Unfinished Business

"I can feel you staring, Golding. Frankly, its quite unsettling." I say in between scribbles on parchment.

"My, what's got you working so tirelessly?" He questions, walking closer to me as if his cover was blown.

"Plotting your demise." I say, gaze still fixed on my books.

"It must be frustrating for you to be exerting yourself like this when I come along, the epitome of non-chalance and I still beat you." He whispers the last part in my ear to aggravate me just a smidge bit more.

"You know, it's baffling." I say, flipping through pages of papers amongst an ocean of scattered books as I look for my pen.

"What is?" He asks, passing it to me.

"Your audacity." I shoot him a look.

He throws his head back in laughter, bright teeth flashing as his dimples deepen. I couldn't stop the slight smile that creeped up.

"Laugh it up, Golding. When I best you, we'll see whose got a stupid grin on then." I reply smoothly, organising my desk.

"So, you've noticed my stupid grin?" He smirks, raising his brows as his body relaxes in the seat, legs spread.

I roll my eyes and run a hand through my hair before rubbing my face wearily, trying hard to keep my eyes awake.

He looks at me for a moment, scanning my droopy eyes and slouchy posture, before rising out of his seat and leaving wordlessly.

There was this unspoken quality about the library. The quiet, no one is expected to do anything or look any certain way, its just you and the books and the knowledge that dances around you, urging to be read, to be unveiled and drank from the lips of wanderers thirsty for the secrets of the past, the answers to questions that spiral in their hearts.

Moments later, Silas reappears. This time with two cups of coffee in his hand.

"Is that a-" I begin.

"A large iced vanilla mocha with three shots of coffee. If you want to beat me, you need all the energy you can get." He remarks with a wink.

I sit there, dumbfounded. "You bought me coffee?"

"I may be an arse but I play fair, Burroughs." He says, taking a sip of his steaming black espresso.

I shake my head, smiling.

"Whose got on the stupid grin now?" He quips.

I playfully nudge his head away, chuckling. "You're such a fool."

His gaze falls on the cup, almost abashed. I catch his eyes, his enchanting brown eyes, they seize me for a moment-

How I enjoy being their prisoner.

The sweetness of the memory, of the dream that it became slowly encourages me awake. I open my eyes to a wooden ceiling with strong, timber beams. Sleep-drunk and weary, I look down at the bed I lay in as last night hits me like a rude-awakening. Immediately, I jolt upward and look beside me to find-

That bastard.

Silas sleeps on a chair near me.

I gripped the sheets as I stare at him. The harsh movements slightly wake him up. He must've been up all night.

I stared at him. He stared at me.

Disbelief contorted my face.

"Eleanor." He slowly rose toward me.

"Get away from me! Don't come any closer!" I screamed, grabbing the lamp near me as a weapon.

He put his hands up in surrender, a concerned expression on his face. "Alright."

I shook my head, the same twitching sneer growing on my face. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Where the hell am I?"

"Eleanor, please. Please just let me explain." He manages desperately, trying to approach me.

My chest feels heavy as I struggle to breathe. "I'm fucking warning you!" I yell, waving the lamp up higher.

Pain falters on his face. We stand there. The distance between us an insult, a cruel and twisted mockery of what we used to have, how we used to be and how in just a matter of moments, in just a few sentences how everything I thought I knew, everything I envisioned and hoped for came cascading down. Once, this cold gap was a heated proximity of rivalry and banter that I pretended to hate so much. Once, I'd stare at him in a forged agitation, disguising the true thrill and excitement he reignited within me and now- I stare at him as a stranger, one I fear because I do not know-

I do not know Silas Golding, I never have.

"Who are you?" I say through gritted teeth, gripping the lamp tighter.

His gaze darts to me, I used to be fluent in the riddles of his eyes, I thought of myself as the only one who could decipher them but now, as I stare at them, a hollowness looks back at me. Once golden and illuminated, now dull and soulless. I wondered if anything, any redeemable remnant of the man I thought I knew, still lurked beneath this shell that stands before me now.

"Who are you?!" I scold in pain, in rage. His eyes fall shut, head hanging low. Even now, even after everything, it takes everything in me to silence the deafening impulse to rush toward him but then the grotesque image of that man's mutilated body comes to mind, the terrorfied faces of Osbourne, Fraser and all the rest before he ended their lives so maliciously and I'm repulsed at myself for even feeling a mite of sympathy for him.

"I don't know!" He yells back, pain knitting his face. "I don't know anything anymore."

A pang of pity stabbed at my heart. The epitome of non-chalance, he was. Always so unfazed and suave. Now, unnervingly shattered and ravaged.

"Do you even understand the gravity of what you've done? Do you-" I begin before he silences me.

"I don't regret a single thing if that's what you're asking. I don't regret anything, except..." He admits sharply, trailing off in the end as he looks at me deeply, desperately.

My eyes widen at his confession. I stand, dumbfounded. "Silas, you killed four people, that I know of. Are you not- Do you feel nothing?" I struggle to form questions, evading the fear that climbs up my throat.

"Don't speak of it as if you understand. Where do you come to judge me when you would do the same thing with the right motivation?" He spits. "I didn't go around killing innocents like some monster. Anyone I harmed, they deserved it. They were evil and the world is better off without them."

I squint my eyes at him. "So you decide to become judge, jury and executioner? What gives you the right?"

"What gave them the right, Eleanor?! What gave them the right?!" He bellows, a deep and powerful echo, one that has been churning within him. "They destroyed my life, my mother's life, my father's life. Don't I have the right to be judge, jury and executioner when they sentenced me to death from the first moments of my life. Don't I deserve justice? Does not my father and mother deserve justice? Do villians not deserve punishment for their malice or is it only the ones who get caught? When those who are meant to protect us, fail, do we not have the right to punish the perpetrators ourselves?" He laments and with each word the distance between us closes.

My eyes dart from side to side as I inspect him in horror. "And what was I? A mistake? Collateral damage? Some whore that got stuck in the crossfire of you and your revenge? Did you use me to distract you when all the mess and blood became unbearable? Was i your next victim?" I walk toward him, demanding answers my mind needs to know but my heart doesn't want to hear.

"No, don't do that." He says, head shaking slowly.

"Don't do what?" I say piercingly, close enough to see the crinkles in his furrowed brows. He bites his lip, looking at me with sorrow.

"Answer me!" I yell, my voice wobbly as I shove him. He stumbles slightly and I push him again, "Answer me!"

"You're a coward." I cry, palms shoving him over and over again.

"Eleanor." He says softly in a pained voice.

"No! Dont fucking say my name!" I weep, banging my fists on his chest.

He holds my arms as they tire out but I jolt away from him.

"God," I sigh, clenching my jaw. "Just when I thought..." I hold myself back.

He stares at me, regretful. "Just what?" He implores, eyes urging me to answer.

"That I could let myself fall in love with you!" My hands curl into fists, knuckles whitening. I bite back anything that dare reveal itself, the tears, the words I ache to say, I hold it all back.

"Eleanor," He whispers, voice unlike I'd ever heard it, void of his usual sarcasm and confidence.

"Don't." I snap, sharply. Knowing that if he uttered even a word, everything I was trying so hard to refrain from doing would come rushing down. I look at him, aching to forget everything, yearning for his touch, for his warmth yet revolted by myself for how I could long for someone so criminal.

"Enough." He pulls me by the arm, whipping my head toward him, cupping my face in his calloused hands.

"You were never a fucking mistake, never collateral damage." He says with a trembling voice, tears flooding his eyes. "You were everything. You are everything, do you understand me? I dont care if you can't stand the sight of me. Think what you want, think that I am the dirtiest scum in the world, think that I am the worst criminal but never, never doubt my earnest, fervent, transcendent love for you. Even now, I am nothing but irredeemable scraps and fragments of a corrupt soul but I am yours whether you'll have me or not. I surrender to you, Eleanor Burroughs." He stares at me intently, solemnly as his hands trail down my neck, embracing my torso as he kneels on the ground.

In that moment, I fall apart.

How could someone capable of uttering such beautiful, genuine words, commit such heinous crimes?

How could someone who saves a family from the streets also take a life?

How could someone love another so dearily but then ruin the lives of so many?

I sink to the floor to meet him. My lips quiver as I scan his dishevelled hair, running my hands through it. I caress his weary face, half-lidded eyes looking at me as I kiss his forehead and place my head against his, lingering there for a moment longer than usual.

Silences permeates the room and I say nothing. I just fold him into my tight embrace as he wraps his limp arms around me and I stay.