I HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING THE NOTES. LIKE SERIOUSLY, IT'S IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT TO THIS STORY, PROMISE -R.W(:

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“Tony please just leave it alone!”

“No!” he roared, stuffing his arms through his leather jacket and stomping on his shoes. “How could you even think to ask me to do that? Huh?!”

Vic was silently fuming with his head to the ground and a slight shake to his shoulders. Vic was a man of self control—something that helped to balance me, something I needed and appreciated. Tony on the other hand had a look that would commence Armageddon if he had the choice.

“I took care of it!” I shouted back.

“No you didn’t!” He retorted immediately. “It isn’t handled till she gets what she deserves!”

“I told you I beat the shit out of her already! Isn’t that enough?!”

“No. Its fucking not,” Vic seethed, his eyes burning into my soul through my wet, red eyes.

Vic grabbed me by my arm and dragged me to a mirror a few feet away from Tony and planted me there.

“Look at you,” he breathed.

I avoided the mirror, “V…Vi—

“Look at yourself!” he demanded with a callous tone that made me snap my head up and immediately stare back at myself.

With quick hands he yanked up the sleeve of my shirt and shoved my arm into my face, “Do you see this?! Does she have one of these Phoenix? How about two? Maybe three?”
I was silent and my lips tightened, doing my best not to start bawling again.

"Or this?" he continued, yanking up my other sleeve and showing the most gruesome of all my scars."

I gulped

"Does she have anything like this?!" he asked holding my arm up to be seen in the mirror.

“Answer me!” he screamed at me, franticly searching my eyes.

“N-No…”

“What was that?”

“No,” I muttered defeated.

“Phoenix!”

“No! She doesn’t have any of the scars I have but—

“Stop! There is no but! What she’s put you through isn’t the equivalent of bruising her face! It doesn’t add up. Look in the mirror.”

I looked at him, silently begging for him to not make me take in the reality of it all.

“Now.”

Finally allowing a whimper to pass my lips I looked at the elegant mirror and gave it the power to throw my pain back in my face. My eyes had slight bags and purple blotches decorating them and making the redness from irritation more obvious. My lip was undeniably busted. With my hair pulled into a pony tail the bump on my forehead was fairly prominent and a complimentary bruise was blooming beneath my skin. My skin, underneath all the bruises and swelling, was pale and sickly looking—simply drained of all color. This wasn’t my first run in with a mirror after a fight but this particular confrontation really hurt the most. Probably because I wasn’t doing this in private, I was forced to do it by the man I loved in front of the boys I’d die for. Or maybe because the same man that was making me go through this was angry enough for the both of us, so angry he’d throw me—catapult me out of my comfort zone to understand why he was ready to ride into the night and seek proper revenge on my behalf.

“Why don’t you understand?” he muttered bitterly, shaking his head and turning away from my shaking figure.

“I do,” I tried without much conviction in my voice. As a result, he didn’t hear me and reached for his coat, a livid Tony waiting at the door.

“I do,” I repeated stronger, “I understand.”

Vic whipped around with wild eyes that worried me, “How? What do you think you understand, Phoenix?”

Nerves crept through me, hindering my tongue.

I can’t afford to say the wrong thing.

Much needed reassurance didn’t meet my thought, making my heart heavier.

“I understand that um…that you had to watch me go through all this and that it hurts.”

Vic stared at me for a minute but I swear to you it felt like a century.

With a scoff he shook his head, “Not even close. It’s so much deeper than that. So much deeper.”

“Tell me,” I begged, not wanting him to leave like this; Who knew what he’d do in this state of mind.

“Tell you?” he growled dangerously.

“Ye-Yes.”

“N-No,” he mocked, stepping closer to an impatient Tony.

“Vic ple—

“No! That’s what you’ve been doing right? ‘Phoenix where are you going? Why are there bruises on your leg? Why are you getting home so late? Why didn’t show up to our movie night? Are you okay? You know what all these questions were met with?” he asked sardonically.

“N-No,” I whispered look at my feet knowing fully well the answer to his question. Shame, absolute shame was only feeling I could register.

“Lies! They were all responded to with lies—you just lied right then! But if I was lucky,” he started sarcastically, “I got no explanation at all! So no, Phoenix, I’m not going to explain anything to you right now.”

Jaime and Mike were side by side, staring sympathetically at me when I met their gaze. I trusted my eyes with sending the message that I need a buffer, that I’d be collapsing from a crying fit any second.

“Hey um, Vic,” Vic turned to him, a good chunk of the dark energy that was so heavily concentrated on me landing on both Mike and Jaime’s worried disposition. Gulping, Jaime continued with the uncertainty as to whether he still wanted Vic’s undivided attention, “Maybe we should all talk about this once you,” he glanced at a fuming tony clutching the door knob, “and Tone have calmed down. That way we don’t regret whatever it is we do? Sound good?”

“No,” Vic decided sharply without hesitation and went to the door, Tony opening it for the both of them.

I went to chase them but he lashed around and I nearly tripped myself up from having to stop so abruptly.

“Stay. Here,” he ordered with fire in his eyes and a stiff hand motion directing me towards Jaime and Mike. I noticed how careful he was to not touch me and scrunched up my face continuing the ongoing battle with my tears. Vic nodded at something above me? Maybe behind? Immediately following the observation I felt Mike’s hand on my shoulder and my inhibitions shattered.

“Don’t do this!” I demanded suddenly frustrated. I’ve never seen Vic like this and I had no clue as to what he was capable of or what his decision making process was like when he was like this. His reason seemed to dissolve and all of his control snapped. The things that made Vic, Vic were invisible at the moment. Hell, for all I knew they no longer existed

“You don’t get to ask me to do that! Now you either stay in this house or you walk home—that you get a choice in.”

“This is about me so why—

“It’s not about you!” He interrupted, slamming his fist into the wall next to him. I yelped out of fear and jumped, Mike’s grip on me tightening. Vic pulled his hand from the fresh hole in the wall and slammed the door before I could beg for him to explain what it was about if not me. Mike dragged my shaking form from the door when I went to open it upon hearing the engine to one of their cars start.

“Let me go!” I cried.

Jaime picked me up at the bends of my knees and supported my back.

“Let me go!” I screamed and flailed more intensely as they dragged me upstairs.

After a while I wasn't sure if I was begging Jaime or the demons that seemed to keep a constant vice around me. The demons that continuously starved me of peace and filled me with disaster and destruction; demons that relentlessly tore me and anyone I loved—or loved me—piece by piece, limb from limb.

Notes

So...Yeah you all probz hate me now. xD So I was thinking and this most requesting the thing for me to do is different POVs and I was thinking I could do a collection of some of the more interesting chapters in a requested POV. Ex: If you want to know about Vic's christmas break and when he got Pheonix's earrings or when Tony was with Tinsley much earlier in the book or Vic before moving, Jaime meeting Vic and Mike, Tony when he kissed Nix or Phe's opionion on all of this and what shes up to no longer allowed to communicate with Nix OR Vic in this chapter, losing his mind-- request it! And I will get it done~ SORRY FOR ANY ERRORS, I'm a bit of a lazy ass hole and I'll probably never get around to fixing it :p
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QOTD: Response to Vic and Tony's reaction? Should Nix have told? Requests for POVs? Comment!