Chapter 8：Pain

I raised my gun at Arius in anger. He didn't budge from his place, the hideous smile on his face didn't fade.

His relaxed expressions made me lose it and I fired the gun.

Then shot it again and again but Arius stood his ground, his grin turning into a toothy smirk.

"Did you really think I'd leave any bullets in it?" He was mocking me. Of course the gun didn't have any more ammo, why else would he leave it in my hands so calmly?

The heat of anger was getting to my head, to the point it was making me dizzy.

I gritted my teeth, "You said, I only needed to scare him." I spoke between my teeth grinding.

"Well clearly you failed at that."

"You had something to say to him!!"

"Yea, 'Goodbye'. He was an annoying fellow." He scratched his eyebrow, unamused.

"You lied to me." I glared at him but he didn't say anything back, "You bastard!" I threw the gun at his face which he caught easily with one hand.

Turning around, my eyes landed on the man I had just killed, his lifeless body in a puddle of his own blood.

'I killed him?' The words didn't sit in my mind. I bit my lower lip and ran out.

Maybe if I can go far away, out of his reach. He won't be able to harm me even with the collar.

The streets were quiet, the sky was moonless making the night as dark as it could get.

After running away for quite some time I felt something strange, a tingling sensation of pain that kept increasing.

I fell to the ground, scraping my knees as blood started trickling down my nose. Everything started getting blurry.

What's this? It's not the collar...

My stomach churned and I coughed up some blood.

I felt all the energy leave my body and I collapsed on the dark road.

"Anyone... there?"

Like anyone was going to listen to such a feeble voice.

Wow. After all that, this is how I'm going to die.

In a dark alley, on the road...

Footsteps.

I heard footsteps slowly approach me.

The person stopped right next to me and sighed as he looked down at me.

"Arius..."

He took off his coat and placed it on me, then picked me up bridal style.

"It hu-rts..." My throat was really dry, rather, it felt like it was burning.

"I told you the wine wasn't for you." He kept looking forward as he made his way back to his car.

Wine...? Wait, Was it poisoned? Is that why he placed it back?

"But... You-?" I coughed again.

Arius wasn't bothered at all, "That amount of poison won't affect me." He glanced at me as I was fading into unconsciousness, "And running away won't do you any good. I'll find you even if you ran away to the other side of the world."

"That seems- like," I gulped, lubricating my throat a bit, "A confession."

He lightly laughed at my comment. Somehow, this chuckle of his felt genuine. It made me feel a bit giddy even amongst all the pain.

"Well, I do like how you're a strong person." He said as he readjusted me in his arms.

I couldn't tell for sure since I drifted into darkness after that.