Crushed (Adara and Dru)

[Adara Snow]

If Adara had felt unsure about Emilian the last time she saw him, her insecurities were buried right now in excitement. She had heard that the Daily Prophet had interviewed him, and as she settled in one of a few chairs by the window, her lips curved into a smile. At last, Emilian had gotten his chance to show the world the other side of himself, the potential that she had seen from the beginning.

She flipped the paper over, locating his article, then folded it back and turned it toward the light. What can one say of Emilian Sota that has not already been said? He is a sex-addict, a rapist, a heartless rogue. One needs look no further than those ice-blue eyes to see that there is no soul there to save. Even his skin is cool to the touch, as though the lack of soul sapped all warmth from an otherwise human body.

Adara paused. Had the woman touched him, then? The rest was all things she had heard before, and she discarded them. Of course the article would start with the rumors. She would expect nothing less. But as she read on, Adara's confidence plummeted, and by the last words, she was in complete and total shock, her face lax as she stared. There is no heart to capture.

[Druscilla Grace]

Dru had been spending nearly all of her free time in the library, knowing that she could hide from some people there and have solitude. It was the only place she could go and not be interrupted by something. She smiled when she saw Adara and sped up to walk towards her, but when she saw Adara's expression, her smile and her steps faltered, slowing to a stop by Adara. "Adara?" Dru said softly, not wanting to surprise her. She glanced at the paper, what was in the paper to get such a reaction?

[Adara Snow]

Adara inhaled quickly, a hard, choked sound as she looked up from the paper. She saw Dru for only a moment before her vision blurred, and she turned away, struggling to hold herself together. She was speechless, entirely incapable of saying anything. Adara bit her lip hard and handed the paper to Dru, her brows knitting as she wavered between reality and her private world, a world that so often lately included Emilian. She could not bear to return there. "I understand now," she said, her voice shaking with repressed emotion.

[Druscilla Grace]

Dru took the paper and sat down beside Adara, setting her bag in the floor and crossing her legs. She read it quickly and then set it in her lap, reading it again, a little more slowly. "Oh, my. What do you understand?" It was a stupid question, but Dru was still trying to work out in her head what the interview was about. She didn't really understand anything except the writer painting one of the worst pictures of Emilian she had ever heard.

[Adara Snow]

"Sadistic," Adara said, so bitterly that she would have shocked herself had she not already been shocked to the core. "He was invigorated by her fear!" Her breaths came quicker as she mentally went through the article. "He would do it again, he enjoyed it, he would do it again in a heartbeat!" She looked at Dru then, silently pleading to be told she'd misread, though she knew it was impossible. The first tears escaped her control, and she wiped them away impatiently. "There is so much more, Dru, so much!"

[Druscilla Grace]

Dru didn't know what to say to Adara to help her. "Emilian....he is a horrible person," she knew that that wasn't what Adara needed to hear, but what else was there to say? "You know, though, a lot of times these things are exaggerated." Dru didn't think it was true, she figured that everything in that article was the truth. That didn't mean that there wasn't the possibility. Journalists would do anything to make a good story, including warping someone's words. "Are you going to talk to him about it?"

[Adara Snow]

Adara bit her lip again. "I shouldn't." Not when she knew how charming he could be, how easily he could distract her with a kiss or a kind word. "I knew that he was...horrible. I knew, but he was always so kind to me. When I was with him, there were only the two of us, and I believed..." She covered her face with her hands, fighting for the words. "I believed that since he was different for me, that I had found the truth behind..." She raised her head and gestured to the paper. "This! But this is the truth!"

[Druscilla Grace]

Dru thought for a moment, something in the logic didn't make sense. "But if you're the only person he's been kind to, perhaps that is the true Emilian. Why would he tell the whole school that he was a good person? I know that when I was with Michael he was always kind to me, but kept up a horrible face in front of everyone else. And now look at him, he acts like he used to with me." Dru never thought that she would have been defending Emilian, but she couldn't stand seeing Adara like she was. Perhaps Adara was what Emilian needed, perhaps the interview was what he needed.

[Adara Snow]

"He had sex with her!" Adara said, pointing to the article again, as though that detail answered every question Dru had posed. "I do not think she came to interview him in a bikini!" He would not use that excuse again. Adara's mind refused to settle. She recognized anger, hurt, and jealousy and did not know how to control them. "He is not sorry, he had sex with her, he is glad that he hurt Savannah, and he did not think about me, he did not care enough to think of me for even a moment! That is the truth!" She pointed at the newspaper, then reached for the chain around her neck. "This is a lie!" And she could not bear to take it off. Not yet, with the pain so new.

[Druscilla Grace]

"If he has given you insight to his mind, then that necklace is not a lie." Even if Dru hated him, she couldn't believe that he had lied to Adara about everything. "I know what it's like to know that the guy you're with has had sex with someone, it's horrible, but you can work through that." The statement hurt, her and Chase had gotten through it, but not without irreparable damage done. Dru was being a hypocrite, she didn't think that Adara should be with Emilian, even so, her need to help Adara get through it outweighed her sense that Emilian wasn't worth it.

[Adara Snow]

"I do not understand!" Adara exclaimed, earning a sharp look from the librarian. She lowered her voice, but the intensity was still there. "Why are you defending him?! You warned me about Emilian! I cannot simply wait for him to hurt me again, I cannot pretend that I do not know!" And yet, knowing, she had given herself to him before. Why was this different? She refused to think of it, refused to acknowledge the emotions.

[Druscilla Grace]

"Would you rather me say I told you so? Adara, yes, I warned you, yes I don't like him, but I know what it's like. And if you like him, which it's obvious you do or else you wouldn't be reacting like this, you should at least give him a chance to try and make it better." A part of Dru nagged that she was wrong, that she should be pulling Adara away from Emilian. And then another part would answer and say that no, I want to see where this relationship's going. Maybe it went back to selfish reasons, if Adara and Emilian could work it out and be a couple, then there was still a chance for her.

[Adara Snow]

But there was no making it better. How could it possibly be made better? Adara wanted to shout, wanted to argue, but everything Dru said preyed on the part of her that desperately wanted to believe she had been right, that he felt something for her, that there was something inside him besides sadism and a sex addiction. "I want to believe. I want to try, but I do not know how...to decide what is real, I do not know if I can trust him. How do you decide if you can trust someone?" How far had she come that she could ask such a question?

[Druscilla Grace]

Dru didn't know what to say to that. It was hard to trust for her, there had been too many instances of betrayed trust for her to be able to give a good answer for that question. "I don't know. It's hard for me to trust," she said, her voice low. She looked off into nothing for a second before she was able to speak again. "The only thing I can tell you is to go and talk to him. If he feels anything for you, he'll try to make it right." Dru looked away from Adara, her words hit on what had happened between her and Chase, bringing back the thought that he hadn't cared for her and, therefore, hadn't tried to make it right.

[Adara Snow]

But how could he make it right? Adara wanted to ask, but she was realizing that no one had all the answers. Her friends, her guides were not infallible; she was not the only one who felt lost. "I will talk to him," Adara said. Even if she would rather hide in her tower, there would be no forgetting him, and so it was the only thing she could do.