Dedicated to all the Silent readers. ^_^

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Chapter 14 Heated Arguments

"There are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don't dare to let out."

-Ally Carter, Don't judge a girl by her cover

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One hour. Sixty minutes. Three thousand six hundred seconds.

Mallory looked at her phone. 5:22 PM. It had been exactly twelve minutes since she talked with Andrew. And there she was parked in his driveway, chewing off her nails, impatiently waiting for time to pass away.

Finally, a couple of minutes later, she took out the key and pushed open the door with sheer determination. Slamming it shut, she trotted off to the porch and timidly pressed her finger on the doorbell.

I really hope he doesn't kill me.

A second later, the door opened.

"Who are you?" A little girl said, looking up at her.

For a minute, Mallory was taken aback as she took a step backwards and looked around. Has she approached the wrong house? She wondered, but confusion left her face as she heard the eerily familiar voice.

"Who is it, Evelyn?" Andrew shouted from inside.

"Some girl." The little girl, Evelyn said looking her up and down.

"Oh, it's you." He said peeping out of the kitchen window. "Let her inside."

"So, you allow six year olds to answer the door?" She said with a hand on hip.

"I am eight." Evelyn muttered, but no one really paid attention to her.

"It's not like I was expecting some armed robber to show up." He said, still from the kitchen. Though I would take them any day compared to you. He was tempted to add.

"Who are you sweetie?" Mallory bent down to the little girl's level.

"First, stop talking to me like I am four." She said scrunching up her nose. "And second, who I am is none of your business."

Mallory got up rolling her eyes. "And  that is the exact reason why I hate kids. You little people are so full of yourself." She drew in a breath and continued in a high pitched voice. "I want cookies. I want to watch Barbie movies. I want to sleep. If you don't listen to me I will cry..." She said making an ugly mock crying face.

"I am full of myself?" The little girl's eyes widened. "What about you big girls? You are the ones who make those weird duck faces, which you think look cute."

Evelyn twisted her lips into a deformed pout. "And apply those stupid makeup things and you people like boys. You kiss them." She said like it was the grossest thing to do. "You don't even know they have cooties!!!"

"Look, Missy! I never d-" Mallory began but a male voice cut her off.

"Enough you two." He said coming out of the kitchen with a mop in hand.

"But, Andrew, she started it!" Evelyn pointed a finger at her.

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"I didn't."

"You did." Evelyn stomped her foot on the ground and crossing her arms said, "And that's final."

"W-What?" Mallory looked at the girl in disbelief. "You see what she did!" She looked at Andrew, pouting. "She is being bossy!"

Andrew looked at the eight year old girl, who pouted angrily with arms crossed and the seventeen year old who was pointing at her. He rolled his eyes.

"Evelyn, pick up your drawing book, and we will go to my room and Mallory go sit on couch while I fetch a T-shirt."

Only when he said that, did she realise that he was standing in front of her, shirtless, in all of his naked glory.

"Holly Molly!" She said as she felt a smirk finding it's way to her face. "You work out!" She almost exclaimed.

"Gee, thanks! I didn't know that!" Andrew said sarcastically.

"Sarcasm, huh?" She winked. "You are in a good mood, smarty pants?"

I was, until you decided to show up. He wanted to say. But, he decided to ignore it as he went to his room. The girl had the talent to trigger the kind of thoughts he never even knew existed in him!

He came back downstairs fully clothed and sat on the other end of the couch, putting as much distance between them as was virtually possible without falling off.

"I have some questions."

He nodded.

"Who is that little girl? What were you doing in kitchen, shirtless and with a mop? And why haven't you killed me yet, for showing up early?" She said, all in one breath.

Andrew looked at her for a few seconds, as his brain tried to understand what all nonsense she had just blabbered. If he didn't know better, he might have thought the the girl was in hysterics. But this was Mallory Millington and she was capable of inhumanely annoying stuff.

Either ways, he wasn't expecting her to say that. But then, she had done quite many unexpected things. That child trapped in the body of a hormone raged teenager!

"She is the girl, you tried to kill a few days ago." He said.

"I didn't t-" She began but shut up, giving him a sheepish look as she remembered what he was talking about.

He glared at her then continued, "When you called, I was pouring myself coffee, which slipped off my hands, spilled on my shirt and the mug broke on ground."

"That explains the mop and the exuberant display of your body." She said smugly.

"Now, I believe you aren't here to chit chat?" He said. "What do you want?"

"Straightforward freak." She muttered under her breath, then continued in an audible voice.

"Yes, I need some answers."

"I am not obliged to answer any of your questions."

"Yes." She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, you are. The other day when we were at 'The Cookie Jar', you said that you would give me answers, if I give them to you. And I told you stuff. Now, it's your turn."

Andrew scrutinized her, carefully choosing his next words. "But, did you? Did you give me answers? The only thing I know is that you are that girl. But did you tell me, what did you do to end up there? How did you escape? Why don't you despise them? How do you act normal after everything?"

He smiled inwardly, looking at the girl who was nervously stroking the back of her neck. She was thinking a suitable answer.

"You think I don't know what you are trying to do?" She looked at him, straight in his eyes, the two sets of black eyes boring holes in each other.

He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"You somehow make it about me. And don't you even try and deny it." She said raising a hand to cut him off as he was about to speak. "You manipulate me, turn the tables and make me answer your questions!" She banged her hand on the wooden table, frustrated.

For fraction of a second, Andrew was taken aback. He had been so cocky about his manipulation skills that he had underestimated the girl. It was something that rarely happened. But it did. And now he needed to feed her some of his secrets to get answers. He cursed under breath.

She waited for an answer but when she didn't get one, she continued. "You did it on that day when I stayed in your house and in 'The Cookie Jar'!"

Damn it!, She thought. How couldn't she see it earlier. But, now it was all clear. All along he had been manipulating her to get answers, but now it was her turn.

"Where did you find out stuff about me?" Andrew finally said, not triumph anymore. He had been beaten in his own game. The ball was out of his hands, now.

"Well, I know the Sheriff. And he came to tell me...uh...some stuff. And I asked him about you." She answered.

Andrew looked at her confusion written upon his face. "I have no idea what that means."

"Basically, he came to give me some information about my captors. And then he told me how my...Err...court case, was closed because of lack of evidence." She glared at him, her heart on fire. It took all her strength, not to punch him in his face.

"I still don't understand, how any of this is related to m-"

"Sheriff Johnson told me that a certain novice broke into the headquarters of 'The Beasts' which led them to ransack the building without a search warrant."

She took a pause to look at his face. She wanted to make sure, he knew what he did. She wanted to slap it right on his face. She wanted to see 'Guilty' written all over his body.

"And the judge discarded the evidence." He finished, his shoulders drooping. He couldn't meet her eyes.

"All. Because. Of. You." Mallory spat.

"You think I did it on purpose?" He hissed. "I didn't go there for a picnic, you know!"

"How would I know?" She met his furious gaze. "You are a part of the gang, aren't you? For all I know, you wanted to be a part of it, long ago. And maybe that's why you entered that building. To warn them?" She said not blinking an eye.

Andrew looked at the brunette. "Are you for real?" He said, he got up his hands shaking from anger. "That day, I made the worst decision of my life! And I don't need you to remind me that. I live with that guilt everyday. You understand? Every fucking day, reminds me that if I hadn't done it, my life would have been different."

He rushed to get him some water. He needed to cool himself , before he explodes. Mallory followed him to the kitchen where he was emptying the contents of a water bottle.

 "Oh, tell me about it." She scoffed, stopping in front of him. "Why, Andrew? Why did you have to be there at first place? Was it some sort of adventure for you? Some action packed dare, perhaps?"

"Are you as dumb as you appear to be? You really think, I would risk my life as well as others' for some sick adventure?" He shook his head. How could he have slightest admiration for that girl? She was just like others, judgmental. She said stuff to others paying no attention to it!

"If you really wanna know, I was there, I was there to save my sister!" He blurted out.

Mallory's eyes widened, so it was true. He had been there for his sister. "Oh, please! Like I believe it."

"It doesn't matter what you believe." He said through gritted teeth, the plastic bottle crunched in his hard grip. "The truth is the truth."

"I will tell you what is the truth, Andrew!" She hissed. "The truth is that you wanted to join 'The Beasts' all along. And that is why you went to their safehouse. You wanted to warn them, be their well wisher which would have earned you a direct ticket to their team. " She drew in a breath as she readied herself to say the next words. "And when you couldn't do that, you came up with the excuse of your sister, she became an innocent pawn to your malicious intentions!"

That did it. The final straw of his patience snapped. One minute Andrew was looking at her with his hand sucking the life out of a bottle, at the other he had pinned her to the wall.

"What did you just say?" He whispered in her face, a cruel and cold whisper.

Mallory looked into the dark eyes. It had been almost a month since she first met him, and his emotionless stare never ceased to make her shiver. Yet, now, pinned to the wall, she longed for that stare. She would take it any day against the cold hard eyes, she was witnessing. The eyes burnt with a strange fire, which mirrored the turmoil inside his heart. She had triggered him.

Triggered the Monster.

She flinched, but that seemed to have no effect on Andrew, who had his hand on her stomach pushing her inside the wall. He was enraged by her accusation. How could someone think that he would ever do that to his sister? The one person who meant the world for him?

"I think you heard me." Mallory said firmly, vividly aware of his warm breath fanning her face and the water drops that trudged down his chin to her neck and shirt.

She tried pushing him away, but he won't budge bringing back innumerable memories. But, she blocked them all. She refused to show him weakness, because for a stranger, he already knew too much.

"So, you think that I wanted to be a part of some stupid elite gang and I would put my sister in harm's way for my ambition?" He said, his face inches away from hers.

"What could be the other possible explanation?" She whispered.

That was it. All her drama, everything came down to it. Probably the biggest piece towards the puzzle called Andrew.

He thought that he was the master of manipulation. And over his arrogance he couldn't see, what she had done. She had forced him to spill his secrets. She felt a wry smile creep up on her face as she thought of her weapon. It was something Antonio would use to get information out of her.

Mind games.

It worked magic when it came to confessions. Feed them with wrong beliefs, make them feel guilty, agitate them, so that they are forced to speak out, even when they don't want to.

And that is exactly what happened with Andrew as he took a step back and losing his hold whispered his next words.

"Vengeance, I came back to avenge her."

Vengeance.

The word echoed in her mind. She expected something like that but now when he had said it out loud, it seemed highly unlikely. How could he even think that he could make them suffer, all by himself? Or maybe he was not alone?

"But-" She began as a hand slapped over her mouth.

"Shh..." Andrew muttered, looking towards the kitchen door. He strained his ears to listen to what he thought were footsteps.

If he had been more careful he would have heard the front door open.

If his trained ears weren't ringing from anger he would have heard the footsteps.

But it was his house, his haven, and that had lulled him into false sense of security.

And it wasn't until something heavy hit his head that his suspicions were confirmed. Not that he could do anything, because it was too late. As he touched the back of his head, he felt something warm trickle down.

Blood.

His eyes widened as he looked at his scarlet stained fingers. The familiar rust and salt smell hit his nostrils and his heart started beating wildly against his chest.

He looked into the eyes of the girl in front of him, they were horrified. The fury was replaced by fear, but why? Was it because he had been hurt? Or because she had seen his attacker? He wanted to say something, anything. But his mouth couldn't form words.

Once again, he looked at his stained fingers and stumbled forwards, his head colliding with her shoulder.

Vaguely he was aware as his world crashed down to darkness.

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-Ridhima☺