Tia's POV

Quietly shutting a door behind me, I follow Ridge to a random room in his home, leading into a bedroom.

For a moment I stiffen, until I realize it's empty, spare for a bed, a few chests and a wardrobe with an en suite bathroom. It was the spare bedroom.

"You can stay here, if you like" he murmurs, taking back the covers. It was quite an old style bed, with golden pillars supporting a large overhead wooden platform. The pillows were quite new, pure white, and the covers were a royal red.

"Thank you" I sigh, grateful that I didn't have to spend another day in that cell.

He pauses as he gets to the door, and I watch him cautiously.

"I would like it if you didn't go snooping around my things, but then again, knowing you, that is impossible. So if you do, please don't move anything" he sighs, before quietly clicking the door shut.

Pausing, I glance around the room. The walls were a pale cream colour, with flower art ingrained on the wallpaper. I head over to the drawers, deciding to snoop around after all. Tugging on the old wooden handles, I raise an eyebrow.

They were filled with clothes, most of them black. Shirts, hoodies, jeans, skirts, shorts, everything you can think of. And the weirdest thing was, they were all my size.

Now I was sure of it-Ridge had been stalking me.

Stalking over to the wardrobe, I throw it open, groaning in disbelief.

Dresses.

Ridgedog clearly hadn't been stalking me very well-I NEVER wore dresses.

Ever.

I leaf through the fabrics in disgust, before pausing, my disgusted expression turning into one of wonder.

These dresses must have cost thousands.

From wedding dresses, to funeral clothes, from prom dresses, to the sluttiest clothes you've ever seen encrusted with a ridiculous amount of diamonds, you could sell the lot for 50,000 tops. 

My own clothes seemed fine, a small black top with my hoodie that I had scooped up from my cell, grey in colour with a faulty zip, black jeans and black trainers. So I leave the room and decide to explore this amazing mansion, full of secrets just waiting to be found...

The first room I go to has Ridge in it. No surprise there.

It was a kitchenette room, but what was inside was more disturbing than I have ever seen.

The small fridge was open, revealing body parts. Hands, legs, hearts in jars, stomachs, guts, livers, the lot. Even a head.

Ridge was stood at a stove. In his hand was a pan, with bits of human liver and kidneys sizzling away.

"What the hell?" I snap.

He turns round slowly, raising an eyebrow. 

"What?" he asks innocently, using a spatula to flip them over. Now that I was closer, I could see bits of human flesh scattered around in the pan.

"You're a cannibal?" I exclaim, staring at him in bewilderment. Now that I thought about it, it didn't surprise me.

"I don't go shopping much" he muses, before carrying on. "I eat whatever food I can get my hands on. The most plentiful food source in my boudoir happens to be humans."

"That's disgusting" I spit, turning round. On the wall were recipes scribbled in neat handwriting on lined paper pinned to the wallpaper.

Cherry and Heart pie

Liver and Onions

Rhubarb and Blood crumble

"Tell me, what meat do you eat?" he asks curiously, and I sit down on a chair, watching the pan in a morbid fascination.

"Pork, beef, chicken..." I list out before he cuts me off.

"Why?" he asks, still not looking at me as he shakes the pan for a moment, making the meat slither across it, spitting out in a sizzling noise.

"Because...their animals" I frown.

"What are animals to you?" he questions, turning round to smile at me.

"Food" I shrug.

"They are food because they are lower in the food chain, correct? They are not humans so you don't eat them?" he confirms and I nod.

"I'm a demigod, and mortals are animals to me. Lower on the food chain. So they are edible" he grins, turning back to the pan.

In a way, he made sense. But when he turned round with a piece of freshly cooked human flesh, I backed away so violently, I sent the chair skidding across the floor as I propelled myself back from his hand.

"Try it" he urges me, leaning forward.

"No!" I snap.

"Aren't you curious? It's not as if you're going to turn into a cannibal after eating one piece of meat. People bite each other in fights all the time, it's fine" he smirks, offering the meat once more. 

Hesitating, I slowly take the meat from his hands. I swallow nervously, staring at it. It was slightly pink with a brown edge on it-it did look remarkably like chicken. Smelling it, it smelt like barbeque.

Shutting my eyes, I jam it into my mouth before taking one chew.

My eyes flicker open in surprise. It really didn't taste any different to chicken. It was just slightly more chewy, like beef.

Note: I'M NOT ENCOURAGING YOU TO GO ROUND EATING HUMAN FLESH. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ANY WHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER.

Swallowing it quickly, I shrug-I was actually incredibly surprised. It tasted like BBQ chicken. 

"It's OK" I say carefully and he raises an eyebrow.

"Wait till you try the heart. The best part of a human body." he purrs.

We sit there like that for a while, him discussing different recipes he serves up and I listen in a horrible silence, trying to take in that I'd eaten a piece of another human.

________________________________________________________

It was getting late in the evening. I had been sat on my bed most of the day, gazing out of the window at the distant horizon, drinking in the sight of the sunset behind the foggy outline of Minstral City. 

The sun cast an orange glow behind the clouds as it sank below the hills, and the sky became darker, the breeze picking up.

When would they come?

I kept asking myself that question. When would they come and rescue me?

Sighing, I leaned off the window sill, realizing my arms were freezing. Rooting through the drawers, I find some pyjamas and I tug them on, winding my way through the corridors until I hear a cough in one of the rooms.

Opening it, my eyes widen in surprise. It was a library, full to the brim with shelves, books of every genre. He was in an armchair, with reading glasses on, reading in the light of a lamp, a gentle evening breeze ruffling his hair.

"Mind if I join you?" I ask quietly.

"Not at all" he replies, taking his glasses off and placing a small piece of black card where his page is in a book.

Seating myself quietly in the nearby armchair, he regards me curiously, reaching out a hand to stroke the back of my hand.

"What do you want to talk about?" he murmurs, tracing the veins in my hand, stroking every part of my bones, to the tip of my fingers to my knuckles.

"Whatever you want" I reply quietly, staring at his hand, fiddling with mine.

"Tell me..." he starts, leaning in to prop his head onto his spare hand.

"Why did you become an assassin? Why did you leave home?" he questions, and I can see he is generally curious.

Hesitating, I sigh before telling him my history.

Flashback:

"You worthless little shite!" one of the girls screeched as she kicked me harshly in the sides. Winded and crying on the floor, my arms desperately cling to my study books as I try to crawl away.

"Please! I haven't done anything!" I cried out, leaning forward to grab at the wall, only for someone to yank me back by my legs, pointed little stones and grit sticking into my skin and poking little holes into me.

"You were born, that's what you've done!"

She was the worst one, Rachelle. Always the popular girl. Always the one who was everyone's friend. Apart from mine. I didn't want her to be my friend, of course, but I at least wanted to be on good terms with her.

Her little gang surrounded me, kicking and punching me, laughing and jeering at me as I cry, trying to stumble up.

"Oh leave her for now, I'll get her after school." she sneers, spitting on me before giving me a sharp kick to my face before sauntering away.

Putting my face in my arms, sobs rack my body and I weep by myself on the floor, my body aching.

After school came and I spot my little brother Liam with his friends, laughing and smiling. He waves at me from across the playground, and I smile weakly, trying not to wince at the pain of doing so. He headed home by himself with his big gang of friends; I had made up an excuse, that I was staying after school to do revision-there was no way I was going to walk out of those school gates.

Turning round, I head back inside to hide out in the library. For an hour, I read some books before leaving, checking my path every now and again, waiting for her to jump me. 

On my way home, I passed through a forest over a bridge near a river. And in the forest, something sharp hit me in the face, and I hit the ground, crying out.

"Thought you could escape me, you little fuck? Get up and stop crying like a baby" Rachelle smirks, hands on her hips, glaring at me like I was late or something.

She was alone, and I stand, snivelling. I try and take a tissue out of my pocket but she slaps my hand away, pushing me onto the floor.

"I said get up!" she roars.

"Let me get up!" I cry out, standing up shakily only for her to kick me sharply in the stomach, making me curl up in a ball on the floor.

She tugs my books out of my hands, and waves them above my head, taunting me.

"Aw, look, the little baby is having a tantrum" she coos, spitting down at me again.

In the corner of my eye, I saw a very sharp rock. Throwing myself forward without thinking, I grab hold of it before smashing it into the side of her head.

The sound of the impact made me shiver, but not with fear-with relief. And as she hit the ground, I was consumed by a hatred that made me grip that rock tighter and begin to frantically hit her head until you could no longer recognize her.

After my moment had faded, I stared down in shock at the body on the floor, bleeding. Already dead.

Scared and alone, I dragged her body through the leaves, throwing her into the river, watching it as it drifted downstream. I threw leaves onto the blood trail, before quickly picking up my books and leaving across the bridge, taking one last glance at Rachelle as she drifted down a waterfall out of sight.

A nervous week passed until the police sirens whirred outside my house.

"Open up!" one of them shouted fiercely, and I knew my time had come. I had already packed my things, with just fifty pound. I kissed Liam on the head, telling him to not tell them anything and he promised before I threw myself out of the window and disappeared into the night.

I hadn't realized whilst I was telling this story that my hand had been gripping Ridge's. I relax it, and he smiles at me, blinking. He had become entranced in my story, and I felt as if he was walking with me through it, holding my hand.

I do not let go.

"After that, I lived on the streets for a year. When I couldn't afford food, I stole it. When people caught me, I killed them. I was an outlaw child and no one could arrest me. Until Simon found me, and brought me to his home. Lewis and Simon raised me like I was their own child and they loved me like I was. Then I was sent to Duncan and he taught me how to fight, even though I had developed my own style. And that was how I became an assassin." I sigh, taking a deep breath.

"You should of come to me sooner" he smirks and I chuckle lightly, resting my head back into the chair.

"Yeah well, I didn't know you until about a year after, did I?" I murmur, slowly stroking his finger tip with my own.

A silence stretches between us. It was night time already, I had been talking so long. 

"Will you answer one of my questions, then?" I ask, glancing at him.

"Depends what it is" he smiles, squeezing my hand lightly.

Racking my brains, I pick one out.

"Why do you like me so much?" I ask quietly, waiting from him to reply.

He hesitates, still making eye contact with me, before he sighs.

"It's complicated" he chuckles, before escorting me back to my bedroom where I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.