Promised To The Alpha Twins
Chapter 19

The arms were squeezing me tightly, but I resisted being touched and shook myself, desperate. It didn’t take long before those hands trying to hold me gave up, and I kept trying to free myself from the sensation of their touch, even though a voice was screaming at me, deep inside my head, that it was enough, that I should lift my gaze and see who was in front of me.

This time I obeyed.

I lifted my gaze and could recognize, among the shadows that covered them, Ethan and Liam. They were observing me just as surprised, if not more, as I saw them at that moment.

“Sussan, but what… What happened to you?!” they seemed to say in unison.

Then I realized that my face must be shattered because it stung again with a throbbing pain, and in the twins’ bewildered expression, I could tell that I must be quite swollen.

I brought my hands to my face and, feeling embarrassed and furious, tried to run again, but Ethan held me back by the shoulder.

“Let me go!” I demanded, tired of them, tired of their appearance, and tired of them seeing me in the state I was in.

“Sussan, let us help you.”

“No!” I shouted again as I shook his hand off my shoulder. “I’m tired of you and all of this. Leave me alone, once and for all. I’ve had enough!”

Without waiting for them to respond and certain that this time I had spoken to them with more than just strength, I continued on my way, this time with the firm intention of taking a shortcut through the forest that surrounded the town, not knowing what motivated my steps and led me there.

I ran as fast as I could.

Soon, I was surrounded by tall, thick trees that I crossed as if they were pointing the way instead of hindering me. I felt the grass under my feet, damp and soft, accelerating my steps as if I could glide through it, and although the bushes scratched my arms, the long-sleeved shirt I was wearing protected me from the thorns.

I don’t know how much longer I kept running in the dark forest. At times, it felt like I had been running a whole lifetime there, but at others, it was as if I had only done it for a few moments.

My chest was hurting, just like my head, but it was an uncommon pain, different, nothing like what I had felt when I woke up in the dark room. There were moments when my fractured ankle reminded me, with a jolt, that it was still there and injured, but in my mind, there was only the idea of moving forward at any cost.

I didn’t have an explanation for how I managed to navigate through the forest in the darkest darkness and find the detour I needed to reach the road that would take me home. When I found it, I took refuge at the first sound of an approaching car. Hidden behind a fern, I watched it pass and only came out again when I was sure no car would stand in my way.

I crossed the road and reached an area that was already familiar to me, close to home.

Now I didn’t care about the presence of Lia and Dub. On the contrary, I wanted to arrive and have them there. I cared little or nothing about what either of them might say about the boot adorning my left leg. If Lia asked, I knew I could tell her anything and she would let it pass. It was my least concern at that moment.

I reached the porch and bounded up to the entrance. I opened the door and stepped into the safety of the house, although I still had a feeling, concentrated in the back of my neck, that I wasn’t completely safe yet.

“What have you done? Why didn’t you let them help you?” said that strange voice that had now taken root in my head and, even though it spoke in a tone that wasn’t mine, I knew it was within me.

That was the last thing I needed: to be going insane.

“Don’t speak to me anymore. Leave me alone. I don’t want to know anything more about them, not Chloe, not Amelia, Vera, or Erick. They are names and people that I now hate. Leave me alone,” I responded to that voice.

I was beginning to fear for my mental balance.

“You should have let Ethan and Liam help you. They are the ones who can protect you now,” answered that strange voice that had now started to disturb my mental stability, my connection to sanity.

“No, it’s false. It’s because of them that I’m in trouble now. It’s because of them that I had the worst night of my life today. It’s because of them that I almost…” I didn’t even dare to mention what almost happened in my mind.

I attributed the manifestation of that voice to the drug Erick had given me, I had no other explanation, and I clung to it because it was the only thing that convinced me I wasn’t crazy.

Once home, the first thing I saw -I suppose out of habit- was Dub, still lying on the couch with a half-finished beer bottle in his hand. I was glad to know he never seemed to change positions, although when he did, it was better for me to be hidden.

I passed by him and soon found Lia, who was preparing something in the kitchen and must have felt me approaching because she turned with the sound of my shadow. Just like with the twins, I suspected how terrible my face must have looked when I saw her horrified expression. Later, I also realized that the appearance of my body couldn’t have been any better because her eyes roamed, wide-eyed, all over my humanity.

I didn’t give her time to even exclaim and locked myself in the bathroom.

That’s when I saw her, in the reflection of the mirror.

She was someone very different from me, although he resembled me. But one of her eyes was completely closed due to swelling, and the other, the only one I could see with, was slit as if it were about to disappear under the skin. The lips were not very different, they resembled those of a celebrity who had gone overboard with Botox treatment and now made a public statement in the press. So many branches hung from her hair that she looked like he came from a theatrical performance where she had played a fern, and the zipper of my pants was still open. If I didn’t cry at that moment, it was because my appearance was also dramatically funny.

I only wet my face and shook the leaves off my head. Then I jumped into my room and locked the door. I remained attentive to any external sound for a few minutes, fearing that Lia might want to ask me about what had happened, but she either believed she had seen a ghost or she was confirming that nothing about me mattered to her except bank deposits.

As I lay down, I felt my cellphone on my right buttock.

It was incredible, but not only did I still have it with me, it was also almost intact.

I looked at the screen and saw that Aly had been calling me, desperate. I dialed her number.

“Finally, I hear from you! What happened to you? Where are you?” The questions piled up in the midst of her distress.

“I’m at home. I’m fine.”

I managed to reassure her with that brief statement.

“Did you meet Ethan and Liam? Did you see them?”

I didn’t understand why she was asking that, but I told her that I had seen them.

“I went to Vera’s house and saw that the party wasn’t there,” Aly continued, “I was surprised because I thought it was there, so I went by and asked the twins if they knew anything. They didn’t know, but they promised they would find you.”

That explained why I had run into them on the street, near the house where the party did take place, and Aly’s question.

“We met,” I said, “but I decided to come home. I need to rest now.”

“You sound really tired. Shall we talk tomorrow?”

I promised that we would, and only a few minutes after hanging up, I found the peace of sleep.