Page 39 of Equilibrium
The cold handsof memories I’ve tried to forget, enveloped my body until I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. Their claws dug into my chest, opening the wounds I thought had healed a long time ago, but I was wrong. Memories were wicked little things, capable of causing havoc when you least expected it.
They loved to sneak upon you, sending your whole body into a frenzy, torturing you until you couldn’t handle it anymore. The melodic laughter of a child sounded somewhere behind us, and I wasn’t here anymore. I was back in Yantai, in China.
The smell of wet soil, fresh air, and the dark street were all around me. And the child; the child stood in front of me, smiling, innocent, not yet knowing what a real demon looked like. He watched me as I took the life from his mother, as the last breath left her body.
And then another memory slammed into me;the smell of ashes, of burned meat and sand rising all around me. The pleading eyes of the Saudi man as I stood there, unapologetic, unwavering, even when his wife screamed at me with tears streaming down her face. I stood there unflinching even when his teenage daughter ran in front of him with the dark veil falling off her head.
“Rahma!” she screamed at me, begging, pleading, but none of it could stop me. She couldn’t stop me even when I raised my gun, pointing it at her father’s head. She wasn’t able to stop me because the bullet I’d released lodged itself into her forehead, and the thud of her body on the warm ground echoed around us, mixed with the screams of her mother.
And I killed the rest of them.
But the eyes… The honey brown eyes of a girl haunted me to this day.
“Sunshine,” Storm murmured in my hair, gripping my kneecaps with his hands. I felt the wind in my hair, the sand beneath my hands, his raspy voice on my skin, but I couldn’t snap out of the wicked place my mind took me to.
I heard people talking around us; the laughter, the happiness, the sense of belonging—home. It felt like home, but it wasn’t mine. It would never be mine. I didn’t deserve it. The innocent people I’ve killed in the name of the Syndicate were the ones haunting me from the afterlife, and they should. They should condemn me to the deepest pits of hell.
How did I allow them to turn me into this? This monstrous being that shoved everything into a box just so that I couldn’t feel.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby.” Warm lips pressed against my clammy skin, right below my ear, and the involuntary shudder that ran through my body was enough to send my blood pumping again. And instead of running like I should’ve, I leaned back, welcoming the strong body holding me when I couldn’t hold myself.
The air didn’t smell like blood and tears anymore, but like leather and cinnamon, and it was all Storm. I wondered if he would want me here if he knew that I tasted more of war and pain than dreams and sun-filled fields. I wondered if he knew that the body he held committed such atrocities, that even a thousand years of bathing in holy water wouldn’t be able to cleanse the sins I’ve committed.
I looked down at the tattooed hands that kept their slow perusal of my legs. He started at my calves, massaging his way up, all the way to my knees and my thighs. And even though it should’ve felt erotic, the only feeling I got was peace. He made me feel at peace, and I both hated and loved that he could bring it to me.
“Are you feeling better?” His warm breath washed over my cheek. The question asked was a mere whisper, traveling with the wind, and I wanted to soak in the raspy quality that felt like walnuts mixed with honey. Need pooled between my thighs, making me move closer to him.
I didn’t know how to communicate with words. I was never taught, and the role models I had were better in issuing orders or being completely checked out, than with the open affection and soft strokes on the hair every child wanted to feel from their parents.
I only knew how to use my body in both combat and sex. His legs stiffened around us, and the muscles on his thighs visibly jumped against the dark denim he was clad in. With the mind of their own, my hands moved from the sand, taking a hold of his thighs, leaving marks in its wake.
Lifting my head, I was met with the tempest brewing inside his eyes, but I knew he wasn’t going to make a move. He refused to play by my rules, and my little exploration of his inner thighs ended as he gripped my hands, halting every single movement. His lips pulled into a crooked smile, as he leaned down, placing a kiss on my temple.
It should’ve been nothing, but it felt like everything I ever wanted. The sweetness I craved even though I fought so hard to show the world I could do everything by myself. Would it be so bad losing myself in him and forgetting about all the bad things I went through?
But as soon as that thought came to mind, Maya’s tortured face replaced it, and I knew I couldn’t stay. Why did everything feel like it could only happen in a different lifetime?
I tried moving away from him as my breathing slowed down, but the hands that massaged my legs just a minute ago, pulled me back into his body, locking me in place. I should’ve struggled against his hold, but I was too tired of lying to myself. Too tired of fighting this battle alone, and I let him hold me, even if it was just for a moment.
I wasn’t sure if he could sense how indecisive I really was, and I hated thinking about the consequences of this push-and-pull shit that was happening between us. It’s been only what, two days, and I’ve already managed to fuck him, push him away, pull him back in and probably mess with his mind. This Storm didn’t seem like the Storm everybody was talking about.
This man didn’t seem like a vicious hunter that was usually hired by other families to track, maim, and kill. This Storm cared for me, and if I could allow myself to accept that, I knew I would be happier.
But I couldn’t.
I promised myself that the fairy tales I was trying to create in my head were nothing but a little girl’s dream that could never come true. It wasn’t like I expected a knight on a white horse, or someone to save me. But when I was younger, when all of this started, I dreamed of a future where violence, pain, betrayal, and blood were not present. I dreamed of a future where I could hold somebody’s hand without fear of them dying on me just because somebody from my family decided to do so.
Me being here, hanging with these people, leaving my stench on them, this was a recipe for a disaster. I might have avoided my father for the last four years, but I had a feeling that this leash he was keeping me on was getting shorter, and sooner or later he was going to come for me. I just had to get to Maya before that happened.
I wasn’t going to go back to the life he wanted for me. I was done being his puppet, his obedient little daughter or how he liked to call me, the Little Dragon. And I also wasn’t going to put this whole club in danger.
I just had to figure out how to get away from Storm. This pull he had on me was becoming scary. This need to stay with him, to let him hold me, to let him soothe the wounds I didn’t even know were still there, that was going to be our undoing. And he felt it too. He felt the same things I did. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. If I did, it would become true, and as long as I could lie to him and myself, I could keep trying to get away.
The last time I gave my heart to somebody, he shattered it into a million pieces, leaving a broken puppet behind. Who’s to say that Storm wouldn’t do the same thing? Men had a penchant for destruction, and the object was always my sanity and my heart. I was already hanging by the thread and giving my everything to him would be a mistake.
He wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t. Whatever was haunting Storm was not the same as what was haunting me. The shadows in his eyes were not created by him, but by other people. I knew what the self-loathing looked like even when you wanted to pretend with the pretty little mask on your face. I saw self-loathing in the mirror daily, seeping through the pores of my skin, leaving scars on the pale surface. Mine came from the things I did when maybe I didn’t have to.
His wasn’t anywhere close to that. There were monsters in this world, monsters that wanted to taint your soul and take your heart. I was one of them and I knew; I knew what a tortured soul felt like.
