The Bodyguard

Agreements

(hey, so I would love for you guys to help me find images because I feel like the blank top is starting to get really boring, so if anyone would like to help feel free to! You will obviously receive credit in that chapter for it)

For the first ten minutes or so, the car ride back is completely silent, neither of them saying a word, before Emilia decides to tear that silence into pieces.

"Who were they?" 

"Who?" Is Alexander's response, his hands white around the steering wheel and driving so quickly that she is certain the hour and a half drive would become merely an hour at the speeds he is going.

"The men, at the docks." She clarifies, knowing he is just buying himself time to think of a fantastic lie or way to avoid answering.

"I have warned you before of dangerous questions." He growls low in his throat, turning sharply onto a freeway and speeding up again, not that she was sure that was entirely possible to begin with.

"One of them is dead, I think I deserve to know who he was." She growls back, not adding a because of me to the sentence, afraid of infuriating him further.

An exasperated sigh and internal debate seems to come from the front seat, a rather intense one by the way his hands shift restlessly on the wheel. "Criminals."

Emilia wants to scream at his response, that part was pretty damned easy to figure out on her own considering they were carrying guns in a very shady shipping dock at night, they didn't really seem like legitimate shipping hands or business men.

"What kind of criminals?" She presses, wanting a precise answer and for him to stop being so frustrating.

"The kind that you should have never met, Emilia." He growls, suddenly angry, and she has the feeling that it isn't with her.

"I'm sorry, I'm just trying to figure things out." She apologizes anyway, hoping that maybe that will gode him into an explanation. Besides, that guy's death, criminal or not, is most definitely her fault.

 "I do not blame you, but you must stop, if I hadn't. . . You could have been killed today Emilia, and you need understand that, you need to see just how dangerous this world is." His voice is agonizing, he sounds terrified of what would happen to him if she had been killed, something she hadn't even considered as the guilt in her stomach suddenly turns into a void in her heart.

"I-I'm sorry, I should have thought about your job, and the trouble it would cause with Mr. Delmont, I just. ." She didn't know what to say, that she just needed to know? But it sounds so lame, so inconsequential to what is eating her up inside. The guilt, the curiosity, the fear, all of it that has her head and heart in constant turmoil. She had lost her father, Rosie, everything to bad people, and she was terrified that she would lose her mother to another one, that she would be in a place that Emilia couldn't reach her, and even if alive, she would lose the only family she has left.

"No, Emilia, it is not my job that was in danger, it was your life. You could have died today Emilia, if I hadn't been there you would have. That man killed so many people, and he would have done the same to you out of just paranoia, or worse, told him that you were there. You have to be careful, and you have to be safe." He goes quiet, struggling with something internally once more, perhaps the same things she is, but he knows what is going on. She knows he does.

"But, if you just tell me. ."

"No. You don't need to know, and you don't need to be involved." His voice is back to that harsh, cold tone that she was so accustomed to.

"Alexander, I'm already involved, and if I don't know anything, then how am I supposed to stay out of it? I was involved before my mom ever married Mr. Delmont, I was involved when my father was killed on those very docks, and my friend was shot in the back of a club for knowing too much. I want to know why they are dead, and why it wasn't me instead, even if you can't tell me, just, please, don't stand in my way." Emilia pleads with him, spilling everything to him, giving him the reasons she needs to know, giving him everything as she stares into that mirror to meet his eyes, and plead with the as well.