She was the type of the woman who loved the Devil's smile and feared the Angel's smirk."
-Hunter Forlan 

I stand at the base of Xavier's secret Heaven, Cal having dropped me off since I didn't know my way here.

To say he was surprised I knew about this place was an understatement. 

None the less I'm here, and trying to psych myself into climbing up the cliff where I know Xavier will be. 

My hands are shaking as I start up the small trail, my mind telling me unnecessary dangers and risks of doing this but my heart doesn't seem to care.

When I finally get to the top my breath is coming in short gasp, my shaking knees give out and I collapse onto my hip with my trembling palms pressed into the cool ground. My head is pounding, the lasting fear making my head hurts as too much adrenaline and panic shoots through my system.

"That looks like it hurt." A deep voice quips, I slowly drag my blurry gaze up to meet a unsympathetic blue one as the Devil comes to crouch next to me.

"I get t-that your natural response to hurt, or confusion, or being vaguely upset in g-general is to be a raging a-asshole but while I'm trying not to p-pass out can you please not." I manage to stutter out.

Surprisingly my Wolf boy winces and looks away first.

He never looks away first.

Somethings definitely wrong.

We stay like this for a while, I think it's roughly ten minutes even if it feels like an hour, until my breath evens out and the shaking of my body halts to a minimum. 

Looking up to Xavier I blow out a relieved breath, noticing how he's at least physically okay.

Yesterday, after I started to see red, I can't remember what I did. 

I mean I know what I did, because of the injury report, but when I get like that I don't physically remember doing it. It's like a demon possessed me and decided to beat Mike up.

And it was a really angry demon.

But I don't know why he got so upset, other than his dad showing up again and getting his ass beat nothing really happened.

"Why so relieved Princess?" Xavier asks gently, and I'm startled at his gentle side taking the front right now.

That's not his knee jerk reaction.

I realize that he's trying, for me, he's trying to calm himself down.

But from what?

"You're n-not hurt." I explain, trying to search his face for the answers. "I didn't know you weren't hurt."

His eyebrows raise in confusion as he shifts to sit next to me.

"You were there, for all off it..." Xavier finally says hesitantly, as if it's dangerous to say that out loud. "How could you not know that? It's not like Cal can tackle someone like me hard."

"He tackled you?" My head snaps up to him, a large frown gracing my features. 

"Tried to." He smirks, but I can see the pain under it. "Why don't you know that?"

"When Mike showed up I was scared at first...because I knew what he's done to people like me in the past. What's he's done to you. But more than anything I knew that I couldn't let anything happen to me, because of you. He had me against the wall but I broke his nose, so he fell back. You were frozen Xavier, you looked broken and scared and I didn't know what to do other than to protect you."

"Protect me?" The Devil laughs. "There's a funny thought."

I frown more, lowering my eyes to my lap. "Why's that funny? I care about you..."

"I know." He says, but it sounds like he doesn't. "It's just that...before you couldn't even protect yourself and now you're protecting someone like me? How could you do those things but you couldn't even get Aspen off of you. What the fuck, Emma?"

"I-I blacked out." I admit, his head snaps up to me and blue eyes narrow. "When I'm really scared because after, after my dad died I had Cam and my grandpa to teach me how to defend myself. It worked, he was in the military but he drilled it into my head to only use as self defense. But the training didn't stick, I have to be really really scared, or mad as it seems." I gulp. "Because of what I went through, now when I'm super panicked, or any extreme emotions I black out and go in auto pilot. If I feel threatened people can get hurt, but most time I just hurt myself or go somewhere that's super hidden and pass out. Like I passed out in the cop car, woke up with Cam carrying me into the cell. Something that's not so pleasant to be woken up to."

"Do you have any idea what you said?" He asks, voice a mere whisper. "Any idea in how much danger you were in?"

"I'm...I remember a knife and I know I have a cut on the side of my neck. I know I remember someone, someone being pressed behind me and how wrong it felt. I know I remember wishing you would just, just look away. I don't remember being scared. Or having goosebumps from being in danger." I gulp. "I know a cop had to rib me away from Mike."

"Nothing else?"

I shake my head. "I usually don't talk, I was mute once...for three months after something, after something happened and I blacked out."

"What happened then?" He asks, and I let him change the topic. 

"A party didn't go as planned, and this guy -he wasn't very respectful. And he wouldn't stop touching me and I really, really didn't want to be touched. I hated the way he touched me so I blacked out." I explain, looking away from his now glaring blue gaze. "Woke up at my dad's grave, hands covered in blood and a very alarming bruise on my right cheek. It took me months to remember what happened to me, but they never caught the guy. Man, what a dick bag."

"Was it your blood?" Xavier asks stiffly, I want nothing more than to kiss his grinding jaw until it relaxes.

I shrug, eyes moving back down. "I still don't remember it all. I just know at the end, both of us were bleeding."

"Did you hurt him then? Like you hurt Mike?"

"I, I broke his nose. Nothing else. I wasn't violent scared, or mad, or made that way for the sake of someone else," I say. "I was afraid, I wanted to run away. So I did."

"Why didn't you run from Mike when he pulled the knife of you?" The Devil whispers, sounding heart broken.

"I don't know. I don't remember him pulling the knife on me, just seeing a knife and being like, that's a knife, cool." I laugh bitterly at this. "I guess my mind new if I ran from him then, the next person he would point the knife at would be you."

"And you couldn't just let that happen? Knowing I'm stronger than you?" He asks.

"Strength is relative. I believe in that moment I was stronger than you." He scoffs, I raise a eyebrow. "I'm not talking physical Xavier, if I was you'd take the lead."

"Oh."

"Why were you so mad? Why are you so mad at me, and what the hell does 'just had to get that out of my system' mean?" I blurt, he sighs, though he just have know I was holding that in the entire time.

"It meant that if I didn't kiss you just then, if I didn't know you were okay I was going to do something very, very stupid. I know it was a dick move of me, but that was me trying to work my self control at it's best." I nod, motioning for him to continue but Xavier just clamps his jaw shut.

"Stop with the constipated looks and just tell me." I snap.

With a small growl, Xavier turns his back to me and walks right over to the edge of the cliff.

On instinct I take a step back, fear instantly growing inside me.

"Come on Princess, face your fears." The Devil says, then he sits down without even turning back to look at me. 

After a few minutes of me just staring at him my Wolf boy finally gives up and turns to look at me, stopping short when he sees my look of terror and the way I had to sit down.

Instantly he's beside me, hands raising slightly. I nod, leaning into him.

All Xavier offers me is the warmth of holding my head in his hands, pulling me close but not close enough we touch but it's enough.

I love him, and he doesn't even know it.

"Why do heights terrify you so much?" He murmurs. "This isn't a normal reaction to heights, even if a person was naturally skeptical of them. 

"Can I be honest, without you getting mad?" I ask.

He raises a eyebrow but nods none the less, backtracking a second later. "I'm already mad, but that's as mad as mad can be. I doubt anything you can say will make this worse."

"Wouldn't be so sure about that..." I trail off, lowering my eyes once again. "I grew up with Cam and Jessamine as best friends, with Julian and a guy named Max as older protective brother types. Given Jules is a idiot, and it was mostly Max being protective. I'm short-"

"No kidding." He says, making me shoot him a glare.

I got him to smirk at least, not just staying blank.

"Anyways, if you think that I'm short now, just imagine me at 4'9. I was that height until freshman year when I got my growth spurt." I tell him, he winces slightly and I don't know why. "Max and my mom knew that I was naturally skeptical of heights as you would say, and Max's parent's were Mom's best friends. Max told them everything. He stopped being my friend when my parents got divorced when I was nine, and became a regular bully at school. He would pick me up and push me into trees, on low roofs, lockers, anything that would scare me so I couldn't get down by myself."

Xavier's eyes darken but he says nothing.

"Once Max and his group of friends thought it would be a great idea to ask my mom to let them take me to a party, Mom of course agreed. She didn't care that they had to pick me up to get me out of the house." I gulp, burying my head in my knees. "He brought me to the roof, and left like a fucking coward when it started pouring out. Obviously I couldn't get down myself, and it's not like I could jump, I was too scared to move and they didn't let me grab my phone. One of his buddies told Julian, who got Cam and they came and got me."

I laugh a little, wiping a single tear at the memory. "My dad was so mad when I got home, I didn't go back to my mom's house for three months and he told my principal what happen. Max got suspended, but he came back. Maxwell Keller, you probably know him, he's the kid that moved last month and the cheerleaders were making a big fuss about it."

"How often would he do that to you, torment you with what you were afraid of?" Xavier asks, his voice deadly.

"Every school day, I got weekends off." I joke, watching as his eyes snap to mine and narrow. "Come on, that was funny."

"No it wasn't."

"It was a little funny."

"No, it wasn't."

"Good luck convincing me of that. I still want to know what got you so mad...besides your dad showing up nothing bad happened -okay so maybe the knife thing was bad and-"

"It wasn't the knife thing."

"Then the beating up part? My knuckles are-"

"I don't care about you beating my dad up."

"Was it Cal tackling you? You play football together that happens-"

"It wasn't that."

"Then was it-"

"It was you!" The Devil finally shouts, heaving his chest up and down before standing. I let him pace in front of me. "It was you, just you. You're the one that made me mad! God, sometimes Emma I just don't know how to handle you. There are some things I hate about you, and I hate that I'm so mad when those things come out."

My eyes sting with tears I refuse to shed.

Emotions.

Bah.

I don't know why I feel like crying, I've had people say much much worse things to me. Him admitting there's parts of me he doesn't like shouldn't be a big deal for me.

But somehow it is.