The Siren

"This is legit gold, Vi. You are gold," I rolled my eyes at Amy while we made our way to the cafeteria. People that I didn't even know nodded their heads at me on the hall. I nodded back out of courtesy and kept on walking. Amy broke into another fit of giggles while she watched again the video of me putting Stolas back in place at his party two days ago. Someone somehow took a video of me standing up for Amy and the whole thing had gone viral at school. Everyone had been watching me on their phones. During Math there was this boy who quoted me when the professor asked him for his homework. I watched completely discombobulated how the boy-whose' s name was Mark apparently- got up and put a hand to his heart before repeating me verbatim.

"Since you are a man I know you understand than when you give your word to a friend you actually mean it. I'm sorry if I caused you any trouble and I really hope you had a good birthday," said Mark solemnly before passing his homework to the professor. In Mark's defense he sounded ten times better than I did. Not that it helped him become a receptor of the professor's good graces.

I sighed when we walked into the cafeteria, already dreading having to decide what I wanted to eat. I know that I sound like a brat. Trust me, I know that. Normally I wouldn't have thought too much about food, but nowadays food is an enemy of my subconsciousness and I can't get them to sign a damn peace treaty. We took just a couple of steps inside the cafeteria before I realized something weird was going on. People were smiling at me. Big smiles, as if I was a hero or some shit like that. I stopped in my tracks when this group of girls seated by the end of the room screamed my name and then waved their hands at me. Amy laughed and waved her hand back at them. I'm... lost. Why everyone was making so much ado about nothing? All I did was defend a friend when she was drunk. Anyone would have done the same in my place. I ignored them all and went to pick up an apple and an orange juice for lunch. Not much, but enough to keep me surviving another hour of torture.

I have only taken a couple of steps before Maddox stopped me, taking me by hand and halting me in place.

I've been avoiding him since Saturday. Avoiding being the operative word. No, avoiding is not the right word. I've been escaping him. After our kiss all I've thought about is how much I wanted to taste him again. Thinking about Maddox is addictive. I go in circles inside my mind, thinking about how much I like him. Then I think I shouldn't like him. Then how much I want to kiss him and then I go back to overanalyzing all the reasons I shouldn't be thinking about him. His green-greyish eyes were now burned in my consciousness and they are all I see whenever I woke up. Those eyes that were now staring at me as if he would like to eat me for lunch. I looked at him from under my eyelashes and took my time studying all the details about him that I would like to commit to my memory. Like the fact he forgot to shave this morning again. Like the fact his brown hair is now starting to look darker. Like the fact his bottom lip is plumper than his upper one and his mouth seems to arc at the corners in a constant smirk.

I think I shouldn't like him. There's a list of reasons why I shouldn't like him. There's also the fact I've killed my heart to save myself from all the pain and despair that comes attached to the human condition of loving someone. I'm now starting to blush under his scanning eyes. My heart is defrosting in this moment, as we talk. Love is a strong word, don't you think? I don't think we are capable of loving each other. Maddox is too angry and I'm too dead. We are not good for each other. But there is this strong attraction between us. Is sticky and electric. I can feel Maddox in my skin whenever he looks at me. His touch is burning hot, dangerous, apocalyptic. He is the end of my innocence and the beginning of my corruption. I really, really shouldn't like him...but the heart wants what it wants. And my heart is dead, confused and cold. My heart is selfish and a glutton for darkness and space. My heart wants all that I can't have. My heart wants him.

Right then Maddox took my hand, making me look down at his fingers covering my smaller digits. His warmth was overbearing, catastrophic and heavy. It spread fast from my flesh to my muscles and settled in my cold bones. I could feel his humanity in my bones. How strange is that? I can feel him there, where nothing about me is mine anymore, where I'm dead and decaying, where I'm lost and wondering. With that simple touch he electroshocked my heart and infused me with his life force. I'm alive as long as he keeps touching me. The thought made me frown and confused I blinked my eyes, staring at our interlaced hands. I think I should be afraid of all the things I'm feeling. Shit, I should be scared I'm feeling at all. The only problem is I've been so lonely for so long that I can't move back. I want his touch for as long as he is offering it and then I will be back to the land of the dead.

We are surrounded by people and everyone is watching us. He doesn't care, so I decide right then I shouldn't care either. Amy is fighting Stolas again, I can hear her screaming at him to leave her alone. Landon is trying to push Stolas back and Emrick is looking at me. I can feel him looking at me but I can't look away from my hand interlaced with Maddox's hands. A spell has been cast and this time I don't know on whom.

"Follow me," he said, pulling my arm. Maddox talked only to me, so it didn't surprise me when the others stayed back, while we made our way out of the cafeteria.

The other students opened space to let the king of Broken Falls pass by. There were some people who looked at me confused, probably expecting some other girl following Maddox to her ruin, but no, this time was me the one who was going to be utterly ruined. The world should stop us now, before we hit the gas and start making some serious mistakes. It's the perfect moment for a meteor to fall, or an earthquake to strike or a hurricane to pass. Still, nothing happens, and I follow Maddox silently through the halls of our school. He was moving fast, his stride elongated by the length of his legs. It feels as if he knows he is stealing me from the dead and he can't steal me fast enough. With a kick Maddox opened a door and I only had a moment to check the sign on top of the room to see we were getting inside the computer lab. The room was totally deserted, just some windows that lightened a couple of rows of computers that looked dusty and unused. I'm about to ask Maddox why he brought me to this place when he pulled my hand again and guided me to the end of the room.

To my surprise Maddox opened a side door I hadn't seen and gently caressed my hand, before moving to the room he just opened. This room was dark, a lot darker than the computer lab. And smaller. Just four walls that were covered from side to side with monitors that seemed to be running programs. I stopped by the door and frowned, trying to understand why Maddox would bring me to this room. It looked like the dark laboratory of a mad hacker, or the control room of a band of criminals. I saw some posters on the walls, cigarette's butts scattered over three different ashtrays and way too many cans of Red Bull. What was this place?

I didn't have time to voice my questions. The moment the door behind me was locked I was pushed against the nearest wall and Maddox was kissing me. His lips invaded my mouth and proclaimed themselves rulers of my blood stream. I moaned against his lips feeling the magnetic way our mouths clashed against each other. He took and took, licking my lips and then sucking on them as if he was desperate to get all of me in one kiss. All I could do was follow him blindly. I kissed him back, loving the way his five o'clock shadow felt under the tips of my fingers. Moaning each time he sucked on my lower lip, just to go back and lick my tongue expertly, until claiming a thousand of thirsty noises that were made in my need for him. His hands felt rough in my neck while he held me still, but I didn't mind. Those were his hands, the hands of a man, not of a boy. Maddox felt exactly like my opposite while we kissed. He took and owned me, I gave and conceded. When he sucked I moaned for him. When he touched me I pushed my body in his hands, letting him know that he could take whatever the hell he wanted from me.

I didn't know who broke the kiss first. I think it was our need to get more of each other that made us stop and look into our eyes. Maddox's eyes were like green fields right then and the sight of them, so clear of anger and so full of passion made me smile at him. Maddox frowned, staring at my eyes while he gently caressed my cheek with a calloused thumb.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked me and surprised I touched my mouth, feeling the smile curving in there. My smile just turned wilder while his eyes moved back and forward, probably trying to understand which new level of madness I'd hit. In silence Maddox stepped closer and hugged me to his body. I'd never been held like a woman. I'd been held like a daughter, a friend and a niece, but never like a woman. It had taken a man like Maddox to made me feel like a woman and the idea of ever feeling like this with another man felt obnoxiously impossible. Maddox moved his hand to the back of my neck and silently pushed my head to him. The warmth of his mouth attracted my coldness, and like a moth to a flame my lips found his. I followed the lazy circle of his tongue, sucking on his lips like he had just taught me. I moaned again, uncapable of silencing all those hot noises that he was making me do. Maddox growled and his hands started moving up my body. I could feel them covering my breasts over the sweater I was wearing, and then moving lower. His touch was so hot that I started feeling my skin getting warmer, as if I'd stepped directly under the sun. I moaned again and Maddox cursed under his breath, breaking our kiss. He rested his forehead against mine and looked directly into my eyes, "I swear those sounds you make are making me crazy."

"How crazy?" I wondered, touching his mouth with the tips of my fingers and staring hungrily at them. He had the cruelest mouth I'd ever seen. Cruel enough to starve me of his kisses when we could have been kissing instead of talking. Maddox seemed to read my thoughts. The next second he bowed his head to reach my neck. The movement was slow, but like an expert thief he stole a kiss from my flesh. I felt his lips in the place where my pulse was beating and then his tongue brushed my neck. It was a simple kiss but coming from him felt like if pure fire had caressed my skin. His breath felt hot and strong, inviting to each and every one of my senses. We stopped there, right in that moment, staring into our eyes. From blue to green and then back and forward.

"You are making me dangerously crazy, siren," he murmured right before kissing me harder than ever before. This time he was taking all in. His kiss was hard and unforgiving. Maddox growled a warning to stay still, before holding me with a hand to my neck. With his other hand he opened my legs. Then he was right between my legs, pushing my knees up so I could circle my legs around his hips. I bit his lips in my desperation and I was rewarded with a gentle stroke of his hand over one of my breasts. Maddox caressed it again, and then again, pumping with his fingers the hardened nub of my nipple. It felt as if all of my nerves' ends had allocated to the skin underneath his touch. I opened my mouth wider for him and closed my eyes harder, getting lost in all the sensations he was giving me.

His broad shoulders tensed under my hold and suddenly he was grinding his hips against my middle, making me feel the impossible length of his hard on. Maddox hold on tight to my neck, squeezing my wind pipes until all I could smell, feel and taste was his skin against my skin, and his sex humping my emptiness. Even then, in the heat of the moment, he was controlling the air that got into my lungs, the smell that I sucked into my throat. It was the most liberating experience in the world. I trusted him to give me just what I needed, and then give me more than what I would ever need. If we removed our clothes we would be fucking each other like mad rabbits. That thought, as tempting as it was, was my Carneades Plank. It was my last salvation, and as a sailor pushing anther drowning sailor away of the only remaining plank I pushed Maddox away from me. We were both breathing heavily, our chests moving up and down under the restraining of holding back and not resuming our kiss. Maddox's eyes darkened while he looked angrily at me.

"Aren't we too old for games?" he asked, staring at me as if he could throttle me right in that moment. I pushed my hair away from my face and took a deep breath before looking back at him. In that moment he wasn't just Maddox, he was the angry god. The man that only fixed things through anger. If he could bring me back to life with his kisses then I had the strange quality of appeasing him. Whenever we were close he didn't look angry, but if I said no...I shook my head at my own thoughts. Of course I had to say no to Maddox. This-whatever this was- couldn't and wouldn't work. What if he brought me back to life? What if I pacified him? I was the siren and he was the angry god. He would burn me down and I will freeze him. If I didn't manage to leech on him until he lost himself. I was a Windsworth and I was cursed. My place was with the dead ones, not with the angry god.

I sighed, resting the back of my head against the wall and holding his angry gaze.

"We are too old to be playing around. That's exactly what I'm afraid of," I whispered, making him furrow his brow at me.

"And what the fuck that means?" he asked, pacing from side to side like a caged lion. How could he be so damn alive? Maddox exuded power and strength with every step he took. He was energy and control personified. In comparison I looked like a shadow in a corner, reduced to coldness and darkness if he wasn't touching me. I shook my head at him and looked away.

"We shouldn't start something we can't afford to end," I said slowly, trying to make my point clear. Maddox stopped somewhere in front of me, but I didn't look at him. I couldn't. My heart was a dead, selfish bastard that wanted to be close to Maddox's warmth for a little longer. If I looked at him I would forget what I was supposed to be saying. I took another deep breath and blinked, trying to absorb the darkness of the room, and the smell of staleness, and the cold sinking back into my bones. I rubbed my forehead before talking, "if we take things further it will make things complicated at home. I can't do something that could affect Cora or Ivy. That's just not who I am."

I wasn't brave enough to look at Maddox right then. My heart was still racing inside of my empty ribcage and under that sternum so full of cobwebs. The novel sensation made me feel confused and weak, as if I had lived all his kisses through a fever or a dream. I focused on staring at the weird posters on the walls. There was a specific poster that called my attention. It looked old and wrinkled, the kind of poster you glued to the wall one too many times. It was black and white, with big, bolden letters in which I read "We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like". I titled my head to the right, still looking at the poster.

"That is something refreshing to look at," I said, pointing at the poster.

"It's a reminder," said Maddox. He sounded closer than before. His closeness was a palpable entity. I could feel his closeness in the hairs at the back of my neck standing at its ends. I could feel him in the warmth his body radiated. I could feel him in the anxious drop in my stomach, as if I was standing at the top of a rollercoaster and about to plummet to the bottom. Maddox stopped in front of me and moved his head closer, until his lips were right on my ear, caressing my skin. I didn't stop looking at the poster. If I looked at him I would kiss him again and this time I wouldn't be able to tell him no.

"A reminder of what?"

"A reminder to always make my own money, make my own friends and make my own choices," he slipped a hand to the side of my face and gently moved it back, until he was staring at my eyes. His own eyes looked green again, pacified, as if whatever I've said before had managed to calm him down. He clenched his jaw, looking solely at me, "I'm sorry if I didn't clarified things before. I want you. I want to fuck you and own you. Not having you is not an option I've contemplated. You want me too, so I seriously can't understand why you are delaying the inevitable. I will have you sooner or later, regardless of the consequences that come after."

He pushed my head away and walked out of the room without a second glance in my direction. Something told me I've surprised him by denying him twice in a row. Curiously enough, I didn't think his ego had been hurt. More as if he was irritated at all the waiting and playing around I've forced him into. I looked back at the poster and thought about his cryptic answer. Why would Maddox need to make his own money and his own friends when everything could be delivered to him in a silver platter? And what was this place he brought me to?

I walked to the nearest computer and looked at the screen. I could see a program running but I couldn't understand all the coding passing by. It seemed complicated stuff, the kind of coding one would see in a Matrix movie with a binary code. I was about to walk away when I saw Maddox's name in a sticker on top of another computer at my left. After a quick check I realized all the computers seemed to be owned by him. Had Maddox programmed whatever was running through the computers? Was this place his own, personal lab? Now that I think of, he had opened the door with a key. His own key. I frowned and looked one more time to the stickers marking the computers as Maddox's property. Up to that moment Maddox had been this very hot, controlling and angered god with a penchant for playing football. And now he was also this mysterious guy who proclaimed he liked to make his own choices, and his own money, and his own friends even if he was born with a thousand  privileges.

My heart beat harder inside of my chest. It was a warning, like a fire alarm going off inside of my body. If I've liked Maddox before knowing him, now I was hooked by his strange personality. Who was Maddox Walsh? Just a jock with anger issues? The angry god? Or the mysterious man that would forever change my life?