~Ari's POV~
I took advantage of the fact that Romeo was looking in 'Lily's' "dream".
I snicker because I placed the memory of her meeting Romeo in the human realm in her head to distract him from noticing me looking through his so called stuff.
"Come on! Where are you?" I whisper out loudly.
If I want to get Luna back by my side, I'll do anything.
Even if it means getting her to hate her soul mate for a while.
And I know just how to do that: memories of the past in Slymethius.
I started to rummage around in his drawers and by the time I got under all his boxers, I found his collection of stolen memories.
"Yes! About time you find them Ari!" I say to myself triumphantly.
I heard Romeo start to cry a bit and frankly I don't care why.
'Hey Romeo! I have something of yours.'
I say to him telepathically in a taunting way.
No sooner than I said that, he was in my face with an angered expression half a second later.
"Why are you going through my shit!" He said grabbing two fistfuls of my Falling in Reverse hoodie with Ronnie on it saying 'The Drug In Me Is You!'
"Well maybe I'm pissed off that you stole my girl. My wife to be! You sto-"
"I never stole her and you know it!" He yells shoving me against his tall wooden brown dresser.
"She was never yours to begin with! I tried keeping my distance from her-" he continues, but a part of me just snaps and I felt my eyes turn purple like they usually do when I get angry.
"Well look where that fucking led you two! 'I tried keeping my distance from her' my ass! You basically shoved your vampire tongue down her throat!" I said as my black wings ripped through my hoodie and I shove him in the chest with my clenched fists.
He backs away and let's me loose.
I take in a deep breath to try and calm myself just a bit before I continue.
"But you know what?" I say breathless.
"Payback's gonna be a bitch when she finds out how you two originally met and what you were going to do." I say as I pull a memory from my jacket as the furniture in his bedroom begins to shake.
"Ari, please don't do this!" He says in an uncontrolled whisper.
"Why's that?" I ask him all arrogant.
"That isn't her memory! It's mine!" He yelled out as his body began to tremble with rage.
"Really?!" I ask him sarcastically.
I put my hand on the lid of the jar and smile like some dickhead would.
"Ari." Romeo says slowly.
"If you take that lid off the jar you will regret it for life." He says through clenched teeth and a threat following behind.
"Oooh scary!" I say in mock horror; shaking my hands beside my face while holding the jar in my left hand.
And just as I see him about to lunge at me, I opened my hand and let the jar fall into a million shards on the ground.
"Nooooo!" Romeo yells when he fails to catch the jar.
And just like a scene out of a scary movie, the shards had turned into dust and started to spiral around into the shape of a black shadow man with glowing red eyes and a full set of sharp white canines.
"Ari, don't fuckin' do this!"
He yells out as I use my magic to fling him against his bedroom wall.
"Now this doesn't look like Luna's memories." I say in mock outrage before I fling my head back and laugh.
The shadow looks at me as if waiting for my very command and I smile evilly before I tell it to go to Luna's room and give her the memory that has Romeo set on edge.
"Don't worry Fangie -" I say in a cooing voice. "She's bound to talk to you again when she's done being scared of you." I say with a huge smirk on my face.
"You fucking asswipe! You think doing this will make her love you!?" He yells out fighting against my magic.
Only one way to find out.
I think to myself.
All the lights in the house went out and that's when me and Romeo both heard her ear piercing scream that was filled with such fear I know the memory worked. But what happened next, I didn't see coming.
The darkness that we're in disappeared when Luna's bedroom burst into flames the color of green.
~Romeo's POV~
I kept struggling against Ari's magic that has me pinned me to this fuckin' wall so I could get to Lily but every attempt I made was useless.
"NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!" Luna screamed out in fear.
"This is because of you, Romeo. She's scared because of you. If you 'love her' so much, why don't you do something to stop the bitch from screaming!" He says before throwing his head back again to laugh.
'She's no bitch. She's the most caring girl you'll ever meet. But you wouldn't know that. You didn't wanna put up with her growing up, so you just put her on the doorstep of a couple and ran like some fucking coward with his head so far up his ass!' I said to him telepathically.
"Hmph. By gosh you're right!" Ari says sarcastically then smiling like a child when they know they're doing something wrong.
Luna screamed out coughing as the green flames rose and started to burn the left side of the house.
Ari smiled more big before he rolls his eyes yawning before finally letting me fall on the ground.
"Alright lover boy! Go be her knight in shiny armor and save her. I got a fucking headache from all that damn screaming." Ari said in a bored tone before he disappeared into thin air.
I get up and run into Luna's bedroom straight through the flames, but I couldn't find her anywhere in her bedroom from all the enchanted smoke.
I started to get very frantic because she stopped screaming.
"Lily! Say something!" I yelled through the smoke.
No sooner than I yell that, all the smoke and the green fire disappear in thin air as if it were never there.
And sitting on the floor 10 feet away from me is Lily.
The only thing different though is that she no longer has long wavy dyed cherry red hair, green eyes, or the freckles that covered her face and arms. What sat in front of me was a 15 year old, wavy white haired, baby blue eyed girl with perfectly pale white skin. The black nightgown that she has on has scorch marks and holes all over making her look like she's emo.
I slowly approach her but I don't get too close because her looking like this can only mean one thing: she got scared bad enough that she unlocked her powers and her memories.
How much I don't know, but I have to be cautious...
I got eye level with Lily but I was cautious about being close to her.
"Lily? Are you OK? " I ask her as she continues to look down at the floor.
"Look at me baby. Are you OK?" I ask her worried but she doesn't seem to acknowledge that I am in front of her.
She just keeps looking down at the burnt up floor; her shoulders hunched forward while her hair falls over her shoulders and her hands splayed out in front of her.
"Babe? Do you remember who I am and where you are?" I ask getting anxious by the seconds.
She finally looks up at me and my heart can't help but break into a million pieces as tears have filled her eyes and she has soot on her face.
It's like when I first saw her but this time, she is much older and she has white hair.
"No." She says before she starts crying out loud freely.
Before the first tear drop could even hit the ground, I had already gathered her into a hugging embrace and just let her cry into my chest. What she had just gone through; I'd be scared shitless as well crying. But in this case, I am crying but I'm more pissed off than anything because I couldn't do anything to stop that bastard of a warlock angel from doing this to her.
All I could do was shush her and stoke her now white hair, telling her that everything is OK and that I won't ever let him near her again.
I just feel as if I've betrayed her in the worst way possible. I've protected Lily since the day she was born and of all nights; I let a jackass traumatize her past the breaking point.
I swear on her real parents, I'm going to hurt Ari and keep him as far away from her as possible.
Lily continues to cry shoulder wracking sobs and in my mind I make a silent promise that she will never have to go through what she just did ever again.
Lily stiffened up out of no where and pulled away from me but still had her hands on my shoulders looking at me with a quizzical look.
"How can you make a promise like that?" She whispered continuing to give me a weird look.
I freak a bit when I realize that she heard my thoughts but then I also relax as I look at her with my eyebrows drawn and wonder how much she knows and remembers. If she knows when we first met and how we met. But then again, her looking like this could mean she knows enough.
"Because I've protected you since the day you was born." I say looking into her now baby blue eyes that are filled up with tears.
"You was going to kill me the day that I was born. You had a knife right above my heart. And just before you did kill me, you stopped and looked at me before turning around and throwing the knife at a guy." She says to me while shaking violently in my arms.
"You was going to kill me...." She said a bit louder trying to get away from me. But that just made me hold on to her tighter.
Where it may be true that I tried to kill her I can't imagine a life without her.
"But I haven't harmed a hair on your head since the day you was born. I saved your life that very night. And as I last recall, you're the one who chose me to protect you all your life. To deny you is like me dying. I can't stay away from you. Just like you can't stay away from me. Can't you feel that connection when we touch?" I ask her while stroking her face as I feel her whole body trembling.
She closed her eyes and leaned her face into the palm of my hand and relaxed. Then her eyes shot open and she jerked away from me.
"I.... I...please just let me go home. I won't tell anybody what happened today. I promise." Lily says trying her best to get out of my arms.
"How can you go back home? Your mother doesn't even remember you! You'll have nowhere to go." I yell at her. Truth be told, her mom is in the hospital at this very moment in critical condition.
"Just give me a chance! Let me protect you." I say breathless.
"Let me.... let me love you." I say as she freezes and stares at me with wide eyes before making another attempt to get out of my arms but finally giving up when she couldn't get them to budge.
"What if I don't wanna love you?" She whispers as I feel fresh tears falling on my arm.
And just like that, I lost it.
I picked her up and slung her over my shoulder and just completely ignored her pleas to be put down and walked us to my room.
I took her off my shoulder and slung her on my bed with an 'oof!'.
She tried to get up and run but I had easily caught her and pinned her to the bed with my body. I kept a grip on her and tore her clothes off while she started screaming for somebody to help her.
But something she doesn't know: I had sound proofed this whole house.
"Stop screaming Lily. I'm not going to hurt you." I say staring into her eyes using my calming power on her so she'll stop freaking out. And after a few seconds, I feel her whole body relax beneath me.
I get up off her and I keep a hold on her as I take my black tee shirt off that has Sleeping with Sirens on it and just like that I feel her body tense up again. But just as quickly, I calm her down again.
I lean down towards her face and kiss her softly on the lips.
A part of my instincts wanted to punish her but I let her go and got off her; handing her the shirt to put on as I feel her energy shift.
She puts the shirt on a bit wearily and averts her gaze as she whimpers a bit.
"I... I thought you was gonna... I....-" I quickly stop her because I know what she thought I was going to do.
A part of me wanted to. But it'd be wrong at this moment.
I shake my head and reassure her that I wasn't going to. After that fire in her room, everything that was in the way, got burned.
"You can stay in here for the night. Until I fix up your room." I say to her as I walk out of my bedroom and go into her burnt up room shirtless.
Shouldn't have taken it that far.
I think to myself.
I start to pick up stuff and see what's still good and what's not.
I manifest new things and I make the old stuff disappear back to pure energy.
I walk over to her closet and I tear what is left of the door down and notice that all the clothes that I bought for her are ruined. I breath in and out very heavily because now I am beyond pissed. And I'm about to throw something when:
"Romeo? Can you stay with me tonight?" Lily says making me almost jump outta my skin.
I turn around and see her with tears still clouding her vision and her bottom lip trembling and my heart melts.
I take in a deep breath before I walk over to her and I wrap my arm around her waist as I guide her back to my room and lay her in my bed.
I sat down in the black recliner beside my bed and watched as she wrapped herself up in my blanket and tried getting comfortable without success. She looked up at me; and before I know it, I'm yanked right down there beside her.
I gasp at the sudden closeness and the electricity that goes through my arm and my whole body. I've had the electricity from her shock me before, but not like this. It was so much stronger and it's so damn hard to not resist her.
After what I did moments before, I thought she wouldn't want me around. She's scared and has no idea what's going on besides the fact that her mother doesn't remember her, she was attacked by a dark memory that fed off her fear and was attacked by me.
My thoughts were interrupted when she throws the blanket over my body and I feel her head snuggle onto my bare chest as her hands curl around her body and I feel her mouth form the words against me 'just don't break my heart.'
How can I break her heart?
I think to myself.
Everytime she got hurt, was in pain, or scared even, I felt everything.
I felt all her emotions.
Now; I feel so many things at once.
I stroke the top of her head and start humming to her as she snuggles closer to me crying.
"Go to sleep." I say barely audible as I feel her go completely silent and limp.