Instead of saying anything rather rude in response, like she was expecting him to do, he just remained quiet. He remained quiet for quite a while, then he abruptly stood up, walking over to a tree, he took out his handkerchief.
She kept quiet and studied his actions, but a question arose: What was he doing?
With the use of that handkerchief, Ace rubbed the tree's trunk hard for ten seconds to be exact. She could not get a glimpse of what he was doing, but she had an idea that it might be important for him.
After some time, he had put back in the handkerchief and touched the place he rubbed off, gently.
His lips were pressed together in a tight line and his face was set in a hard expression as he sat back down beside her. Maybe it was just her imagination or complete hopelessness, but he might have been sitting a little closer to her this time.
"You know what they say about destiny?" Chloe blurted out of the blue, starting over at Ace.
Ace gave her one of his 'looks', one of his eyebrows raised. "Enlighten me."
"You can't save someone from their destiny, from what they were created for; what you can do is ... make it easier for them, bring more joy, less pain. You can walk some of their path with them, you can protect them from the demons who would end their mission too soon."
She felt her face radiating heat like a lamp after those incredibly stupid words came out of her mouth, she was half expecting Ace to burst out laughing and call her a lunatic or something, but he did not. She watched him cautiously out of the corner of her eye, waiting for him to say something that would make her want to bury herself under a rock.
"Do you know what they say about wolves?" He asked looking at her to which she shook her head in negation, so he continued, saying:
"They spend their entire lives searching for their mate, that perfect somebody. And they keep looking and looking for when they finally find them, they spend the rest of their lives together until one of them dies, but sadly humans are not capable of loving like that," he finally said as he leaned back against the huge tree, his arms crossed over his chest.
Okay, so that was the last thing she had been expecting to hear him say.
"I don't think that's true," Chloe said slowly, biting her lips. "Maybe people just never find their mates."
He turned to her with an exaggerated look of fascination on his face. "Have you found your mate, Chloe?" and that was the first time he took her name.
Her ears heated, but she kept her cool and blurted, "N-No," her face turning even redder when a certain someone occupied her mind.
"Right," Ace agreed sarcastically.
She scowled at him and shoved him off the stone.
So, maybe, things were not entirely perfect between them, and maybe she had a little more time to know what had happened between Michael King, Jonathan, and her family, but for now, it was a start, right?
Spending some time in each other's company for an hour and not ending up yelling at each other?
Yes, that was indeed a start for Chloe and Ace, who are her family, fortunately. And she would make him understand this as his sister.
Seeing the time, "Let's go." Said Ace and she nodded.
While they got up and made their way toward the exit, Ace turned back to look at the tree's trunk, shaking his head he walked ahead and Chloe took time to register the letters that were engraved on it, and those were:
A.K.J
They looked like initials of someone's name, were these his initials? She thought while she followed him.
Maybe.
Wait, didn't he say Ace was not his real name? Well, he sounded like Ace was not his real name.
Ugh!
Anything could happen in his case, thinking that she trudged behind him as he hit the pebbles from his foot in his way.
After accompanying Chloe to her apartment, Ace left.
Their entire journey from the graveyard to her apartment went in complete silence. None of them uttered a single word as they both were drowned in their thoughts, she was planning on doing something when she got back home, and Ace had different plans.
It was reminiscing for him to be at the place where he had not been able to go for the last seventeen years of his life. That place always reminded him of his dad, he was there in that place for the last rites of his father who was brutally murdered by his own family.
With those thoughts, Ace left her apartment as he knew she was completely safe under a certain someone's eye on her, who had been with them since morning, in hiding. Even though he didn't need to, he knew Chloe needed that bonding time with Ace and certainly Ace did too.
They both were broken in their ways, maybe somehow, they could heal each other's wounds.