Chapter 112

Dylan POV.

He was so close to me, I could feel the heat coming from his own body slowly increasing my own. Lewis grinned while I simply glanced at his mouth. God, our lips were centimeters away from each other our breaths intertwined, causing a whole new form of heat to rise inside me. "You smell different today..." I heard him mumble slightly as he leaned even closer which caused my eyes to widen a fraction. "You should have told me." He spoke before finally backing away from my body.

His once cheeky, expression changed drastically as hurt took over his features. His eyebrows scrunched ever so slightly before a sympathetic smile became directed at me.

"Happy Birthday, Dylan!" My face dropped quickly at his words. I hadn't told anyone when my birthday was, so I genuinely had no idea how he knew it was actually today.

"How do you know that it is today?" I couldn't help but question him as I slightly turned my head away. There was no way that was just an estimated guess.

"Your scent is different. Everyone always smells different on their birthday, it's like your body subtly shows the day you were born into the world. Anyway, I always notice straight away if anything is different with you. Trust me." He smiled slightly before frowning once again. "How are you feeling today?"

I had no idea how I was feeling. My emotions were so up the wall it was becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint just one. It was my birthday, I should have been at home, opening my homemade cards, and enjoying the chaos and giggles of my mom and Freddie as we baked a plateful of pancakes, right before seeing what gifts my family had managed to get for me. Instead of all that, I was miles from home, surrounded by people who I barely knew, and trying to fight for some semblance of a peaceful life. It wasn't the birthday I had in mind, but it was the birthday I got. I had to make the most out of my day.

"I'm just trying to keep my mind focused." I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to show nonchalance, when in reality my mind and my body were hyper aware of everything. "Not that I'm actually allowed to do that." I rolled my eyes in frustration at what V was like. Actually thinking about it, maybe I just needed another perspective. I wonder what Lewis's opinion on things were.

"What do you mean, you're not allowed to do that? Whose stopping you?" Had he really no clue about what was going on? Could he not see that V was too soft, that she was too blind to the rest of the world to worry about anything.

"Who do you think?" I gave him a flat look as he began to process who it could be. Sometimes Lewis really could be clueless.

"That's just V. Even I have been telling her for weeks that she needs to start pushing for things in the pack. At the moment she's just focused on increasing our numbers." I just sighed. I understood that side of it, but she was just complacent, it wasn't about boosting the number of bodies the rebellion had, no, for V it was survival that she craved more than justice.

"Well, despite what her end goal is, the truth of the matter is that we need to do something soon. Did you know that 16 districts have burnt down their punishment stages?" I shook my head still trying to come to terms with what I had started. I really did need to give something back to the people who were willing to support me and my ideals. I was done cowering behind anyone I could.

"Actually it's 17 now. And that's just in America." He smiled slightly when my eyes widened at his statement. I almost forgot about the other countries trying to put an end to human persecution.

I hadn't even thought about the other countries, but they too were fighting with everything they had. If only we could devise a plan with them. Wait... that's what we should do, we should come up with a way to get in touch with each country and the rebellion that accompanied it.

It meant that my crazy idea to close the border to the rebellions sector didn't need to be put into fruition just yet, not until we've at least spoken with other rebels. We simply had to get in touch with the other countries and their own insurgencies. I already knew for a fact that Australia had come the closest to claiming their independence away from the king and his backwards views, but if we could somehow get in touch with every single one, the opposing side wouldn't stand a chance.

"Lewis... your an actual genius." My mind began to ponder over everything. Now that I was in the rebels safe zone, I should be able to have access to old laptops and radios in order to reach out to the other countries, it shouldn't even be that difficult, I think starting the smuggling trade years ago probably took more time and effort than this ever would. I could do this.

"Why, what did I say?" I always found Lewis extremely attractive when he was confused. He had no idea where my mind was running too, but he never once cared. My eyes lit up with fierceness flashing across them, while he just frowned yet smiled once again at my fight.

"I think it's high time we United the rebels together." This could work, V would get off my back slightly about trying to increase the number of rebels currently preparing to fight, not to mention it would give us a huge advantage over the king if we got the support of all the other countries in the world. "You've just reminded me that we aren't the only country who's tired of living under the kings tyrannic rule, and we definitely aren't the only county to rally people together in order to fight his ideals."

"Of course we aren’t, you know yourself that Josh had to fly out to Australia to quell their rebellion. I’m still not entirely sure how he managed to gain control again. I never did get the chance to see the report that was made…” He trailed off slightly, his sight looking down on me while I swallowed thickly and refused to meet his eye.

The day the king came back from his travels was the very same day that he took it upon him self to completely defile me in front of Lewis. It was the single most humiliating and degrading thing I had ever been through.

“I’m sorry I never meant…” I shook my head and sighed. It was stupid to get emotional over things that had happened. The pair of us had no control over king Josh’s actions and they couldn’t exactly be changed now, it didn’t stop my mind from finally understanding that Lewis really would never see me as anything other than damaged.

“It can’t be changed. We should both just move on…” I attempted to walk away from him, only his large hand took a gentle hold of my wrist and stopped me in my tracks, pulling me closer into his naked torso slightly.

“It…” His eyes flashed with concentration as his mind tried to conjure up something to say about it. Not that he could actually think of anything to counter the actions of his grace. “It can’t be changed, you’re right… but it never should have happened, I…” His voice trailed off. Why couldn’t he just move on? It wasn’t like it was that traumatic for him, all he had to do was watch. “I should never have let anything like that happen.” I shrugged, the past should stay buried, instead of being bought up in the forever changing present.

I was damaged, I knew that, but the last thing I wanted was Lewis to see me as completely destroyed. Every time he bought up what King Josh did to me, my stomach would painfully contract contract, even more so when I realized that he would never see me as anything other than a broken down person.

“What were you going to do? Break your alpha kings command? You and I both couldn’t do a damn thing about it, and we both know it. Look, It happened, so let’s just forget about it and move on.” His eyes welled up a bit and I frowned at his sorrow. Thinking back, the man did shout an awful lot of disagreement while the king had his way with me.

“I should have fought harder, I should have been the one to save you!” Maybe he should have, but he didn’t, and he couldn’t. He gently moved his hand and carefully tucked my hair behind my ear, before doing his thing and cupping my cheek in his large palm, I subconsciously lean into it, feeling a small flutter of sparks run through me at his touch.

“There’s nothing either of us would do differently, because there was nothing we could do then! Let’s just leave the past where it belongs… in the past.” His gaze was scrutinizing as he refused to turn away from my orbs, I felt like he was seeing it all over again all of a sudden, and so I couldn’t hold his stare, my eyes wandered over everywhere and anywhere, but every now and again I would catch him, his eyes never faltering from my face, not once. “What is it?” I asked as he continued to stare at me for a second.

Even before he bought all this up again, Lewis always seemed to have a really far off look in his eyes lately whenever he met my gaze, almost as if I was the only thing he could focus on, I wondered why a lot of the time. Maybe he really couldn’t look at me in any other way, maybe he really did just see the damaged and scarred person I had become. “Lewis? Are you ok?”

The far off look suddenly came back to the present and he cleared his throat before turning away from me.

“I’m Sorry, you need rest, and I need to wash up… I won’t keep you any longer.” Now hold on, there’s no way he was just going to leave me after bringing everything back up to the surface, was all his kindness, just a pathetic act of pity?

“Can you really not look at me anymore without remembering that?” I asked my voice barely even a whisper as he stood in front of me, I shook my head and let my sight meet the floor as my hands began to fiddle with each other. “You can’t look at me without seeing what King Josh did to me, can you?” I felt my eyes begin to water slightly as I thought about losing one of the only people I had left in this world.

“No, it’s not that at all, Dylan…” he cut himself off as if trying to think about his next sentence. It didn’t matter what he said though, I knew the truth and so I began to walk off again, only to be stopped by him for the second time this evening. “I promise you, it really isn’t like that, honestly, I… I sometimes have to remind myself of what he did.” What did he mean he had to remind himself? Did He actually want to remember? My eyes widened drastically and they slowly met his again this time anger clouded me.

“You want to remind yourself of it?” He shook his head and growled slightly running his hand through his hair in exasperation. “Why?! Why would you want to remember the most humiliating and soul destroying moment of my life?