She took a deep breath knowing she was stronger than anyone else in the building, no mere human was strong enough to hurt her. She walked to the floor where she knew Mila and Selena shared an apartment. She'd shared with them too once a long time ago. The dark halls smelled of varying types of food and a stink that only comes from a building where decomposition was a regular occurrence. People, food, rodents, everything had rotted within the walls at one point or another.

Seven zero seven was their apartment. The door didn’t have the scratches that it should, the scratches she recalled making. Her memories were false, none of it had happened. Selena and Mila would never remember her. They would hate her instantly. They would never let her in. They would try to hurt her. Instinct would tell them the clean stranger at their door was probably a young cop.

She knocked and took a deep breath.

She heard footsteps behind the door and muffled voices.

The knob turned, "You gots to have the wrong apartment bitch. We don’t deal and even if we did we wouldn’t deal to some dumb college bitch like you." Selena answered the door skinnier than Ari remembered her being. Her dark arm was covered in track marks.

Ari reached a hand out faster than Selena could comprehend and grabbed her by the throat so she couldn’t make a move. The push came out slowly preventing Selena from screaming. Ari stepped into the apartment taking Selena with her. Suddenly the picture filled the dark hallway of the entrance to the apartment. Ari closed the dirty door ignoring the screaming Christian inside her mind.

Selena was eleven, she was walking home from the store for her mom. A man came up to her and showed her a picture of his lost dog. He looked so sad. She agreed to help him look. Suddenly she was in a trunk, she threw up she was so scared. He pulled her from the trunk and dragged her to a trailer out in the woods. She ran away from the trailer when she was thirteen. She knew the way home, she walked home scared and starving but they were gone. They'd left her behind.

Suddenly she was back on the sidewalk and the man asked her to help him look for the dog. She screamed as loud as she could and ran just like her mommy had told her to do. A man came out of the store and grabbed the man. The police came and asked her questions. Her mommy held her and kept her safe and they took the bad man away. Selena walked down the aisle smiling at her mommy and squeezing her dads' hand. He gave her to the handsome man in the military outfit. Selena smiled at the man and faded.

Ari sobbed silently as Selena vanished leaving behind a white pebble. It floated in the air for a second and crashed to the floor rolling away from Ari. Ari knew it was the magic pebble Selena had told her about once. Every night when she was held captive she made a wish and rubbed it, praying for either her life to end or the opportunity to get away.

"Selena what the hell, who was at the door?" Mila stormed out of her room in nothing but underwear and a tank top. She frowned angrily at Ari, "Who the hell are you? Get the fuck out of my house."

Ari's hand went up to Mila's throat the same as she'd done to Selena to prevent her from screaming.

Mila tried to struggle for a second but went still as the air sparkled. The air around her filled with a picture. Her mom passed out on the couch with pills around her. Her father screaming at her mom and Mila hiding under the table watching. She closed her eyes and prayed, she might have been twelve. A knock at the door broke the noise. A woman came in. She yelled at Mila's dad and looked under the table at a frightened young Mila. She offered her hand but Mila looked at her mom on the couch and shook her head. She couldn’t go with her aunt and leave her mom. Her aunt left. Mila was starving, she needed food. Her stomach hurt, she took the pills from her mom and ate them. She needed the pills. She left school and ran away when the pills ran out.

Suddenly she was back under the table. When her aunt put her hand out Mila took it. She hugged her and pulled her away from the house. She went to a small but clean apartment. There was food and hugs. Mila faded into the picture where she was standing over a dying man in nurses uniform. She stroked his hair and spoke soft words to him as he left. A silver ruby earring hung in the air. It had been the only thing Mila had from her old life. It had been her mothers. Ari reached for it as it tumbled to the ground and rolled near the white stone.

Ari collapsed onto the floor in a pile of tears. She remembered their pain for only the second she allowed herself. She knew she could roam the streets for years sending everyone back if she allowed herself to feel the pain everyone felt.

Chapter Twenty-Two Which is Worse Pride or Prejudice?

Aimee

She looked at Shane and smiled, "You've been writing him for a year and half pretending to be me?"

He nodded as he walked up to his truck, "He was so sad Aims. He was getting to a dark place. Alise left with dick and he was so alone. I couldn’t take it."

She pressed her lips together, "Thank you. Thank you for everything."

He shook his head, "I didn’t do it for you. He's the only family I really have."

Aimee frowned, "Your dad and mom?"

"My mom killed herself Aimee and my dad remarried that girl. My sister took a job in Sweden and left me here. My dad has a new baby boy so I guess that does count as family for me."

She gasped, "Oh Shane I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

He looked hurt, "How could you? Where have you been?"

She looked down, "I'm so sorry."

"Get in the truck Aimee."

"I cant."

He opened the door and looked at her like he would rip her head off. She nodded and climbed in. She looked up at the window at her father waving and smiled. She waved back. She had told him she needed to talk to Shane but would be back.

Shane got in the truck and started it not looking at her or speaking. He drove in awkward silence.

"I'm seeing Aleks." She said it not thinking.

He flexed his jaw processing it, "I don’t care. No wait I do. Do you love him?" He looked at her.

She shook her head, "Not the same way I love you. I just put you in a pile of things I can't have. My dad, you, Alise, Giselle. Things I can hurt are in that pile."

He slammed on the brakes, "AIMEE WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? YOU THINK WE DON’T HURT EVERYDAY WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU? NO ONE HAS BEEN SAVED PAIN BY YOU IGNORING OUR EXISTANCE!"

She cringed feeling the tears slipping from her eyes. Like a floodgate the tears poured from her face.

He sighed pulling her into him. He smelled like ocean air and deodorant and the wind. She took a deep breath and let it be everything she wanted. She pulled away from him and smiled.

"I need to end this with Aleksander." She winked herself out of the truck.

She looked up at Lydia's house dreading the conversation she was about to have.

She walked up to the house seeing Aleks coming out the front door, "Hey." He smiled. He was so handsome, everything about him was as if he had been made just for her. His dark blond hair and white blue eyes made her knees weak but his voice was like listening to her favorite song. She knew he had the same effect on every woman he met but she liked to pretend it was just for her that he existed.

She smiled weakly, "Hey."

He sighed, "What?"

She bit her lip trying to keep a small amount of distance from him, "Look, uhm in Ari's world before, when she knew us before, I was with Shane. Lucas told me Ari was the one who accidentally got Shane and I back together."

He nodded, "I know."

She watched his face start to break and hated herself, "It feels like the right way things should be. If I was with him before and I never killed him and I'm able to let him in my life again without hurting him it's what I want."

His devastatingly handsome face remained stoic as he was with everything excluding her, "If that’s your wish then I wont try to change your mind. I never knew I'd played second fiddle all along. I thought you chose me. How foolish of me." He was gone leaving her surrounded by the warm wind. She took a deep breath feeling relief mixed with the sickness.

She winked herself home to her dads and knocked on the door.

He opened smiling still shocking her with how much he'd aged.

"Hey sweetie, come on in." He held the door open for her.

She walked inside and hugged him as hard as she could. She ignored the heat in her hands craving his life force. She ignored the pain she'd brought him trying to protect him and she just held tightly to him.

"Daddy. I made a mistake."

He laughed, "With Shane again is it?"

She laughed, "Always."

He pulled her back, "Well lets have a little Austen then shall we and you can tell me all about it over some tea."

She laughed, "Sounds great."

"I did get a new TV. Blake bought it for me for Christmas last year."

She smiled, "That's Blake. Do they come and visit?"

He shook his head, "It’s a long way and a lot of money."

She nodded, "Pride and Prejudice?"

"Yes I do like that Darcy fellow."

"I missed you dad."

"Me too kiddo."

Chapter Twenty-Three- Death By Jazz Hands

Ari

She wanted to walk back to Lydia's, she wanted to curl up in her bed and go to sleep and let the whole day just be gone forever. The hunger in her hands was long gone with having pushed two people in one day but the itch in her legs was still there. She knew what she needed to do.

She got a taxi to the airport and booked her flight. She kept looking behind and around for Lucas, she knew he could sniff her out no matter where she went. She checked her cell phone but the only messages were from Ben. He begged and pleaded for a chance to see her and try to fix things. The new churchy Ari cried inside. She was desperate to fix things with Ben. She tortured Ari with images of the loving and gentle caresses, the soft romantic words spoken and the way Ben looked at her. She saw the love in his eyes and felt the sorrow in her heart even when it wasn’t hers.

There was no consoling the other Ari when she realized Ari was completely in control of herself and could push her behind the curtain she'd made in her mind. Ari deleted the messages and looked in her phone for Dorian's number.