Chapter 277: I’m the Problem.

She was here.

She was actually here.

One second she was standing there, and the next she felt like she had been bulldozed into something.

Their arms.

These men had hugged her tight before, but never this hard.

Her head was pressed between the lines of their shoulders, and she could feel arms around her back and one clutching the back of her scalp tightly. Guilt ripped through her as she heard the beat of their accelerating hearts, and the way they shuddered while holding her.

"Oh, Hellcat..." Zeke groaned, still panting.

Sylas was already patting her body. He was sniffing her for any sign of blood, any sign of violence, that she had been hurt...and he found some.

"Are you okay?" He whispered. He sounded so scared. "What happened? Venom, please,"

Theo closed her eyes and basked in the feeling of being crushed in their arms. It felt really nice. She could stay here forever. But she couldn’t bring herself to.

"Let go of me," She mumbled, and started to pull away.

"What..."

They both pulled back and stared at her face. She was still blocking them out from knowing how she was feeling, but her eyes were swollen and red.

She was drenched too, and was actively avoiding eye contact.

Sylas saw a large tear in her arm that was already healing, and he could smell blood also coming from her leg. Had she been attacked? Did someone take her away from the house and she fought and escaped?!

Finally, he noticed something else she was holding in one hand. A stuffed cat and Pikachu...and the bracelet of beads.

In her other hand...were human parts.

Heads, to be precise, and she was holding them by their hair while their lifeless eyes were wide open.

Rex and Jarred.

"Was it them?" Zeke raged, "Did they attack you?"

She didn’t react and simply lifted the hand she was holding the gifts, "I came to return these," She said.

"Venom, let’s go inside first," Sylas suggested. But when he reached for her, she took a step back and shook her head once.

"I said I came to return these. Take them," She stated, nudging her arm forward.

They didn’t move and remained staring at her.

"What happened?" Zeke asked softly.

"Nothing. Just take it,"

"Hellcat," He whispered.

"You don’t wanna take it?" Her voice shook a bit, but she remained composed, "Well, you must," She grabbed their arms and pressed the gifts into them, forcing their fingers around them before she stepped back again, "There you go,"

Then, she tossed the heads aside and dusted her palms together, still keeping up the facade that she wasn’t bothered by anything.

"Look," She began, "I’m sorry I left without telling anyone first. I just needed to clear my head."

Those fluttering eyes of theirs were gonna be the death of her no matter how hard she tried not to look into them, and she could tell at one glance that they did not believe her at all.

"You both know I don’t remember a thing, but everything around me feels and looks so familiar, and that eventually got to me, which is why I left so abruptly." She paused and forced a smile, "I didn’t mean to make you worry like this."

"Your memories are back," Sylas stated out of nowhere.

Theo’s heartbeat took off, and her pupils dilated in shock. How did he know?! Quickly, she force-flattened her heart and blinked, erasing the flicker of shock from her eyes.

"What? No," She could have gotten away with it if she were speaking with a regular wolf. Her mates were far from regular.

"You remembered everything. That is why you ran away," Zeke added.

She finally looked up at them, but she couldn’t last a second locking eyes with them, "Honestly, you two..." She scoffed, rolling her eyes, "Why would you think such a thing?"

"Because we know,"

"I told you!" She raised her voice a bit, her eyes flashing with anger, "I went to clear my head. That is all."

"Then why did you block us out?"

"Because I needed to be alone for this. It’s my soul that was erased, not yours!" She snapped.

"If that’s the case, then come inside the house," Sylas said, sounding almost breathless, "You got to take your long walk alone, and you are drenched. Let us make you something warm to drink,"

"No!" She exclaimed and took another step back, "I uhhh, I’m not done with my walk. There’s still a few things I need to clear up in my head and I—"

"We are sorry!" They both burst in unison.

Theo froze again. This time, she couldn’t totally stop her heart from skipping beats.

"Whatever we did that is making you lie to us right now, we are sorry."

Tears pooled in her eyes. It’s not... like that.

"Whatever it was that made you leave the house, that made you cry for hours alone, that made you not want to look at us anymore, that’s making you step back, that is hurting you..."

Theo’s hands were trembling by her sides. Why were they apologising? They’ve done nothing wrong!

"Venom," Sylas slowly reached forward, terrified she would move away again. He touched her face with one finger, then two, and then five. Each one vibrated as loud as his fear of losing her to anything, and she could feel it, "We messed up, and we messed up badly,"

A tear rolled down her face.

"We left you with him. We left you at his mercy for months. After all the promises we made, we couldn’t protect you from him. We died, and you watched us die. We burned, and you watched us burn."

The tears were rolling down freely now, and there was a huge lump in her throat she couldn’t get rid of no matter how many times she swallowed.

"I was weak," Zeke said this time, and cupped her other cheek softly, "You did everything you could to help me that night, but I still remained weak. I can’t begin to imagine how you felt watching him kill us."

They could not.

The cry of her pleading with Cain to have mercy on them as he squeezed the life out of her throat was imprinted in their minds. How she had begged under his feet. How she had pressed her forehead to the ground and pulled at his trousers.

Everything went dark after death. The mate bond had vanished.

But what happened after that was predictable.

She had cried and cried. She’d gone numb. She’d begged the Moon Goddess to wake her up from this nightmare. She’d looked at Cain and realised how helpless she was.

Then, she’d been forced to marry him. She had to walk down the aisle that same night. She had to bite her lips, look into the devil’s eyes with a heavy heart and say, ’I do’ to him.

And every second of the day after that, she had to constantly remember that they were gone forever.

Sylas and Zeke knew.

"Venom, I’m—"

"Stop!!!" She shouted desperately. Angrily. And then she shoved them both hard in the chest. They barely moved. "Both of you, stop!! Stop apologising! You have done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing!!"

Then, she finally looked into their eyes and whispered brokenly, her voice so soft they feared it would tear, "It’s me. I... I’m the problem here."