissipated. Suddenly all I was made up of were flesh, guts, and hurt. Suddenly I wished I didn't know. I wished I had known all along. I wish I never made the mistake of hating him. I wished I abhorred him. 

I had wished to all the stars in the empty sky that it was blood rolling down my cheeks.
Not salty, watery tears.

His fingers grasped desperately onto whatever cloth remained on my singed back, his body was taught and coiled around mine. His shoulders were shaking. Even as the world burned...

Grayson Davenport Hawthorne held me in such a way I felt alive.

When I should've been anything but.

I didn't have the right to feel anymore.
I didn't have the right to smile at her anymore.
I didn't have the right to laugh with her anymore.

I didn't have the right to cry in his arms. 

I didn't have the right to desire I never had to let go.

"Arlene," each syllable was a thousand unsaid words. Some that were better left as they were. His head simply pulled back and that single action made me want to shatter into a million shards and drown in my own demise. But his soft, unnaturally soft hands cupped my face and I was built up again. I was swimming again.

Swimming in grey that, for the first time, was as bright as the flames crackling around us. Bright as a child who was the oldest. Bright as a man who had his worries and fell in love with them. Bright as a raven taking its first and last flight.

"Look at me, Arlene Amira Grambs," He commanded. Only Grayson Hawthorne could have the nerve to command me as the universe caved in, as if he was still in control of everything. "Look at me."

I dared look.

 And instead of him, I could only see ahead.

Because his face was too close.
Because his head was tilted.
Because his nose brushed my cheek.

Because his lips were pressed against mine.

So this is what breathing while being suffocated felt like. I didn't move. I didn't think. He could have been using me. He could have been acting. Lying. He could have only been seeing me as a replacement for his everything. His dove.
Maybe I was another Emily to him.
Maybe I didn't want to be.

But all thoughts left my head as my lips moved against his. The eye of the storm. It was calm. Gentle. Too comforting. Grounding enough. Maybe that was what this was, a way to ground me. So I could focus and function. Well, I think I got anchored instead.

That breath of air after we ripped away from each other, barely an inch, felt as sharp and cool as mint. I didn't dare to look at him again. And neither did he.
But we both knew we wanted to.

His perfectly shaped lips parted to speak but mine beat him to it, "Run."

And that was it. We ran. Ran as floors sank in, pillars of flame toppled down, and blazing tapestry flowed and jerked around. Ran ran and ran. Until every suck of air felt like magma dripping down our throats. Until the final brick dropped.

Until our fingers tangled with each other and out of the mansion we jumped.

Down the chasm.

·······•✦•······

a/n: ...Do I even have the right to say anything? Holy... this chapter has been the longest I've written. Over 5000 words and still so much shit left to say. Y'all my pre-finals have begun and are gonna last till Jan 10th. So I decided to give you guys an extra long chapter and cliffhanger just so you guys can hate me :D
Fun fact: I have an Instagram account, @coremakii in which I post random Arlene Grayson things (I need a ship name help-) and some chapter teasers. Since most of my readers don't follow me on Wattpad, maybe there would be more comfortable for you guys!

Anyways, see you guys next year!

...probably.

And so... The time has come.

And bow 🙇‍♀️ 👏 👏 Thank you! *tips her hat she borrowed from pretty boy*