Page 75 of Oblivion
I’d allowed those feelings to shape who I am, when I was so much more than just a killer. I wanted real love. The kind that didn’t hurt and didn’t make me feel lacking, and that’s what my love for him was.
This toxicity, this circle we were all stuck in, had to stop. We couldn’t go on like this.
I pulled myself up from the bed and I knew it was still too early, but I couldn’t sleep anymore, or well, pretend to sleep. The flashbacks of last night ran through my head, that same motherfucking nightmare, repeating for the past couple of months.
Storm on the floor, bleeding out, with Nikolai standing above him, grinning maniacally.
I shouldn’t have goaded him. I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen, but I did, and now I had to live with consequences. It even slipped my mind to ask him to use a condom, and I should have. I fucking should have.
No matter how much it hurt, I didn’t expect him to stay celibate this past month, I had no right, but it still hurt thinking about all the girls he'd probably slept with, blaming me for everything that'd happened. If he did all that, I couldn’t exactly blame him for trying to exorcise me from his bloodstream, because I would have done the same.
I would have done even worse things to mend the gaping wound on my heart.
The T-shirt I found in the wardrobe was too big for me, reaching all the way to my knees, but I had no other choice. I had no underwear, no pants, no shirts, and I wondered if this was what he wanted, to keep me in the room all of the time, while he did whatever the fuck he wanted.
Well, he had another thing coming if that was his plan, because no matter how much I regretted the things I'd done to him, I was no one’s prisoner, and he should have known better to know that it was a terrible idea bringing me back here.
The Outfit was still after me, the Albanians as well, and he was putting a target on his own back by keeping me with the Club. Didn’t he learn his lesson the last time?
I opened the window, reveling in the dash of fresh air clearing my mind and the scent that kept lingering throughout the night. Trees surrounded the property and I couldn’t see the fence, unlike the old house.
It was obvious that they'd all moved after the fiasco with Nikolai, and it seemed that we weren’t in the city anymore. Birds chirped, the sound of a motorcycle came from the other side of the house, and if this was a different life, if we weren’t at war, I would’ve liked it here. I would have liked to stay here.
Kaiser would love it here.
My window was overlooking the backyard, my eyes zeroing in on the three barbeque stations located on the far left. Tables lined the yard, and I remembered the last barbeque party I saw and what I did on that same day.
The sound of the door opening behind me pulled me back from memory lane, and as I turned, I all but ran toward him.
“Atlas!” I yelled out, throwing myself at him, hugging him to me. And if my heart broke a little bit because he didn’t hug me back immediately, I would never say, because it didn’t take him more than five seconds to envelop me in his strong arms.
“I missed you so much,” I murmured, my voice muffled by his shirt.
“Oh yeah?” He chuckled. “Is that why you made us all think you were dead?”
I winced as soon as the words came out of his mouth.
Detaching myself from him, I looked up at his face and the shaggy blond hair that needed a cut, hating the dark circles around his eyes and the lifeless stare he was gifting me with.
“I would say I’m sorry, but—”
“It needed to be done,” he finished for me and leaned against the doorframe. “Doesn’t mean that I had to like it.”
“I know.” I nodded. “And if there was any other way, I would have done it, but—”
“I know, Phee.” Atlas smiled for the first time. “But you should have known that he wouldn’t stop looking for you even in hell.”
“He was only looking for me because he wanted to punish me.”
“You said that, not me. But he was insufferable without you here. When our contact in the police called to inform us about your alleged death, Storm lost it, Ophelia. He almost attacked Indigo because he made a joke that the world was a better place without you in it after we saw the body.”
“Shit.” I winced.
“Yeah, shit. He smelled like a distillery for a week. He was like a feral wolf, walking around with a permanent frown etched on his face. We went through a lot of shit together, but I have never seen him look like that.”
“I-I,” I stammered and sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry.”
Atlas took a deep breath and walked inside, closing the door behind him. “Look…” He took my hand and sat down next to me. “I’m not happy with what you did, but I’m sure you had your reasons. I’m just saying these things to you so that you can understand what was happening without you around here.”
