Page 13 of Equilibrium
He was pressing at my larynx and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t talk. My air supply was getting cut off, and the crazed look in his eyes wasn’t the same one I used to see when I looked at him before.
Before everything went to shit.
“Nat-Nathan,” I managed to choke out.
“That’s not my fucking name anymore.” He lowered his head, leveling with mine. “You and your family made sure of it.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t going to stand here and choke to death because another asshole thought I did something. They really needed to get their sources sorted out.
“What was that that they used to call you.” He smirked. “Birdy? Isn’t that right? You came here to die, birdy?”
The tattooed X below his left eye was new, as was the scar going through his right eyebrow. What the fuck happened to him?
The hair he used to keep short, was now longer on the top, and if it wasn’t for the murderous look on his face directed at me, I would’ve said that he looked hot.
He increased the pressure on my neck, and I knew if he continued like this, I would faint.
“What is going on here?” It was the voice that felt like a caress on my skin, the voice that whispered sweet nothings in my ear four years ago. It felt both like salvation and damnation.
“Creed!”
I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything but Nathan’s face and the black dots dancing around.
Creed? Who’s Creed?
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He was closer now, so, so close, but I was losing it. Nathan’s face was darkening, the whooshing sound in my ears, and my lungs burning.
“I am killing this bitch.”
“Are you now?”
He sounded calm, collected. He sounded dangerous, and I had a feeling this was about to go unbelievably bad.
“She killed the only person I loved,” Nathan continued, and I held on. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t me, but at the same time, I was too tired, trying to prove to people I wasn’t what they made me out to be in their heads.
I was just so fucking tired, and the only thing I wanted was to find my sister and fuck away from this world. But I was wrong.
I would never be able to get away from this insanity. I would never be free no matter how hard I tried.
“Did she now?”
Storm and I, we were cut from the same cloth, and while Nathan kept pressing at my air supply, I managed to open my eyes to see the sinister look on Storm’s face as he came behind him. Faster than you could say sex, a knife was placed on Nathan’s throat and Storm pulled him off me.
I fell to the ground, coughing as Nathan started shouting at him.
“What the fuck man?”
I couldn’t lift my head, and I didn’t even try to. Somebody’s hands landed on my shoulders, and the blond locks of Atlas’s hair fell over my face. Jesus, what was it with people trying to strangle me all the time?
Not that I didn’t deserve it most of the time, but if you wanted to kill me, at least you should have a good enough reason.
“What the fuck, Creed?” Storm started. “That woman you were just trying to kill is mine. And you know what I do to people that try to take away what’s mine.”
“Storm,” I croaked. He would kill him; I knew he would. But Storm didn’t know the history we had.
I was pretty sure Creed was fed the same lies as the Nightingales. That I killed Ava, that I destroyed their little ray of sunshine. He didn’t know and I couldn’t blame him.
