Page 65 of Equilibrium
But I guess we all wore our masks in a different way. Some wore smiley, happy, careless masks, while some were dark, colored with blood and pain, war, and ache. Some masks could be replaced, exchanged for the better ones, or completely removed. But some got stuck to our skin until we forgot what it felt like not to wear one.
I wore my mask of cold indifference every single day, and I was tired of it. I wanted to have it removed, to have my skin breathe. I wanted to bask in the glory of the morning sun as if it were the best thing that could happen to me. I wanted to hold the woman I cared about, to smile at her without thinking about the consequences.
The muffled sound of my phone ringing pulled me back from my thoughts and woke Ophelia up, and destroying that small semblance of peace I had. I couldn’t see it anywhere around me nor could I feel it vibrating inside the pocket of my jeans, but when the ringing wouldn’t stop, ongoing for minutes on end, I started moving Ophelia away from me, trying to locate the device.
She gripped my ribs tighter, burying her nose into the column of my neck, moaning in her sleep. “Nooo. I don’t want to get up.”
“Phee—”
“Let it ring.” She clung to me. “Go back to sleep.”
I wished I could. I wished I could just close my eyes, hold her close and never let go. I wished I could change who I was and the world I was living in. What would it be like to live life without fearing that it could end in any moment? And not only mine, but my brothers-in-arms.
Not even a minute passed before the phone started ringing again, and whoever was trying to reach me was insistent. Softly rolling her off me, I managed to slip out of the bed before Ophelia could latch onto me again. I realized where the sound was coming from. Dropping to my knees, I could see the light shining from underneath the bed, accompanied by an annoying ringing sound. I extended my arm, wincing at the pain ricocheting from the left side of my ribs through my chest, cursing Hunter and his inability to listen to what I had to say.
My hand connected with the cool surface of the phone just as it stopped ringing and when I saw the caller ID, I wished I had never gotten out of the bed.
“Who is it?” Her sleepy voice was muffled by the pillow she had pressed against her face. I wanted to tell her more than anything in the world, but she wouldn’t understand. She would think the worst because she was wired that way. Both of us were. We always assumed the worst possible scenario, never even thinking about the logical explanation.
I kept staring at the screen of the phone when the bed shifted, and she pulled herself up. I could feel her eyes on me, but I couldn’t look at her. She would know, and right now wasn’t the time for the conversation we needed to have.
“Storm?” Goddammit. “Is everything okay?”
No, nothing was okay. Nothing about this whole situation was okay. I knew what I needed to do, but I didn’t want to leave her alone. I didn’t want to give her time to overthink everything, so I avoided the topic.
“Why didn’t you come here when you ran away from Croyford Bay?” It wasn’t the most mature question, but the need to know why she chose not to come here was eating me alive. And it was a distraction from the goddamn phone call that fucked up my entire day. Well, fucked it up even more. “You knew who I was.” I lifted my head and looked at her. “You knew about our club.”
Her whole face hardened. “You didn’t want to come, or?”
“Don’t fucking bullshit me, Storm.”What? “I came here. This was the first place I went.”
She got off the bed and started walking toward the bathroom. “But you didn’t want me here. You turned me away!” Her scream bounced off the walls of the bedroom before she entered the bathroom and slammed the door.
I was still on the floor, staring at the closed door as my mind tried to understand what she just said. She... No, I would’ve known. I would’ve known if she had come here. I wouldn’t have spent years looking for her if I didn’t want her here. What the fuck was she talking about?
I pulled myself up and walked toward the bathroom, trying to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. “Ophelia!” I slammed my hand against the wooden surface. “Open up.”
“Go away, Storm. Just go away.”
“Not until you tell me the truth. I would have known if you ever came here, my guys would’ve told me.”
The door swung open then, revealing an extremely pissed off Ophelia. I would say she looked hot, but I was starting to get pissed as well. If she hadn’t come here that would be okay, but there was no need to lie to me.
“Don’t give me that crap. I came here. I begged them to see you and they told me you didn’t want to see me. They told me you wanted me gone.”
“Who?” I yelled. “Who told you that, because I spent the last four years trying to find you, trying to get you back here. I would never do that.”
Her beautiful face transformed with a cruel smile, shutting me out, preparing for a blow.
“Then you, my darling, have snakes slithering in your garden, and you don’t even know it.”
Four Years Ago
It looked like paradise,but it was pure hell.
Kieran and me, our families, it was hell. They thought I killed her. They thought I killed Ava. How could they? She was the only good thing I was left with, and they thought I would kill her. They didn’t listen to me, and now she was dead.
Was she buried somewhere?
