"Did you miss me?"

As soon as Travis' vile lips quirked up into that devious smirk and spoke, all of the hateful memories of him from the visit at my parents' house came flooding back like a dam had just burst within my mind

I stared at his smug face blankly as thought after thought and memory after memory soared through my brain, riveting it in confusion and leaving it with one circling, simple question.

"What the fuck?"

Greg's voice erupted into a brief but jolly chuckle, his face crinkling up into a smile as he gazed at me.

"I know, I know. There is some explaining that needs to be done, love," Greg said as he crossed back in front of my confined body.

"But I have some preparations to make before we leave still so Travis here will bring you into the loop." As he spoke, I saw out of the corner of my eye, his hand come up and place itself gingerly on my cheek, sweeping his thumb over my dampened cheek in a loving manner.

His eyes sparkled with such a level of love that I couldn't even manage to pull my face away from his touch. The amount of what seemed to be sincere adoration shinning in his eyes for me, shook my insides terribly and left me speechless.

Soon enough, but not quick enough for my liking, Greg removed his hand from my face and sauntered out of the room.

Leaving Travis and I alone.

Like a predator, Travis watched me with wicked eyes as he titled his head from side to side, observing me from every angle. He was enjoying my growing discomfort, even reveled in it as his lips lifted up into a sly smile.

"Confused?" he asked in a belittling voice.

Yes.

But I remained silent. I refused to bend to his will and play his fucked up game. He would talk eventually. I just had to be patient.

"I know you are. I can see it in your eyes, Alex."

Silence.

Travis cocked his head to the side and studied me with growing annoyance behind his eyes. His tongue peeked out and wet his lips as he took a step closer to me.

"You don't wanna talk? You have no desire to know how I know Greg or what I'm doing here?" He was taunting me and I knew it. He was poking me with every question I desperately wanted answered but refused to buckle and ask myself.

That would show weakness and ignorance. That would be handing them over any power I had left, showing them that I really was at their mercy.

And I wasn't ready to submit just yet.

"You aren't even the least bit curious to how I've been involved from the beginning? By the way," Travis was suddenly far closer than he was before, his dirty blonde hair brushing against my face as he spoke into my ear.

"Tell your sister I said hi."

White. All I saw was blinding white in my vision as my body charged with a violent rage and a hungry fire that yearned to scorch everything in it's path into a burnt crisp.

I yanked my knee up and sent it directly into Travis's stomach, causing him to crouch into himself and a pathetic whimper to escape from his lips.

I watched on in triumph as Travis attempted to stand, both of his hands reaching out to place on the sides of my chair for leverage as he groaned in pain. Travis stayed in that position for a moment or two, catching his breath before he raised his head up slowly, connecting his fiery stare with mine.

"Feisty. Just like I remember."

Instead of backing away to a safe distance, Travis seemed to find comfort in his new, obscenely inappropriate position, just mere inches away from my body.

His warm breath flooded across my face causing my nose to twitch in disgust. His eyes were alight with confidence and his lips rose into a slight smile.

"I see why my dad likes you. You're sexy... a challenge. He's got good taste," he said in a deep voice as he licked his lips, his eyes scouring over my facial features.

"Emily never mentioned that she had a brother."

"And she speaks!" he exclaimed, his eyes enlarging for a moment playfully; dangerously. "That bitch never knew about me. Still doesn't."

My attention was swiftly directed to my shoulder when I felt skin brush across the tops of my shoulders in a delicate way. Travis's attention was zeroed in on his fingers as he watched them move back and forth over my skin as he spoke.

"Dear ol' daddy never told anyone that he had a son because he didn't know he had a son. He got with my mom just before he married his then wife. Then my mom died a couple years ago and he got a letter from the state and poof! He had a new baby boy. He and I hit it off pretty quickly when he got out of the Ward a few months back... and then he told me about this girl." Travis trailed off, his eyes lifting from their spot on my shoulder and connecting with mine.

His eyes were crazed and yet content. Wild and yet so precise. He had never looked so much like Greg until now. Now I could see the resemblance. Their eyes were identical to each other's and the look that they shared deep within their hazel orbs was practically a carbon copy of the others.

"He spoke of a girl who could drive any man crazy. Who had the body of a goddess and the wit to put any man to shame. He would go on for hours sometimes talking about every curve of your body. Your lips," Travis whispered as he took one of his fingers and caressed it against my lips. My bottom lip trembled in fear and revolution as desire began to swell in his eyes.

"What about my sister?" I asked abruptly, hoping with every fiber of my soul that my question would throw Travis off of his lustful thoughts and back into his story.

I let out a relieved, silent sigh when his patch of skin disconnected from my lips and moved back to the chair, steadying himself once more.

"Your sister," he sighed, shaking his head in thought as a smiled a crocked smile. "Was so easy. She was almost laughably easy to get into bed. All I had to do was wine and dine her a bit but she's so damn shallow that the moment she set her eyes on me she had already decided she was going to let me fuck her. And fuck her I did," he laughed lightly as if remembering his encounters with my sister.

"I knew that if I got in with you sister that I would eventually get to meet you, see what all the fuss was about. Greg wanted me to keep a close eye on you since he couldn't do it himself. I gave him updates about your life and where you were. I was the one who had to deal with his breakdown when I told him about Nathan fucking McCoy."

Travis growled out his name with so much hate that I was briefly taken back by the absurd amount of disdain filling his voice for someone he had only met once.

"He lost his shit when I told him about your professor. Of course I didn't know he was your teacher when I met him but once Greg did some digging...damn, I never took for the kind to fuck your teacher for a grade."

That was it. I had had enough of Travis and his ignorant, smug face.

Without thought, I gathered a wad of saliva in my mouth and spit it directly onto Travis's nose and cheek with great, degrading force.

The action stunted any further words from him as he stood, stunned as I watched as my saliva dripped down his cheek as a reminder to him of my demeaning action.

That was the ultimate 'fuck you' and he knew it.

Almost immediately, I regretted my actions though as I witnessed an internal switch flicker through Travis's stare as fury engulfed his face facial features.

I didn't have but a millisecond to gasp desperate air into my lungs to scream before Travis reared his strong hand back and pain exploded across the side of my face with the force of his powerful hit.

His knuckles dug into my cheek bone with surprising force as he followed through with his punch. An unintelligible noise burst through my lips at the amount of unexpected throbbing pain radiating through my entire face.

"Bitch." I heard Travis mutter to me harshly.

Yet, just seconds after Travis delivered his rage filled hit, his presence was swept from in front of me.

My head that was still hanging low, trying to calm myself and focus on anything that wasn't the violent stinging in my cheek, was suddenly jerking up as my ears detected something or someone being thrown up against a nearby wall.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

I observed through blurry vision as Greg yelled at a nervous Travis as he pinned him to the closest wall, his elbow pressed firmly up against his throat as Greg continued to depreciate him.

"You don't ever touch her again, you got that? Or I will have your ass fucking massacred for being responsible for putting even a scratch on her skin. Are we fucking clear?!" Greg roared at Travis and in that instance, two emotions that I had never felt for the men in the room blossomed inside of me.

Fear for Travis and gratefulness for Greg.

"Yes! We're clear," Travis mumbled the last sentence more under his breath and finally Greg released his hold on his son and sent him staggering to the floor and scurrying out of the room with his tail tucked between his legs.

Greg's heaving form pivoted in my direction and his hazel eyes surged with anguish as they took in my battered face.

His steps brought him over to my increasingly cautious figure quickly. I felt his fingers pull up gently on my chin as he examined my wound in great detail, his face morphing rapidly between emotions.

"I'm so sorry. He will never lay a finger on you again. I swear it," he spoke with conviction that twisted my stomach and rattled my mind with how I was supposed to feel towards his statement.

I was overjoyed that Travis wasn't going to touch me again and that Greg planned on saving me from that but at the same time, I wanted Greg to touch me even less!

My mind was fucked and I was becoming drowsy from the pain that continued to emanate through my face, giving me a splitting headache in the process.

My eyes lulled and dropped as the mind numbing ache began to take over my body. I tried to keep my eyes opened, willed for them to not let me go into the darkness again, leaving Greg to do to me as he pleased in my sleep.

"Oh look at you, you must be exhausted," Greg cooed as he cradled my falling head in his hands. "Never mind that, you can sleep on the plane, love."

Suddenly, it wasn't so difficult to keep my eyes open any longer.

I snapped my head up and out of his grip, my eyes wide and questioning on his.

"Plane?"

Greg's mouth stretched up into a full blown grin, his eyes shining in excitement.

"Yeah, I've got our tickets booked and everything. Under different names of course so no one will be able to figure out where we've gone but...well I was going to wait and make it more of a romantic surprise but you seem like you could use a bit of a cheer up, so why not now?" he asked rhetorically in, what I assumed he thought of as a suave tone.

Before I could comprehend what was happening, Greg dug into his pocket with gusto and tugged around a bit until a box popped out.

A small, velvet box.

My heart stilled and my breath stole from my lungs. My eyes watched helplessly as Greg lowered himself down onto one knee and peered up at me through loving eyes.

"I got this all those years back before our unfortunate fight. And I know it's quick but you know I love you to the moon and back and I know you feel the same love deep in your heart for me. We are so perfect together, Alexandria. You and me... it just makes sense. You make me deliriously happy and I know for a fact that there will never be anybody else for me. It will be you and me forever. Why shouldn't we start forever now though? Why wait?"

He took a deep breath and smiled up at me, cracking open the velvet box. "Alexandria Merrick, be my wife, to have and to hold, until death do us part?"

Staring up at me, mocking me and my hopeless predicament was a ring. An intricately designed, diamond ring with a silver band. It was devastatingly gorgeous as it sparkled in the dimming sunlight.

And the site of it made me utterly sick.

But I had a choice and it was a crucial one. Option A was to say yes, and live a miserable, daunting life with the man who made my skin crawl with disgust just with his very voice. But I would be safe. I would stay alive and be able to possibly one day escape and maybe make it out with my life.

Option B, was to deny his request and tense precariously for the inevitable craze that would infuse inside of Greg at my rejection. It would be a repeat of what happened two years ago when I told him I didn't love him and if it hadn't have been for my cell phone, which I was regrettably without now, I'm not sure if I would have survived that day.

So I either gave my life away to save myself or said no and possibly sign my own death certificate in the process.

Or...

There was secret option C. And secret option C was by far my favorite option.

So cautiously and bravely, I answered his question.

"Yes."

Hey guys! So what did you think of Travis?? And what do you think Alex could possibly have up her sleeve now?? 

Please vote and comment your love for the early update and to see what happens next! Love you all!