Vermilion Desire

by Celia Crown

  Chapter Seven

  Scarletta

  This is bad.

  I had so much fun messing with Braxton that I didn’t stop to think of how this would affect Mr. Wolf and Uncle Cal. They were understandably fuming that I had gone out of my way to mess with Braxton, and Cal was able to understand my reasoning for it.

  Mr. Wolf wouldn’t. He was the angriest of the two because I had gone against what he wished, and that was unforgivable. I didn’t think that he would mind me helping him get that man, but I was wrong.

  After Cal had left for his captain training when the awkwardly tense dinner was over, the house is dead quiet with Mr. Wolf and me.

  I have never seen him so cold, uncanny, and frighteningly detached. We went to bed without another word to each other, but sleep is the last thing I want to do.

  Sitting on the floor, nipping on my finger in anxiety as my brain refuses to cooperate with me to come up with a plan for him to forgive me. I know it was reckless to not fill him in, but I didn’t want to get him in trouble for something I decided to do.

  The silence in his bedroom laughs at me, mocking my inability to sleep, and I am being haunted by the memories of Mr. Wolf’s disappointment.

  A bird flapping by the window casts an elongated shadow, mimicking a hand, and it closed the distance to my face too quickly. Startled, I scramble back to the wall with eyes wide as if I can catch any danger thrown at me through the curtains.

  I don’t dare to touch his bed, not after how livid I have made him. The right to be in that bed is gone, and it won’t come back for as long as he believes his anger is justified.

  Cal wanted to be a mediator, but the room was just too tense that it scared me to even move. Mr. Wolf would explode at any given minute, but he chooses to be the silence that I dread. I want him to yell at me, shake my shoulders, and tell me how stupid I was, but his cold shoulders prove to be more petrifying than any man raising his voice.

  Panic fills my thumping heart, paranoia eats away my mind, and the itch under my skin comes back.

  It had happened only once when I was in that competitive program for gifted children. The tension was high, and the elimination process goes beyond what normal people call acceptable because perfection is what everyone wants, even the people behind the program.

  I had started to itch one day, nothing too serious, and I thought it was something I could be allergic to or a bug bit me, but every day would cause me to scratch more until I bled.

  Through a series of psychological probing, the doctors had concluded that stress was the itch that I can’t get rid of. Too much stress will get me itching again, but I have had it under control for many years now.

  It comes back now, of all times, which is evidence of how stressed I am over Mr. Wolf and wanting to be on his good side again.

  My throat tightens, allowing limited air to go into my lungs and muddling my mind with a turmoil raging in my blood. I have to get out of this stuffy room; the unrest roams around me with the intention of picking at my paranoia.

  No, no, no. I’m good. I’m smart—I beat the other geniuses, and I got the spot in the program, I have to be strong, or I’m not going to see Mr. Wolf again. The program can’t take me away because I’m an adult now, but that doesn’t mean Mr. Wolf wouldn’t drop me back off at Cal’s house.

  It would be so easy to have the papers nulled, and I would be back into the care of Cal—a step backward rather than going into a future with Mr. Wolf.

  The itching becomes insistent, demanding I break my skin to get to the blood. No matter how hard I scratch my arm, relief escapes me, and a sense of panic punches me in the gut.

  “Hey, hey, baby—”

  I jerk away from the familiar warmth, it burns me, and it hurts the raw skin on my arm. Mr. Wolf stands there with his hands frozen in midair, eyes alarmed and roaming on my skin to check if I have harmed myself other than the pink lines from my nails on my arm.

  “What’s wrong?” He steps forward, and I don’t make it obvious that I’m afraid to let him touch me.

  Everything itches and it blisters, but what hurts more is the anxiety of being not loved by him again.

  “No, no, no—” I shake my head. I can’t let that happen. Mr. Wolf is mine. I would kill for him. I can only survive on his love, and if that’s gone, I have no reason to stay here any longer.

  My lungs deflate, air escaping from my mouth as Mr. Wolf throws his arms around me. The shaking in my body reduces to uneven shudders as his scent pushes down the unease of being abandoned into the depth of my stomach.

  He soothes me, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works when I have paranoia giggling and flashing images of Mr. Wolf walking out of my life as if I had not meant anything to him.

  I mean everything to him. I have to; he told me that I was his special girl—his little red and he is my big, bad wolf.

  How dare Braxton Berkshire do this to us?

  No, this isn’t anyone’s fault but my own. My curiosity and the hidden lust for chaos came out to be directed at Braxton, but it wouldn’t have been this bad if he hadn’t threatened Mr. Wolf and Cal.

  Yes, this is his fault. I’m going to destroy him and make him beg for his life when I’m done with him. Not even his filthy riches or influential father can get him out of the hell that I’m going to personally open the gate to.

  “Baby, breathe for me,” Mr. Wolf croons, “I’m here. Breathe, it’s okay.”

  Tremors take over my hands as I cling to him. The loud thump of his heartbeat rests against my forehead as his bareness seems to trigger a sense of urgency to keep him near me. My nails dig into his back, as I chant nonsense inside my head and refuse to let go of him.

  My balance shifts, legs thrown around his tapered waist and arms limply scrambling around his neck as he supports my ass with his thick arms. The paranoia drones in my head, crackling and bathing in the miserable side of me that desperately clings to the only source of comfort that can settle the restlessness in my heart.

  Gently setting me on the bed, I brush my hair out of my face, but I refuse to let him go. My arms struggle to hold onto him while he makes a move to adjust his body. He lets me hang onto him for a while as he takes the blanket from under me and throws it over all parts of my body that aren’t locked around him.

  “I’m not going anywhere, baby. Give me a moment.” His voice is right by my ear, but I could barely hear him through the erratic beats of my heart.

  “N-no, no—don’t go!” I squeeze harder, burying my face into his neck.

  “Not leaving, not leaving,” he coos, whispering my name into my ear. It does little to calm me down because Mr. Wolf is a seasoned detective; he can lie to criminals without blinking an eye.

  I don’t want to a criminal in his eyes; I don’t want to be anything but his precious little red. He needs me just as much as I need him, and I won't forgive anyone who says otherwise.

  None of this was supposed to happen. I planned this out with a lot of possibilities that this could go sideways, but I hadn’t planned on this stress eliciting the itch in my skin to feed my paranoia.

  A violent shiver goes through my body, triggering a wave of shivers that rattle my bones. Mr. Wolf slides into the bed with me, holding me tightly to his chest and murmuring words that I can’t make sense of.

  I think he’s talking about his day or he’s reciting a grocery list, I don’t know, and I don’t care. As long as his voice is whispering into my ears, I’m alright with this crippling dread stay for a while.

  If it stays, Mr. Wolf will stay too.

  I can scratch through my skin and be a bit crazy for all I care. I just need Mr. Wolf to stay with me until forever.

  Selfish, selfish, selfish. That word repeats like a broken record in my head, echoing after the hollow breath of doubts and abandonment concerns.

  I’m not aware of how long this went on, but the heavy exhaustion finally perches onto my clammy skin. Sleep wants to consume me and drags me away from this moment of pea
ce, and I grip the last defense of my resolve to not close my eyes.

  “You’re okay, baby,” he murmurs, hooking his arm under my head and curling his arm tighter around my waist.

  I’m surrounded by him; his skin hotly pressed to mine, voice reaching to the deeply disturbed soul that I have, and his scent is a lure that makes me step one foot into the slumber that I’m not ready for.

  “Please, no…” I choke out, chest heaving as I shakily inhale. “Don’t leave, I’m sorry, sorry—”

  He hushes me, running a hand up and down my arched spine. My eyes are dry and burning from keeping them wide open, and blinking causes irritation to tingle on my eyes.

  “I’m staying right here, baby, with you. I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

  Whether that is an empty promise or not, I had involuntarily closed my eyes, and the world turns black with an immediate snap of a finger.

  The next time I open my eyes, it’s already morning with a strong source of sunlight breaking through the curtains. I feel empty, too hollow to be aware of anything else other than the empty space next to me.

  Mr. Wolf lied. He’s not here. The bed is cold and wrinkled, but he was here. He’s gone now, but he promised he would stay with me. He’s a liar, a bad and cruel liar.

  I throw the blanket off my body, sprinting to the bathroom and looking at the mirror. Whoever is staring back at me is not myself; it’s a woman of crazed roots and devastation.

  I splash water on my face; the cold droplets drip down my chin and roll into my shirt. I look around in the bathroom, the only sign of Mr. Wolf being in here is a wet towel thrown into the laundry basket.

  Shaking my head, I ride those irritating thoughts and the doubts that wickedly stand tall as they mock me with the smile from the woman in the mirror. I bite my lips hard enough to draw blood, and the smile disappears; crimson blood drips down on the sink and swirls into the running water.

  It’s color washes away, leaving the clear water once again being tainted by another contaminating crimson color as it changes the clear water.

  I swipe my tongue over the wound, tasting the copper and shamelessly grin for reasons that baffled me.

  Why am I smiling? I don’t know, and I’m not going to find out soon as Braxton Berkshire’s face comes to my mind again.

  He’s going to pay for making me have an episode of ghastly memories from the program where everyone is an enemy, stepping on those who failed to be the best. No one was safe, and the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.

  Friendship is a fickle lie. I didn’t need that, and I surely do not believe in the miracle of it. I have always been by myself, and I have survived on my own without my parents to take care of me.

  My grandmother couldn’t do anything, and, in the end, she ended up in a nursing home. Fending for myself can be done as an out of body experience, and it’s easy to cut off the helping hands that try to aid me.

  “No, no,” I hiss, yanking my hair and hoping it would bring me out of this state of sour, decaying deception. “I’m better than this. This isn’t the program. I have Uncle Cal and—”

  A frightened tremor buckles my knees, and I fall. Do I still have Mr. Wolf? Did I even have him in the first place?

  A hand jerks me to face Mr. Wolf. His eyes flash with unaltered worry and his black hair falls messily over his head as he pulls me up. My legs aren’t listening, and he doesn’t blink an eye when he picks me up, cradling me with such gentleness that causes my heart to spark a thrill.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” he questions, his voice moving a pitch lower as he puts me back onto the bed.

  He puts his weight onto the edge of the bed while my hand curls around his wrist. I can’t wrap my fingers around it, and that opening where I’m not touching pushes my anxiety to another level, demanding me to close the distance so he can’t escape.

  I squeeze harder, eyes of a wild woman with no sense of self.

  “Y-you weren’t—you left, you lied! Liar, you’re a—”

  I am snapped out of my stupor by his hand gently cradling my cheek, caressing the cold skin with his hot thumb. The contrast is one step away from blistering, but I want to be burned because it would be his mark that I bear on my skin.

  “I went to get you breakfast, baby.” He smiles, wiping away the panicked teardrop away.

  “I’m sorry I made you worry,” he apologizes, and the sincerity plays a big part in shaking away the goosebumps on me.

  Jumping into his lap, I sit on his thighs and wind my arms around his neck again. This position is familiar, and it’s a sweet relief to know that he won’t push me away, and he can’t leave again.

  “We need to talk,” he mutters.

  I sniffle. “No, I don’t want to talk.”

  I kiss the space between his neck and his shoulder; the muscles under my lips are hard and straining.

  “We talk, or I’m leaving.”

  I choke; a flare of anger eats at the erratic tempo of my heartbeat slamming against my ribs. I shove him away and crawl away from him, but his hand is faster and stronger than me as he drags me back into his lap.

  His arms are iron cages around my wiggling body as I struggle to break away his hold and yell at him to stop touching me. I don’t want to be forced into doing something I don’t want even if he’s Mr. Wolf and the man I would do anything for.

  “Get off!” I push his arms, but they won’t budge. The futile efforts of breaking free soon become a weak attempt when my strength leaves my body. My body and my strength can’t be compared to the sheer power Mr. Wolf carries under his muscles.

  “Are you done?” he asks in an impatient voice.

  I bitterly bite out, “No!”

  “Don’t make me tie you down, baby.”

  I begin to struggle out of his arms once more, and all of this is just to annoy him. I’m angry at everything; him, this room, the air, Braxton Berkshire. Just about anything makes me livid, and I don’t know where this irrational vehemence comes from.

  He doesn’t say anything else or does much. His only goal is to keep me in his arms and rip the seed of anger from my chest. Mr. Wolf calmly waits for me to settle down and let the anger seep out of my skin.

  “I’m not going to ask about Berkshire, but I want you to tell me what the hell happened yesterday.”

  Berkshire’s case is self-explanatory. He threatened Mr. Wolf and Uncle Cal, so I retaliated with the café scene and the recorded message. The restraining order was what I wanted from the whole thing, but I don’t know where it had gone wrong to the point Mr. Wolf became this angry with me.

  “You were scratching, baby. It’s not the first time, is it?” He runs a calloused hand over the still aching rawness in my skin.

  I peer at the pink lines from my nails. The familiar lines give a sense of déjà vu from the past, but I couldn’t care less about it.

  “No,” I answer him after a moment, voice hoarse and low.

  “Tell me,” he whispers, urging me with a gentle stroke down the pink lines.

  Mr. Wolf knows that I can’t hide anything from him. When he asks me to do anything, I wouldn’t think of the consequences and do it without a single thought.

  I tell him everything. The plan to teach Berkshire a lesson for threatening him and Uncle Cal, the irrational fear of being abandoned by him because he hadn’t spoken to me after the court trial, and the origin of the scratching that comes from the program for gifted children.

  Anyone slower than one tempo will get knocked down and tossed aside, and those children who succeed will be given the opportunity to be someone great.

  I was a child with nothing left for me other than a grandmother with dementia, but we aren’t that close. The program was all I had, and I didn’t want to lose it to anyone. Now I have Mr. Wolf and Uncle Cal, the stakes of being the best of the best are on the line because of Braxton Berkshire’s existence.

  I end up murmuring, “I was selfish, I’m sorry.”

  Mr. Wolf, being a kind-
hearted man, pets my hand with his bigger one. The comfort of being gently held by him soothes the maddening desire to make this right.

  “You were just trying to help, baby.”

  He adds, “But you can’t blame others for things that are happening to you. You have to take responsibility.”

  I chew on my bottom lips. “I know, I’m sorry.”

  He hums, the vibration going deep into my bones. “You’re still young and learning. I can forgive you for anything as long as you learn from it.”

  “Are you mad, Mr. Wolf?” I tread lightly.

  He laces our fingers tightly. “I’m more worried than angry with you.”

  “I’m sorry.” I cast my eyes down on my lap and find his big fingers swallowing my smaller ones. “I wanted to protect you and do something for you since you’re always taking care of me.”

  “Let me worry about myself, baby. Please don’t do that again. I love you too much to watch you get hurt.”

  I murmur, ears only picking up words without really knowing what they mean as my scrambled brain is currently under construction.

  “I love you too, Mr. Wolf. So, so much.”

  His hand jolts, twitching strongly and accidentally crushing my fingers. “I don’t think you understand what I mean, baby. I love you, I want to possess you, and that’s not a good thing.”

  “You do?” Happiness trickles in my voice, the irritating doubts fading away with reluctance.

  “I love you to the point of madness. I dream about ways of keeping you with me, and I’m a bad man—I don’t want other men to be near you.”

  I bury my nose into his skin. “I only want Mr. Wolf. From the beginning; you already have me.”

  “Sweetheart—” he chokes, grunting and slamming his weight on me as he hugs me to his chest. “You shouldn’t want me, baby. I’m not good for you. I think about doing vile things to you. I get angry when you show interest in other men—I wanted to kill Berkshire.”

  I nuzzle his chest, purring softly and sighing in bliss. “He’s research, a disposable sample that would become uninteresting the moment he loses his purpose.”