Page 58 of Equilibrium
“I’m sorry, ZoZo.” I stood up. “My mind is literally oatmeal today.”
She started laughing instead of glaring, again reminding me of Ava and her carefree demeanor. God, it would be so easy to stay here forever and have all these people in my life. Even though they all knew who I was and what I’d done, nobody behaved like they wanted to kill me.
“Where are you going?” Zoe asked instead.
“Something’s going on, I think.” I kept looking at the front door, trying to listen to the raised voices. “I’m gonna check it out.”
“Oh no, missy.” She stood up as well, glaring at me. “Whatever it is, you might want to stay out of it.”
Wasn’t it beautiful growing up in an environment where you had somebody else to protect you? This was the main difference between Zoe and me. She had people that would do anything for her, and she didn’t have to run into the fire. I had to because I had to know what was going on. If there was a shitstorm, I needed to know because I had to protect myself. I didn’t have a brother or a club full of wicked bikers who would lay down their life for me.
I envied her. I envied the carefree demeanor with which she strolled through life. I envied the fact that whatever demons she saw during her life didn’t diminish the light in her eyes.
“I need to know, Zoe.” I came closer to her and squeezed her hand. “I can handle myself in every single situation.” Well, I couldn’t do relationships, but you know. If you needed me to kick, maim or kill somebody, I could do it.
After a minute or so, she exhaled and rolled her eyes. One of these days, she was going to roll her eyes so far back that she wouldn’t be able to bring them back.
Whenever Indigo spoke with her—she rolled her eyes.
Whenever I tried to refuse staying here—she rolled her eyes.
Whenever she saw Felix with one of the girls from the club—she rolled her eyes.
And trust me, all these situations had been happening quite a lot.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt, or worse, kicked out.”
I started laughing at her choice of words, because between me getting hurt or getting kicked out of the club, she decided that getting kicked out was worse than bleeding. Now that I thought about it, maybe it was. Atlas kept drilling it into my head that there were people out there who wanted to see me dead, so maybe having this protection from the club wasn’t the worst thing after all.
But only until I healed enough.
I was almost counting days until the month was over. He would have to let me go, one way or another.
“I promise I won’t get hurt.” I snickered. “Or kicked out. I just want to see what’s happening.”
“Fine.” She reluctantly let go of my hand. “But we still need to talk about that mopey look you’ve been sporting for the last three days.”
“What mopey look?” My eyes widened at her statement, and the look on her face told me everything. God, I really didn’t miss the whole Spanish Inquisition about my relationships, even though they were almost imaginary.
“We will talk later,” she said as she plopped down into the chair, taking her phone out. I didn’t really know what to say, because that conversation, whenever it happened, was going to start with the topic of Storm, and right now his name left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Maybe I would feel better if I kicked him in his nuts?
I stood there gawking at her, but when one of those perfectly done eyebrows arched on her face, I knew I had to get away. Otherwise, that conversation was about to start now, and I planned on avoiding it for as long as I could.
I speed-walked toward the front door where several members blocked the entrance and tried to shimmy past them. A loud crash filtered through the air, and I walked faster through the hallway separating the two parts of the house. Shouting and what sounded like fighting came from the lounge area, and when I recognized one of those voices as Atlas’s, I knew Storm was going to be there as well.
What I didn’t expect once I arrived at the room, was Storm on the floor, getting punched by one of the guys I saw around the house. Indigo stood quietly next to the wall, his hands in the pockets of his pants and an indifferent look on his face.
What in the ever-loving fuck was going on?
Atlas and Felix tried blocking the other guy, but they were no match for the gigantic beast that pummeled Storm. And what did the fucker do? Nothing. He fucking did nothing.
His head kept flying from one side to the other, his body limp. Something ugly stirred inside my chest, and even though I was angry at him, I didn’t want him to end up in the hospital with a concussion and broken bones.
“Hey, fucker!” I yelled as I stepped inside the room, bracing against the stares of several other bikers that just stood on the side while somebody fucked their president up. The hulk that was pummeling Storm stopped for a moment and looked at me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“You,” he spat out, and I wondered what I did to this sunshine to get such a reception.
