Page 119 of Ricochet
“Ophelia,” Storm started, interrupting us. The way he looked at her still bugged me, but her attention wasn’t on him anymore, it was on me, and I felt victorious just seeing it. “You gotta hurry up. The rest of their guards will be here soon, and my guys are injured. We need to get out of here.”
The shadows descended over her eyes with every word he spoke, and it was as if everything I just said didn’t mean anything. The same cold mask she always wore reappeared again, and I was losing her.
I was losing her, and I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t let her go, no matter what. So I used the last thing I hoped would bring her back to me.
“I love you. I still do. I always will, and no matter what, nothing will ever change that.”
“Stop it.”
“No, I need you to know that I still love you, and even if you don’t love me, I can be patient. I can wait, but just please, come back to where you belong. And you belong with me, you always belonged with me.”
Chaos.
That was the perfect word to describe the two of us. A perfect chaos, a sweet destruction, complete desolation of our souls. How could I kill him without killing myself as well?
“Do it, Ophelia.” Storm broke through my thoughts.
No, how could I kill the light of my life? I did this to us. I brought us to the brink of insanity. I killed the innocence in him, but I couldn’t take his life as well. I thought I could. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would be free of this life, of these memories, of these demons that haunted me for years.
Seeing him like this, kneeling in front of me, beaten, broken down, destroyed… I couldn’t.
“I-I can’t.” I dropped the knife to the floor, both Tristan and Cillian following my movements. There was so much hatred, so much destruction in all of us, when would it stop?
When the fuck would this madness go away?
When did it start? Was it with our families, or was it with us?
“I can’t... I can’t, Storm.”
Theo’s lifeless body laid on the other side, his eyes wide open, staring at me. I felt no remorse seeing him like that, just like he didn’t feel any remorse when he destroyed my life.
But Kieran… This man—his only fault was loving me. His only fault was thinking that the monster had a heart big enough to change what it really was. His only fault was trying to do what his father told him to do.
He always thought I could be better, I could be kinder, sweeter… I just never told him I could never be what he wanted me to be. I tried. My God, I tried so hard.
But the two of us, we were wrong for each other. Two opposites colliding at every step of the way, but we never met each other in the middle. Positive and negative atoms attract each other, but ours were never destined to function.
Ours were destined to destroy, and that’s what we did.
We pulled all of the good things from each other, leaving behind two souls so numb that no amount of love could fill the void. We were wrong, so, so fucking wrong, and I wanted to scream at the world for putting him in my path.
I wish I never met him. I wish our families never worked together and I never met his sister. I didn’t deserve his love.
I didn’t deserve him.
“Ophelia,” Kieran croaked. Tears I refused to drop before now gathered in my eyes. His bloodied hand reached for mine, entwining our fingers.
Red, all I could see were red streaks. What the fuck did I do? What did I do to him? What did I do to us? Oh God.
My chest was squeezing, my heart felt like it might explode. I broke us. I fucking broke us and I knew there was no going back after this. Why didn’t he tell me what happened then?
“Ophelia,” he whispered again, “look at me.”
I started shaking my head, my tears falling free onto the floor between us. Everything else ceased to exist. Storm, Tristan, Cillian, Atlas, all of them… They weren’t here anymore.
“Please.”
The emotion in his voice choked me, the pain in my chest intensifying with each new breath.
