Paranoia (Zayn Malik) (editing)

Chapter 47: Bitten Tongues

LUNA

The woman stands tall in our kitchen. She refused a seat. I, on the other hand, gratefully took a seat, not that my knees had much more of a choice. My limbs are still trembling as the sound of the bullet rings through my skull. Zayn insisted I went back to our bedroom, but I refused. It is an ugly feeling, to not trust he will tell me the truth if I am not there to witness it.

There is, however, the fact that Zayn looks just as shocked as I do sat opposite the woman - his sister -  that makes me believe when he told me she was dead, he wasn't telling a lie, at least he thought he wasn't.

"Loki told me you were dead." Zayn's voice is gruff, cut up like it is sometimes after he's chain-smoked.

"That's what I asked him to say." She nods, matter-of-fact, cool and unreadable while Zayn looks like he is walking on glass.

He takes a second, expelling a breath from his nostrils before continuing.

"Why would you want me to think that?"

"So you wouldn't look for me." She answers earnestly "I needed to live my own life, Zayn. Being the younger sister of the Malik brothers was all I'd have ever been if I had stuck with you two."

"So you faked your death just to avoid us? You couldn't have told us? And for what? You stopped being Pandora to be what?" His voice is raising, his anger is polluting his tone.

"No one." She is still so calm as she speaks "No one in particular. It's what I wanted. You two walk around with a big target on your backs constantly, I've spent the last two decades hearing stories about you in occult communities even across the world. I didn't want to live like that, to always have the fear of that place finding me."

The only ounce of pain I can gather from her is in reference to that place, I assume she must mean back with the blood incubi.

"And I've spent the past two decades mourning you." Zayn stands now, his face now colder, mirroring her dead expression "If you wanted to be gone, go. I'll arrange for it to happen quietly, so the group doesn't ask questions. So you can go back to being no one in particular."

"Don't you want to know why I'm back?" She frowns.

"No." He snipes back quickly, tugging on my arm, urging me up with him "I'll have a car out front in ten minutes."

He is trying to escort me out of the room, but she captures our attention.

"The witches asked my girlfriend to kill Loki."

He lets go of me, walking back toward her.

"What?"

"I have been living on the West Coast of the USA in an occult community for some years now with her, a vampire. They approached her, a week ago. They said they have a job for her, murder one brother to teach the other a lesson, that lesson being you do not say no to them. She had no clue that Loki was my brother when she told me. I have been far more inconspicuous than the likes of you two." She explains, and seemingly becomes more human as she does "You may not believe me, Zayn, but I love you, both of you. I am here now because I won't let either of you die because you don't know how to stay out of trouble."

He considers this for a while "Where is your girlfriend now?"

"In an unmarked grave in Santa Monica." She breathes heavily "I pulled her heart out the moment it became clear she was too scared of the witches to say no, even when I told her of who I really was."

"You killed your girlfriend?" I find my voice, but regret it the moment Pandora's eyes fix on me.

"She knew who I was, she was not going to back down from the mission. I had no choice." She bites before turning her attention back to Zayn "Why is there a human questioning me in your kitchen, Zayn?"