“Why do you let people treat you that way?” I asked, hearing the cutting edge fueling my voice.

Axel’s lower neck muscles bunched, his traps and thick arms seeming to increase in size as his eyes squeezed shut. He blew a slow calming breath through his nostrils, his olive skin flushing with red.

When he didn’t say anything in reply, I added, “It’s not fair how they look at you. Because you look this way, they assume you’re a gangbanger who’s going to cause nothing but trouble. It makes me sick!” He still didn’t respond, so I stepped closer to him and made him look into my eyes. “Why are you staying silent? Say something, Goddammit! Why are you not saying a damn word?”

Axel’s hand became bruising in mine. With a frustrated grunt, he spun, dragging me along the empty hallway, until he stopped in front of a door with the sign ‘Store Room.’

Turning the doorknob, he pulled me through and released my hand. He began to pace the floor. I watched him carefully, but adrenaline was still pumping wildly in my blood.

Running a hand over my face, I asked, “Why are we in here?”

Axel stopped dead and, spinning to face me, his face contorting in rage, he reached over my shoulder to the door and snapped the lock shut.

Using his chest, he pushed me back against a set of metal shelves. “You don’t think I care?” he hissed low.

I swallowed… I’d pushed him to his breaking point.

“You don’t think every time one of those cunts, like those asshole guards, looks at me like I’m nothing more than trash, I don’t wanna turn around and fuck them up? Because I do! I fucking hate everyone. I hate people and their fucking ‘I’m above you’ attitudes, the ‘this guy is gonna hurt me’ opinion of me when they see me walking down the street. I have an anger inside of me that I’m pretty fucking sure will never leave, an anger if unleashed it on fuckers like that, I’d end up killing. And I would kill them, I know it. I wouldn’t be able to stop. ‘Cause that’s what I’ve been fighting my whole life, assholes like that! Judging me and fucking wanting me to fail, to disappear so I wouldn’t be society’s problem anymore.”

“Axel, that’s not right—”

Raising his hands to the metal shelves, he hit his hand against the top one and snapped, “And I don’t need you to fucking defend me!”

My eyes widened and any anger I was holding dissipated, only sorrow creeping in as his words took over. “I couldn’t take it. You’re not the man they see! They’re so wrong about you!”

Axel laughed in my face, but it was a dark mocking laugh. He shook his head, looking at me like I was stupid. “They’re not wrong!” he bellowed. “They’re fucking right! I am the man they think I am! I’ve been that man for so long I don’t know how to be anyone else. You just don’t let yourself see the real me! You’re blinded by all this art, Elpidio shit!” he rushed forward and cupped my face in his hands. “Wake the fuck up, Ally! I’m Axel Carillo. I’m bad, I’m no good for you… Jesus Christ! I’m a motherfucking coke dealer! You keep trying to make out I’m this great guy, looking up at me with those big ol’ doe eyes like I’m your sun, but I’m the damn opposite! I’m midnight! I’m a fucking eclipse that steals the light! I’ve done it to everyone in my sorry piece of shit life! Look at Austin! Levi! My mamm—”

Axel’s voice cut off, breaking with emotion as he tried to utter his mother’s name. He paled; even saying her name irreparably crushed him.

He cared…

“You’re more than that,” I argued, gripping his arm and pulling him round to face me. “Don’t you dare pull this shit on me, Axel. Not me.” I took in a shuddering breath as he watched me with an unmoving tough expression chiseled on his rugged face. “Don’t you dare do this. The man I’m with is a good man.”

His hands gripped his long hair. “You have no fucking idea. You like the idea that I’m this reformed bad boy turned sculptor you’ve given your heart to. The truth is, there’s no reformation for me, Ally. I just cover the evil inside me real well. When I went to jail, I had to learn to deal with prison life real damn quick. I had to learn to rein in the anger or risk being killed. I had to pretend to be a good guy so I could get the fuck out alive… you have no idea what it was like…”

“Shut up,” I snapped. Axel’s muscles began twitching at how tightly he was tensing in response to my attitude.