“I’ve got you, darling. They’ll fucking pay for this.Everysingle fucking one of them.”
20
Indie
With Arms Wide Open - Creed
Present day
Mygazeislockedon the window. Fear nips at my chest as the same vulnerability I felt from that night threatens to make a reappearance.
The muscles from my neck all the way along my shoulders constrict; tiny needles skitter across my exposed bare flesh when I feel his eyes on me.
The groves of the gun feel like they’re imprinted into my palms with how tightly I grip it, and I calmly guide my finger to the trigger, letting the tip rest delicately against the groove.
Shit.
Don’t. Panic. Indie.
I angle my head gradually to my shoulder, the looming figure piercing into my peripheral.
He doesn’t move, but I know it’s John.
He tracked us down.
A fucking Sumus member is in my fucking house.
Despite the anxiety threatening to tear me apart inside, none of it reflects on the surface.
I keep the tremors contained, hold the scream at the back of my throat lodged where it is. I have the upper hand here.
I can shift the gun through the crevasse of my waist and arm, down him, and allow myself to fully face him.
I decide to taunt him, testing to see if my threat causes a distraction whilst I get into position.
“And here was me, thinking I’d have to come back and finish the job.”
The bite of cold from the gun’s muzzle slides across my ribs, but my face remains impassive.
“I’d love to see you try, Indie.”
My stone-like mask crumbles; the facade drops like a curtain call as the oxygen in my lungs expels.
The world feels like it’s violently flipped upside down.
My gun almost slips from my hand as my joints weaken. I blink rapidly, like I’m trying to ensure I’m still at least firmly gripped within reality.
I can’t move, can’t even dare myself to turn around yet.
It can’t be.
I don’t know how long I stay frozen; time seems irrelevant when you’re about to reveal the past, but neither of us makes an attempt to shatter the silence.
Closing my eyes, I drag in one large, painful inhale, hands trembling across my torso, and then force myself to turn on weak legs.
My gaze collides with hard, steel-like eyes, and the owner of a voice I haven’t heard in almost six years.
A wave of homesickness threatens to drown me, witnessing his knee-buckling smirk gracing his face, and that velvet midnight voice wrapping around me.
