I ran with all the power I had in my legs. I ran to find him and make sure he was okay. I ran despite my parents shouting from the doorway, and I ran despite not really knowing which house Alex lived in. My breaths were short and heavy by the time I turned on to his street, and I had to force myself to stop while I gathered my bearings. I spun aimlessly for a while, looking left and right, turning all around as a small sheen of sweat gathered across my forehead.

This was me panicking.

This was me looking for answers from someone, somewhere, only I had no idea where they were going to come from.

It was when I spotted the car I’d seen outside the school gates that I began to charge forward again. The tyres sat lopsided, half on and half off the kerb as though it had been thrown there by someone who didn’t have a care or thought for anyone in the world. The sheer recklessness of it sent a shiver of fear down my spine before I eventually arrived at the house it sat in front of.

From the outside, it looked like all the others on the street – peaceful, calm, a few flowerpots on the outside and a lawn that was cut to absolute perfection. The curtains were still, framing the windows, the streetlight reflecting against the glass just enough to stop anyone from seeing too far inside. The place almost had me fooled into believing I was panicking for nothing, until I heard the muffled shouting coming from beyond the bricks and mortar.

I’d found the right place. His father was right there, just a few feet away, and no doubt with Alex standing beside him. A million thoughts ran through my head, but none frightening enough to stop me from moving again. Within seconds, I had my ear pressed up against their front door. My hands soon followed suit until my whole body was leaning forward and my breaths were coming faster and harder. Every curse word I knew I chanted on repeat in my mind. What could I do? How could I get in there? What if I’d got all of this wrong?

“Did you fucking hear me, Bea?” His father’s voice was angry and filled with warnings when he eventually spoke again, forcing me to swallow down the fear I held in my throat as I tried to control the unbearable trembling of my knees.

“Nicholas, please. Just stop this. This isn’t who you are. Think about what you’re doing,” a woman’s voice cried out.

“Me?” Smash. “Me?” Smash. “You want me to think about what it is I am doing?”

Objects were thrown against walls or floors, and with each crash against the surface, I flinched and blinked in terror, certain I was about to lose control of myself completely and fall to the ground.

“How about this?” His father’s voice rose higher, the not-so-silent warning in his voice making me want to curl up in a ball and beg for whatever was about to happen to be over. “How about you think about what you’re doing as a mother, besides fucking failing me and your snot-nosed, selfish bastard of a son.”

“Don’t do this,” she begged him, her voice quivering. “Please don’t do this. Not again.”

“It’s the only way you ever truly listen to me, Beatrice. It’s the only way either of you ever fucking listen.”

The sound of skin meeting skin had me gasping without thought, my shriek escaping without permission as my hands flew to cup my mouth and silence my shock. I was about to scream. I could feel it in my throat, clawing its way free, begging me for release, but then I heard his cry. His cry. My Alex’s grunt of pain, followed by the sound of bodies slamming together.

“You bastard,” he shouted at the top of his voice.

My hand found the handle of the door, and before I truly knew what I was doing, I’d forced my way into their home, curled my body into a ball and was screaming at the top of my lungs. “STOP! Stop! Stop it, just stop!”

But no one stopped.

When I forced my eyes open, Alex and his father were on the floor, rolling around in a ball of limbs and fists, struggles and tackles. His mother was slumped against the entrance to the kitchen, her mouth open with a hand cupping her cheek as she stared down in horror. She was frozen in place, still and hurt.

Something took over; a fight I never knew I was capable of was born in me. My feet moved quickly, charging down the hall to the two men who were fighting together. Alex was silent besides a few grunts as he raised his fist to punch his father in the face, and when he did, his dad moved at the perfect time, forcing Alex to skim his cheek with little effect, giving his father the opportunity to push him off and roll Alex onto his back.

“No!” I cried again, and as Nicholas Law went to hit his son square in the jaw, I launched my body onto his back, clawing at his neck with everything I had, everything I ever would have, and all the hatred I possessed for the man in that moment.

“You stupid…” Nicholas growled as he tried to shake me off, but my attack had only delayed his assault on Alex, and before I knew what was happening or could stop it, he’d smashed his fist across his son’s cheek and then turned on me. His elbow rose backwards, knocking me under my chin with enough force to get me off him. When I landed on the floor hard, all I could see were black spots and a blurred scene of violence in front of me. Nicholas brought himself to tower over me, lifting my chin with a single finger to study my face.

“Get off her,” I thought I heard Alex groan, but everything was hazy – my vision, my hearing, everything. My legs didn’t work, but my arms were ready to fight. It took all my willpower to curl my fingers into the floor and remain still.

“You stupid little girl,” Nicholas whispered quietly. If I thought his yells and threats had been terrifying before, the sound of his almost inaudible insult had my skin coming to life with fear.

Blinking away the spots as much as I could and trying to ignore the pain in my face, I glanced up at him to look him square in the eye. When our gazes met, I frowned in quiet disgust, pouring everything I had to say out to him with just one look.

He was vermin.

He made me sick.

The feel of his finger on my skin made me nauseous, and I desperately wanted to turn away, but I was rooted in place. I was here to get him away from Alex. I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew he was safe.

Nicholas was the first to break eye contact, choosing his moment to glance up at his wife under hooded, heavy, dark eyes, but she stayed completely still. Her focus was on the floor. Fear had rendered her useless.

“What’s the matter?” I pushed out quietly. “Is this the first time a girl has ever dared to look you in the eye so you can see what you’ve done to her?”

Nicholas’ focus shot back to me like a bullet from a gun. I’d read enough books and watched enough films to know that contempt was the only thing looking down on me now. If he could end me here, he would. If I belonged to him in any way, he would let me know exactly what he thought with his fists. But I wasn’t and he couldn’t, and suddenly I held all the power.

“I think you should leave,” I whispered, trying to ignore the trembling of my chin as I spoke.

“Excuse me?” he asked, disbelief flooding his voice. The smell of stale alcohol washed over my face when he spoke, forcing me to close my eyes for just a moment as everything about Alex and his life began to fall into place.

“I said… I think you should leave.” When I looked up at him again, I pushed my face closer to his and feigned a confidence I didn’t know I had. “You’ve been drinking, Mr. Law. You’ve assaulted your wife. You’ve assaulted your son and now… now you’ve assaulted a minor – a female minor you don’t even know. I have no problem walking out of that door and heading to the nearest police station to report it.”

“You think I give a shit?”

“I think now’s a good time for you to start, don’t you?”

Nicholas huffed out a humourless laugh, moving even closer. Close enough for me to see the bloodshot tracks of alcohol abuse in the whites of his eyes, and close enough for me to feel the clammy sweat rolling off his skin. “You’re a ballsy little bitch, aren’t ya?”

“Dad,” Alex groaned, and even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel the pain pouring out of him. His pain hurt me more than my own did. “I swear, if you touch her again…”

“You’ll…?” Nicholas smirked, his focus still on me.

“… I’ll kill you myself.” Alex winced.

His father opened his mouth to speak again, and all I could think about was finding a way to remove that smirk from his face without getting myself crippled in the process. Whatever he was about to say stayed on the tip of his tongue and he was soon closing his mouth and dropping his finger from my chin.

“I was leaving anyway,” he muttered, flaring his nostrils as he shot me one last glance of pure hatred and pushed himself up to a shaky, not as confident as he made out, stand. “You all have an hour to get out of my house. When I come back, I don’t want to see any of you here. Get your shit and leave. Do you hear me?”

Staying exactly where I was, I raised my chin to look up at him. “If you come back here tonight, Mr. Law, I will have you arrested. Unless Alex or his mother contacts you, stay away.”

Pulling on the lapels of his suit jacket, Nicholas ran a hand through the side of his hair before he pointed a finger directly in my face and widened his eyes. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but if you ever come back here again, I will finish you. Do you understand me? That’s not a warning. That’s a fucking promise, princess. You have one hour. One hour.”

“Then I hope you enjoy a night in the cells.” I gulped, certain that he could hear me swallowing the sound of my own fear.

Nobody spoke after that. It was a standoff. A showdown. A moment of time that was balancing over a pit of absolute hell. One false move and we would all be burning again. All he had to do was walk away. Walk away, Mr. Law, I wanted to yell. Walk right out into that road and get hit by a bus. Just don’t you ever come near Alex again. But instead, I stayed mute. I’d said enough. I’d put on a show I hadn’t known I was capable of. Now the cold reality of fear was tickling away at my spine as the devil himself turned his alcohol fuelled eyes on me one last time. We said a lot in that silence. I told him, without speaking, that I hated him and I loved his son. He told me without uttering a word that I could have his son and he hated all of us.

It was only after he stepped over me with no grace at all and leaned down to Alex to whisper something in his ear, that he eventually stood again and walked down the hall to the front door and out into the night. That’s when I finally allowed myself to breathe again. It came out in a rush. My chest ached from the weight of it, but I had no time to wait around and feel sorry for myself.

As soon as I knew I was safer than I had been moments ago, I pushed myself up onto trembling knees and turned immediately to Alex’s mother. It wasn’t the first place I wanted to go, not even a little bit, but I knew without a doubt that it would be the first place he would want me to go.

“Mrs. Law? Umm, Beatrice?” My hands found her shoulders carefully. The way she flinched had tears forming in my eyes, tears I didn’t have time to shed as I guided her to the nearest chair I could find by the kitchen doorway. She never looked up from the floor, not even when I crouched in front of her and rubbed her arm carefully.

“Excuse me for barging into your home that way. It was rude and wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do. You’re safe now. I just need to check on Alex and then I’ll take a look at that swelling on your face, okay?”

Beatrice didn’t answer.

I forced myself to turn away from her as smoothly as I could, and then it felt like I was running again before sliding down beside Alex. His whole body was curled up, but still, and I could already see several shades of red and purple breaking out across his face. Whatever he’d endured while I’d been here, I had a feeling he’d been through a lot worse before I pushed through the door.

Every part of me wanted to throw myself over him and tell him how sorry I was. Instead, I crossed my legs and let a single finger fall to the edge of his face. As soon as it found his jaw line, it moved up and down in a soothing trail, touching as carefully as it could.

“Alex?” I whispered.

His eyes were on the floor, too, just like his mother’s. Maybe this was how they always coped after this happened. I’d heard of animals, newborns especially, who fell to the ground like lead, remaining silent as soon as they thought a predator was nearby. Maybe that’s what the Laws did. They had learned how to survive as prey. They’d learned how to keep each other safe.

“Alex?” I whispered again, desperate for him to show me anything at all. “Alex, please. Say something to me.”

His long lashes crashed down like they had the weight of the world resting on them, but when he eventually looked back up, moving his head to angle it in my direction, I almost wished I’d left him exactly how he had been.

“Are you okay?” he asked me carefully.

“I’m here. I’m fine. I’m here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” I lied.

He exhaled slowly and his shoulders sagged in defeat. “Natalie?”

“Yes?”

“What the hell have you just done?”

Those words rang on repeat for quite some time after they’d left his lips. I helped him stand, trying not to make a sound when he winced or pressed his arm against his rib in pain. I didn’t say a word when he crouched in front of his mother and somehow brought her back to life with a few whispered words of comfort that I wasn’t allowed to hear.

My body stayed still by the door when he brought a cold flannel to her face and caught her falling tears with his thumb. I didn’t even protest when I heard him muttering under his breath all the ways he was going to finish his father, the first opportunity he got.

What the hell have you just done?

There was only one answer.

I had no clue. No clue at all.

Time seemed to stand still, everything playing out while I remained standing there like some bored onlooker who had no attachment at all to the situation in front of me. And that was as far from the truth as North was from South.

I was attached to their pain. I could feel it tugging on my heartstrings like someone was plucking every thread of every heartbeat until my whole insides fell apart.

Beatrice never once looked my way – not even when small signs of life started to seep back into her consciousness. After a while, the pink returned to her colouring, right alongside the tremor of her hands and the prickling of her skin as reality hit her, somewhat cruelly, square in the chest.

God, I wanted to save her. I wanted to save them both, but when Alex had taken her upstairs and settled her for the night, the atmosphere in the whole house seemed to shift all at once. If I’d thought it was cold before, it was nothing compared to the icy temperatures I was certain had been brought along by my dread and my dread alone.

I watched him as he walked back down the stairs towards me. My hands took on their natural defensive pose, crossed tightly across my chest as I held myself in reassurance. The Alex I’d come to know and love was gone, and in his place was a broken boy with hatred in his heart and defeat fresh in his mind. I was losing him.

I knew I was losing him.

“Is she okay?” I eventually asked when he hit the bottom step, pausing before looking up at me.

“She will be.”

His hazel eyes seemed darker now. They were filled with a sadness that had drowned out all the beauty, leaving nothing but emptiness behind, all of which was aimed directly at me. The after effects of the storm were being laid at my feet, all the damage, and all the destruction. I was the tornado. He was the man who'd just lost everything because of my recklessness.

“You need to go, Natalie,” he forced himself to say. His voice croaked when he spoke.

“What? Why?”

“Please.”

“I don’t want to go,” I muttered.

“It’s best for everyone if you do.”

“For everyone?”

“Yes.”

Alex’s shoulders sagged when he blew out all the air in his lungs. The old me would have seen the performance he was putting on and run a mile without further ado. I would have chastised myself for thinking a boy like him could ever possibly care for a girl like me and told myself this cold reaction of his was only natural. It made sense in the laws of attraction. I was to worship a god like him. He was to look down on me with distaste or even worse, indifference.

Only I wasn’t the old me anymore. I was Natalie Vincent post Alex Law. I was the girl he’d brought to life, the girl he’d made step out of the bubble. I was feeling again because he had forced me to the surface of my existence and taught me to look around. All around. Not just in my home, but at the world, up at the skies, and into the eyes of everyone that passed me by. I was even beginning to believe in something, and I chose to believe at that moment that he was testing me to see if I was tough enough to stay.

“Don’t do this, Alex. Don’t push me away. I’m here for you.”

His jaw set tight, his muscles twitching hard as he ground his teeth together and turned his head to the side so he didn’t have to look at me.

“I don’t want you here for me anymore.”

“You don’t mean that,” I whispered, angling my head to the side to try to catch his attention again, but it was wasted on him. He wanted no part of me.

“Leave. Please. Before I say something I know I will regret.”

“Like what? What could you say to me that you would regret? What have I done that is so wrong?”

“Don't push me.”

“I will always push you, just like you've pushed me.”

“Just... go,” he ordered, tensing the muscles in his face even more.

“No.”

“Go,” he pushed out, the strength in his voice making me flinch back enough for it to feel like a slap in the face.

“Tell me what I’ve done wrong,” I pleaded, desperate not to let him hear the tremble in my words.

His head snapped back to me. The anger shone from his eyes and the caged beast inside him was struggling to break free. I could see it all. I could see the other side of my perfect man – the darker side.

“Natalie, I can’t say it again nicely, so please, don’t ask me to. I don’t want to hurt you, but I didn’t ask you to come here tonight, either. I need you to leave.” His hand curled tightly around the banister, then he stood taller, pushing his shoulders back so he could stare down on me even more. “Now.”

“What did he say to you?” I whispered as I narrowed my eyes. “Before he left, what did he whisper in your ear?”

“Nothing.”

“I don't believe you.”

I wanted to shrink under his intense gaze, but I was so lost in looking at him that nothing else, not even the natural reactions my body should have been having, seemed to matter. “I don't care what you believe. I’m going to go into the kitchen to get my mother something to drink. By the time I get back, I don’t want to see you standing here in front of me. I don't want you in this house, Natalie. I can't have you here. I…” Alex paused, closing his eyes briefly before he rolled his tongue across the front of his teeth and eventually looked back down on me. For a second, I imagined that he was going to tell me he loved me and he would explain everything tomorrow. Even the passing thought of those words leaving his lips had my chest tightening.

But what a fool a fool in love really is.

“You?” I breathed out.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he finally croaked.

I’d never thought much about falling for a boy before. I’d never imagined that heartache could feel any different to the heartache I’d felt when I watched Elizabeth slip through my fingers. I guess I’d thought all pain was the same, each one leaving you feeling hollow, numb, empty, devoid of life.

But as I watched Alex walk away, and all those new dreams of him and me together seemed to disappear down an endless road that I wasn't allowed to step foot on, I discovered that there must be different types of pain in the world because this one didn’t leave me feeling numb at all.

This one burned.

It burned me alive.

My skin was on fire and the hot poker that was pressed against my chest was choking me, stopping me from breathing. It was only when he turned on the water and I heard the glass in his hand begin to fill that I forced myself to blink and move. The rest is all a blur, but not enough of a blur for me to forget the fact that once I ran out of that door, down that road and rounded the corner, I bent over in the street to grip my stomach tight and begged for any god there was to make the aching stop.

It didn’t, though. It didn’t stop when I eventually got home and it didn’t stop when I tried to sleep that night.

It didn’t stop no matter what I tried to do. I ached, and I ached, and I ached. Even in my sleep.