Page 85 of Equilibrium
I could see how much she enjoyed being here, talking to Zoe, being surrounded by our members. She seemed relaxed, full of life, far away from the angry woman in that church. She thought I wanted to change her, but I just wanted to help her. I didn’t want her to be anything else but herself. I knew what loneliness felt like. I knew what feeling isolated from the rest of the world felt like.
Her father did it to me, and I wanted her to have real relationships with people that were not based on the job or killings. She thought I didn’t want her because of what she did, but that was as far away from the truth as it could get.
I was thrown to the fucking wolves as a kid, fed to those bloodthirsty creatures with human features but souls as dark as the deepest pits of hell. Nikolai’s friends, associates, they all watched and laughed. To this day, I still remembered the feeling of their eyes on my skin, of his eyes on my back.
Of the way those serpent eyes bore through me. I was powerless, just a kid, and they did it all anyway. I couldn’t stop them then, but I could stop them from laying their hands on her.
Maybe she would end up hating me once I told her everything she needed to know. I was going about this all wrong, but it was the only way. This fucked-up situation was the one I never wanted to put myself in. I never expected to meet her, to need her, to want to worship the ground she walked on, but I was happy I did. Whichever deity brought this siren, this goddess to me, I was thankful because she brought me back to life.
And maybe she would want me to die, because her father, after I was done with him, he wouldn’t even want to live anymore. I would take everything from him, just how he took everything from me.
My innocence, my peace, my childhood.
She was going to resent me. She was going to leave. She was going to take away everything with her. I was angry, furious even, because destiny chose this for us. It fucked us over. If there was a God, he must have had a good reason to punish us like this. Were we such bad people in our past lives?
Why did some of us deserve this kind of torture, while the other ones lived freely? They lived and killed with no consequences.
They had tortured and destroyed with no regrets.
Parents selling their children to get another fix, just how mine sold me. They sold me to one dragon I never wanted to meet. They sold me to the man who looked like a dream, pretended to be a father. Pretended to be a protector, and when the time was right, he ruined it all.
He just took it all away.
My safety.
My sanity.
My heart was left somewhere in the ruins of my childhood, somewhere within the walls of that house they kept me in. It shattered all over the walls that held mine and the screams of others.
This time when I barged in, I was going to destroy them all. Strip them away from everything they had. I just had to figure out how to save her. And if she wanted to leave, I would just hold her tighter. I would hold her, chain her to me, and even if she hated me, I could never hate her.
I could never hate her, because four years ago wasn’t the first time I saw those blue eyes, I just hadn’t known it yet. It took me a while to truly realize who Ophelia was and what she did for me, saving me with the simplest touch, a simple hug. And that innocence she possessed once; it couldn’t be given back, but at least what was left of her mind would be kept safe. At least she would be alive, and that was all that mattered. Because a world without her wasn’t a world worth living.
She stirred in her sleep, those icy eyes landing on me almost instantly.
“Storm,” she murmured with a husky voice. What I wouldn’t give to stay with her here, to hold her in my arms, kiss those pouty lips, drown myself in her, but I couldn’t. This was the only way to fix this mess. This was the only way for her to see what I’d tried to do.
I had to go.
“What are you doing here?” She started pulling herself up, rubbing her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Go back to sleep.” I placed a hand over hers, memorizing each and every curve of hers. If this shit went sideways, well, I guess that this would be the last time I got to see her.
“What’s going on?” She was more alert now, looking around the room, trying to locate the danger. “Are we under attack? Why are you dressed?”
It was in the moments like these that she showed she cared. I wasn’t the only one that felt this insane connection. She felt it too. And no matter how many times she wanted to deny it, she felt it all.
“No, everything is okay, actually.”
“Then why are you up?”
I moved the hair that fell into her eyes and smiled at the confused expression on her face.
“We’re going on an errand, the boys and I. Creed is going to stay here, Atlas and the rest of the guys will be with me.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her eyes narrowed on me, the inquisitive way she was trying to convey almost making me laugh.
“What, that Creed is going to stay here?”
