Hellbound With You

When Alicia returned to Ezekiel's house, she stilled in shock that it was already empty. She quickly entered into his bedroom, but he was already long gone. The vampire woman from before was no longer there anymore as well. Where the hell did he go?!

Her gaze fell onto the king-sized bed and she creased her brows. Did something even happen in here? The mattress was as neat and impeccable as how it was before she ran off. Not a single crease could be seen on the clean sheets, much less any evidence of more enticing activities that seemingly did not occur at all.

Boom! Realization now struck Alicia and her eyes widened as her mouth dropped open in disbelief. Ezekiel… did he actually planned all of that so deliberately, all for the sake of getting rid of her from hounding his tail? Did he?! That would mean he knew all along that she had been following after him and spying on him night and day, right?

Fury blazed in Alicia's eyes. But the anger was not fully directed at Ezekiel. Most of her rage was actually directed towards herself. Why did she talk herself out of the possibility that Ezekiel could probably see and hear her all these times? She could not believe that she had underestimated Ezekiel of all creatures. She should have known better. This man would never be easy to deal with and yet… she stupidly let him fool her. At the back of her mind, she also remembered that Zeres had already warned her about his matter a few times as well. But she was unwilling to admit to herself that she did not want to listen to him.

Her guts however, had already told her since the beginning that Ezekiel could see her. But she idiotically had chosen not to believe it. Maybe because she was just too desperate that she ended up being too stupidly optimistic about this matter.

Now he was gone. He had gotten rid of her so easily just like that. And that was what had angered her the most.

"Stupid! So stupid!" she scolded herself. This was the first time she was this mad at herself to the point that she was calling herself that word. She had always been confident of her judgements on things. She knew her own abilities. She was not stupid. In fact, she was far from it, and that was not her being conceited. She knew that she was one of the smartest witch queens that had ever existed.

But right now, just based on the fact that she had let Ezekiel fool her to this extent was enough to crush her ego. And she could only resort to anger to cover up her embarrassment. And no matter how much she tried to think on how to resolve it, nothing of any relevance was coming to her mind.

In the past days, Alicia did not realize that something within her had begun to change. Her mind seemed to be slowly losing its sharpness. And she could not even think and come up with clever plans anymore. She was also becoming a little too emotional, losing her composure so easily when she used to be that unfazed, level-headed queen all the time. All these little minute changes, Alicia had failed to notice them.

She appeared at the bar that Zeke usually frequented. But he was not there. Whatever it is, since she was already there, Alicia hastily checked everywhere, looking for him in anger but he was nowhere to be found. And if to be honest, she was not that surprised. It was not that he would take all the trouble to lose her only to go to a place that she knew he would go to.

It was almost dawn when Alicia finally gave up searching and returned to Zeke's house. And to her shocked surprise, she found him already back there, seemingly waiting for someone.

Alicia stilled as her gaze was fixed on Zeke. He was sitting on his chair by the floor to ceiling window, his favourite spot. But this time he was not facing the window as per his usual habit. This time, those intense and deep eyes set in that stony but handsome face was facing towards Alicia. The very same Alicia who was a spirit and supposed to be invisible to everyone.

Zeke was no longer pretending to not be able to see her anymore. His enigmatic gaze was now looking back at her, meeting her eyes straight on.

Deafening silence crept over the floor and up to all four corners of the walls. Tension rose between them. One pair of eyes blazing with anger and the other one as calm as a tranquil lake at night.

Alicia was glaring at him, not hiding the rage in her eyes, while Zeke maintained his passive expression, his gaze seemed to be observing Alicia's fading features.

She stormed towards him, attempting to grab at his collar. But when her hands just went through him and could not grab a hold or even touch him, she then gritted her teeth and clenched her fists into tight balls.

"Since when?!!" she hissed at him, emotional and angered. "You must have seen and heard me since the very beginning, didn't you?!" she accused him, spitting like a cat whose tail was stepped on.

His gaze did not even falter as he continued gazing steadfastly at her.

"You're reaching your time limit, Alicia." He said in a controlled voice instead of answering her accusations.

"Of course, I know that, you jerk! You think you can throw me off again with –"

"No, you don't." Zeke cut her off. "When was the last time you had looked at yourself at the mirror?"

Alicia stilled and blinked at him.

"I knew it. You don't have the slightest idea that you've been fading away, do you, Alicia?!! At this rate, you're not going to be able to last before the sun rises today." His tone was still as steady as ever. However, Alicia seemed to have seen a flash of something in his eyes. What it was, she could not tell for sure.

But his words had shocked her. She stumbled back and finally got the courage to look down at her hands. What she saw made her freeze. Her hands… he was right. She was fading away. She was almost translucent now!

She took a few more steps back when Zeke's voice echoed.

"Alicia." Her name rolled of his lips naturally and Alicia lifted her face again.

He was taking off his black gloves and then stretched his gloveless hand towards her. "Come here."