AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was so weak then.
Helpless.
Fucking pathetic. I was powerless, nothing but a frail, useless being that stood hopeless in the face of death when I should have kicked that bastard’s ass. I should have allowed the Reaper to take me instead. Or this empire and everyone in it.
Anyone but Rían.
I never forgave myself for just standing there and watching, when I could have done something, anything, to stop him from getting hurt.
I knew it was a feeble regret. I was seven, and the chances of overpowering fully grown men were less than slim, but I couldn’t logic away the ache in my heart.
“Lessie, wake up!” I gasped and my face felt wet as I startled myself awake, dry heaving for a painless breath, but each one I inhaled burned like ice. My chest ached and I reached up to swipe the tears from my face. My weakness glistened down my cheek.
My own body betrayed me and anger soon overtook the sorrow.
Killian was on his knees beside me. Large hands wrapped around my shoulders and I resented the fact his touch didn’t feel foreign. It never did. “W-what are you doing in here?” I rasped, blinking away the sting in my eyes, refusing to allow any more of my anguish to show.
“You were having a nightmare,” he said, breathing heavily and his face fell, creasing with concern. His hair was mused and ruffled, disheveled on top of his head.
It was still damp from his shower.
My head snapped toward him at the rough sound of his voice. He sounded like some kind of dark God. Like he hadn’t spoken before this very moment, and I knew despite the fact he didn’t speak to me, he did in fact talk.
Especially to Ronnie.
Something squirmed low in my tummy and I clenched my thighs together. The same feeling I felt when I first stared into his ocean blues plagued me now I’d finally heard his voice again after all of these years. Something inside of me screamed and as soon as it made a sound, something even more vicious in me shut it up as quickly as it started.
I shook my head, clearing the fog, and sat up so my back rested against the headboard, knocking his hands from my shoulders. “So I’ve only got to be screaming to be granted your acknowledgment?” I chuckled, shrugging off the embarrassment but I couldn’t hide the bitterness in my tone.
“I thought you were being murdered,” he gritted out, and I couldn’t help but look into his eyes which were thick with worry. I’d seen many looks on his face before, looks he thought he kept well veiled and he had, from everyone but me. I noticed. Because they were the same expressions I tried to hide myself.
“It’d take more than a nightmare to kill me off.”
“What were you dreaming about?” he asked after a moment of silence, and I debated telling him, then because I hadn’t told another living soul I let slip, “The boy I killed.” Once that sentence whispered past my lips, the rest soon followed. “It’s the anniversary of his death in two days. I was dreaming about the night I murdered him.”
Something dark and unreadable consumed his baby blues and turned them into dark sapphires. It was magnificent how much they changed depending on his mood. His entire face shifted and he looked angry, furious even.
There was something about that expression on his face, aimed directly at me, that made me feel like I deserved it.
Like I needed it and before I knew what I was doing, I’d sat up and dropped both my legs off the side of the bed. Using the heels of my feet, I wrapped them around his waist and pulled him into me. He’d been glaring at the ground, so when he was yanked forward, a small gasp slipped passed his lips. Slowly at first, I just stared at him as incredulously as he stared back at me. His dark brows furrowed and I reached up a tender finger to smooth out the crease, my other hand coming up gently to cup the side of his face.
I felt pained and he looked it.
Yet I couldn’t stop and it seemed like he couldn’t pull away either. “Why did you walk out on me that night?” I asked, it was the question that had plagued me since the night it happened.
He didn’t need me to explain, he knew what I meant. Regret swirled in his depths and something unwelcome tugged at my rotten heart. “Because you would have hated yourself. So I let you hate me instead.”
“Will you hate me now?” I asked, infused with the need to hurt physically so these old wounds would cease to ebb their poison back into me.
I was so distracted tonight. Overcome with the images of the past, I needed to let it out. I needed to make somebody else hurt, only I’d been foolish. Ronnie was right. I’d risked his wife or even his children finding us. Witnessing how much my hatred controlled me and bled into the violence. Normally when this time of year rolled around, I’d have it handled. I’d have let it seep from me in my own way, a healthy way.
But this year was different. It marked so many different occasions.
As the years passed, it was hard imagining who he’d be. What he’d look like.
But now, those youthful years had been and gone. I was aching and mourning the life I imagined we would have had. It would be easy to think that all of this was idiotic. After all, we were only seven. What did a child know about what they wanted?
What desires were awaking inside of them and what their future would have held?
