The Alpha's Gamble - Chapter 83: Chapter 83

MADELINE
A fucking war was happening in my mind, with diamond-sharp blades cutting through the fabric of my thoughts and drilling through the bone keeping it all inside. Horses stomping, guns blazing, swords cutting. Pieces of flesh being ripped and tossed for the wolves to devour, and my sanity being the price, the nail on the wall, proudly displaying their strength and victory.
Time period? The fuck is that? Take every weapon and man wielding it and shove them into one round box, now add the worst fucking sound you’ve ever heard and max the volume. My eardrums burst, drops trickled down my neck, and I held shreds of my hair in my hands, tossing them aside to pull out new chunks. Fighting against the rough hands grabbing my wrists, trying to pin them down. The strength came from the pain, and the pain wasn’t ending. It would’ve. If I’d made that fall, and met the ground with a kiss that I longed to give, it would all have ended.
My name echoes through a wall but dies in the absurdity of sounds, some of which I can’t say I’ve ever heard, and it lands flat in the ruins of my mind.
“Do something!”
“How the fuck—”
The flick of a finger is the speed with which the sounds evaporated into nothing, and silence fell over the walls and the floor of a room when the door closed. Once again, I was staring at the sky, the beautiful black and the stars that twinkled, reminding me of how insignificant this all was. The vast universe to which I wanted to belong again painted rims through the canvas above me and I folded my fingers in the soil.
Panting for a breath.
Too tired to even beg the silence to remain.
“What the—” the voice started and then mellowed out into air that fluttered by my ear, blocking the sounds from entering.
“You should know—”
Words, and then gone.
Reality rippled and turned, atoms shifted and reformed, and the pixels were gaining focus, once again assembling in their rightful place.
“Madeline?”
There’s not a chance that I’m calling on the bitch. If Nasha’s still in there, I’m hoping she melts into a puddle of goo from the noise. Or that she’s hiding away somewhere.
“Maddy?”
“Yeah, I’m—” I pressed myself up, not noticing someone had squatted down in front of me, and I was face to face with Noah.
“I’m good.” I dragged my eyes over his face. There was splatter on his shirt, and I smelled the blood, though it was dry, so it had been sitting for a while.
“You’ve bled.” I pulled him in with his shirt firmly pinched between my fingers and lifted it closer to see the spots.
Yup, definitely blood.
“It’s not mine.”
It’s cocky, but when I lifted my gaze and saw his eyes playing in mine, my lips pulled back in relief.
I was too caught up in his eyes, wondering if I’d ever seen him playful before, that I hadn’t noticed his fingers around my hand. His thumb was moving over my knuckles in gentle circles and he folded them before carefully standing.
“Can you walk?” he asked as he helped me up on my feet.
After finding the balance and making sure it wouldn’t betray me, I nodded, but I regretted it when he let go of my hand. The breeze swept over my skin, and an unpleasant longing clung to my chest. It was, however, luckily not long-lasting when he instead circled my waist and rested his hand there with a gentle pressure that held me close. We headed toward my dad, who stood still in his spot, a tree with deep roots. Stable and strong, and everything but.
“What were you doing up here anyway?” Noah asked, somewhat unbothered and mostly curious. No inclination of what almost happened a moment ago.
But my father held the memory in his eyes, visible on the surface with a flashing void and rosy cheeks. His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t speak. Didn’t say a word in answer to Noah’s question. Maybe he wanted me to tell him, or maybe he thought—just like I did—that not everything had to be said.
“Maddie?” Noah asked and cocked his head to look down at me, a soft gaze wandered over my contemplating eyes and it felt wrong in that moment to keep quiet. Things had a way of surfacing sooner or later.
“Trevor?” Noah’s brows furrowed, a deep wrinkle formed above the bridge of his nose, and he unknowingly held on to me tighter.
“Surely one of you can speak, no?” Silence passed between my father and I, but there was more emotion in his eyes than he had ever expressed in words for the years that I’d known him. Noah was turning his head, resting his eyes a few seconds on each of us, and his eyes hardened with every turn. I’m not sure how many turns he had left in him before he demanded an answer, but judging from his face twisting impatiently, I’m guessing not many.
“Uhm.” That’s all I got. How did I tell him what I was doing up here? That if my father hadn’t come, we wouldn’t be standing here, my dad would’ve broken down on the cliff, watching his daughter beneath his feet.
Ugh. The words grabbed a chokehold on my heart and twisted it viciously. Guess I never thought that far, or maybe I had but just didn’t care. How do I explain this insatiable need for a peace that I don’t know how to find in this life? The life of the living may be for some, but I can’t believe that it’s for everyone. I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged. It’s always been one struggle after the other, and when I stood there, my toes gripping the edge and my arms spread like a bird, free with the wind, ready to lift me, I felt that sense of freedom that I’ve heard about. That I’ve read about. The stillness wasn’t comforting; even though I loved the silence, this one wasn’t it. It was ripping and heavy and broken too soon.
“Madeline had enough,” my father said. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Noah. At first, he didn’t seem to understand what “had enough” meant. He shifted his head and looked flusteredly around us but ultimately settled his eyes on the cliff. Where I’d stood mere moments ago.
When he turned his head and I saw his eyes slowly falling into a deep pit, replaced by something that looked like loss, even though I was standing there, my heart shattered in my chest.