Page 41 of Equilibrium
I didn’t have butterflies in my stomach when he looked at me. No. Whoever described it as butterflies had never felt this way, because this was more like a stampede of wild horses running through and causing turmoil. Love made me weak once before, and I would be a fool if I didn’t learn from my past mistakes.
But he isn’t Kieran.
No, no he isn’t. He could be much, much worse. What I had with Kieran was familiarity, mild obsession, the knowledge that somebody else was in this mess with me, but Kieran’s presence never pulled at me like Storm’s did. I realized a long time ago that it wasn’t my heart that was hurt when he slept with Cynthia, it was my ego. It was the knowledge that he dared to betray me after everything we went through, but he didn’t break my heart with that.
He broke my heart when he raped my sister.
But Storm… He had a power to obliterate me if I allowed myself to dream again. He could crush me like a bug, and I wasn’t sure if I had enough trust in me left to let him in. Ava told me once that she felt the pull to Nathan even before he spoke to her. That there was something raw and animalistic in the way his soul called to hers.
Sometimes I wished I were more like her, and less like me. I wished I were the kind of a person that could allow happiness, love and all those mushy, touchy feelings to consume my whole being, because living like this, living with all these regrets was slowly killing my soul.
Storm was going to be just another regret, regardless of the choice I’d make.
The soft tap on my temple pulled me back to reality, to the concerned-looking Storm and the murmurs around us. “Where did you go, Sunshine?”
“Nowhere,” I replied. “Everywhere.”
I had a tendency to get lost in my head. To overthink things I had no power over. I learned a long time ago that fighting my mind took more strength from me than fighting men five sizes bigger than me. Physical exhaustion could be dealt with, you could heal, but the mental one… it took me years to learn the signs of my little attacks. I had to figure out the little tells of when the memories would become too much.
I used to have a better grasp on reality, but the whole ordeal with Kieran, remembering all the things we went through, seeing Storm again and realizing I’d lost everything I could have… my mind just shut down. When was the last time I actually slowed down? Sometimes I had a feeling that all I did for the past six years was to fight, survive, fight again, run away, and try to see the light of another day.
Was this how I wanted to live my life?
Atlas broke our little bubble when he walked over to us with an amused look on his face, but concern in his eyes. “Storm,” he started. “I have the car ready.”
The behemoth behind me kept his hands on my shoulders, not even sparing a glance at Atlas.
“Are you going to be okay riding on my Harley or do you want us to take the Range Rover?” I don’t think that anybody ever spoke to me in such a calm way like he did. Even when I was a kid, my mother was too busy snorting whatever she could get her hands on. The way he shielded me from the rest of the world, even though I didn’t shield myself. My father wasn’t the one to show any kind of affection, which only got worse once they threw me into their world. Theo was a hateful little shit, who enjoyed fucking up my mood, and bullying Maya and me.
Kieran tried, but I was too far gone to even pay attention, and after a year or so, he stopped trying.
But not Storm. I’ve been nothing but a bitch since I saw him in the church, and what did he do? He kept pushing for more—more affection, more touching, more, more, more. And for somebody that hated any form of affection, I was soaking in what he was showing me.
Soft little touches on my skin, the way he looked at me, the way he cared even though I tried pushing him away, it meant that maybe there was someone out here that wanted to see me happy. It was just too bad I couldn’t accept any of it.
“I’m good with the Harley.” I always wanted to have a bike of my own, but the timing was never perfect. The confines of the car right now were not something I was looking forward to, and the way I felt on the way here was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Freedom.
And even though it had been Atlas I was driving with and not Storm, even though I had a million thoughts racing through my head, it felt exhilarating. And now, I wanted it to be Storm whose body I would hug to avoid falling off. Whatever he had planned for us, I wouldn’t mind if it meant getting away from here.
I was jealous of all these people, and it was fucking wrong. It wasn’t their fault I was born into a coldhearted and vicious family filled with serpents and lies. I wanted to run away from them, from the sing-song voices, laughter of the children, smiling faces of adults as they watched them play. It wasn’t something I was accustomed to. My family never did any of these things.
Picnics were things from fairy tales, and happiness was just a picture we were trying to paint. Hollow souls in our bodies, broken dreams, and broken promises, that’s what I was familiar with. Not to mention that I still wanted to talk to Storm without all these other distractions that were doing my head in.
I still wanted to leave, even more so now, and I needed him to tell me why he brought me here.
You know why, you idiot.
Okay, yes. Maybe I did know why, but I refused to accept it. No one in their right mind would ever think of welcoming me into their fold. My family knew that, the Nightingales knew that, and hell, even the Albanians with all their wicked ways knew that. I was never a part of anything.
Always a lone wolf. Always isolated.
“Are you ready to go?” Three sets of eyes zeroed in on me, but I didn’t look at the other two. I sought Storm’s eyes, trying to get a good read of him, but he seemed to be apprehensive. I had a feeling it had everything to do with me and my little episode.
“Yeah.” I nodded, trying to plaster a smile on my face. It absolutely didn’t work, because he all but groaned painfully before getting up and extending his hand to me.
“Come on then.” Atlas fucking chuckled next to him, but with one look from the behemoth that was hugging me a moment ago, his mouth formed a thin line with a serious look taking over his face.
