CHOSEN

Chapter 75

Elliot's POV

The wind picked up outside, drowning out the deafening silence in the tent. As the howling grew louder, the intensity and pressure within the tent only grew. At that moment, I experienced so many emotions, that I found it hard to blink, much less speak.

How little do you care about your own life?



The statement stunned me. His tone was firm, and he did nothing to hold back the anger he felt. It was a first for me, having that anger directed at me.


Part of me understood the anger. I had gone too far in the match, too blind in my resentment. Liliana did her best to live up to my expectations, holding nothing back in our final bout. I could have died, I knew that. Deimos clearly knows that as well. 


There was another part of me, however. A part that seemed far greater than the first.


This part of me had been there since yesterday-no, far before that. It wasn't a feeling of understanding, no I couldn't understand it.



I understood his feelings, yet I couldn't.


His words forced me to confront my wrongs, but they also reminded me of the reason why I lost my composure in the first place.


This feeling grew. Despite the threatening aura he exuded, I couldn't help but feel this emotion grew until it was far stronger than it originally was. 

That was when I finally found the words that I wanted to say an entire day ago.

"You should be the last person to ask me that."


I stared him right in the face, unmoving. All of my feelings were pretty much summed up in that single sentence. He heard it but was so stunned by my words' intensity that it took a while for my words to sink in.


"I do not-" He stopped, as if my words sunk in for a second time. "What I do is far different from what you did-"


"Really? Is that so?"


"You are not going to ignore or simply skirt around the main issue." His voice remained flat, but his unstable aura told me that even will soon change. Despite this, I didn't step down.

"The main issue is the double standard. I'm not a weakling, I regenerate completely in days."


"That doesn't mean that you should throw caution to the wind-"


"Like you?"


"Don't do that."

It was a clear warning. One that I completely ignored. "Don't what? Address the fact that you do the same thing? That your work ethic is to fight first, ask questions later? That you've basically been in bandages for half of this entire journey?" 


"Why was I in bandages, Elliot?"


His voice was oddly calm, but his eyes betrayed him. "Did I have a little fall? Did I scrape my knee, or fall out of a tree or something?"


"I don't like the sarcasm-"


"Or was it because I received most of them protecting you?? Don't even try to relate your actions to mine." He abruptly stood up, irritation now clearly visible. "If that was a real battle, you would have died."


"But I didn't."

"Because we stepped in. Because I stepped in." 


I jolted, shocked by his tone. "If I didn't mindlink Europa, and stopped Lilliana, you probably-" he paused, then shook his head. "And yet you sit here, upset because you lost?" The more he said, the angrier he seemed. This honestly maddened me as well. 


"So you're going to pretend that you didn't suggest that fight in the first place? A-are you going to ignore the reason why this dispute started? You made these plans to heal Gray behind my back, never uttering a single word to me. Again, you took matters into your own hands 'for my sake'. You know I don't believe that crap, right?"


"So you because of that, you decided to throw a temper tantrum and-"


"A tantrum? Don't you dare mock me Deimos!"



"So what was it then? What made you so determined to do this?"

"Because of you dammit!" I shouted. "You did it on purpose! You treated me like a child! You were clearly looking down on me! That's why you decided to have that match in the first place! You knew that I wouldn't win!"


"And you didn't even trust me." He snapped back, before clenching his jaw. "Gray is dying, and all you wanted to do was make a point."


"Don't give me that Gray crap. All you wanted was to make a pawn."


Deimos froze. "How can this individual be put to good use? That's how you think right? You never see the person for who they are-only for what they can do for you", I started, growing even angrier. "That's your plan for Gray, for the white wolves, the Vulcans- everyone! Their usefulness is all you can think of!"


I was nearing a boundary, a line that I shouldn't cross. But with my anger reaching unstable levels, I ignored the line completely. 


"To be honest, With the things you told me about the queen, and with the things I learned about you. . .  honestly, I don't see the difference-"