Elzina
Everything felt like it was slipping. Skidding into a puddle of helplessness as I opened my heavy, sore lids only for them to slip. Slip into a blur of meaningless tranquility.
I know I wanted to stay awake. Feel something. Anything that would alert me enough to make me realize why I wished to hurt better than sleep. I remember the days I would squirm my eyes shut, hoping for the night to take over, sleep to induce me, and a chant of silent plea for my demons to let me be. For them to leave me alone.
But tonight was different.
I wanted to wake up. I wanted to stay awake when I was not a bit cynical with the idea of seeing what I dreaded the most. I was ready to face my demons. And today, just not in my dreams.
It ached. My arms and legs. The slither of burning strains danced through my veins.
The consciousness fought for dominance as I let them be felt.
My throat dry, prickling with soreness of not being used for the amount of period that I didn't know.
And then, the suffocation in my chest. Like the oxygen was being crushed out of it, it all indicated I was getting back my senses stronger this time.
And not long after i cough out a gasp, my eyes jolts open. The wheeze of desperate breaths was all my ears rang with. The blurry curtain that coated my vision clears with each blink.
When the body sobered to neutral, the thumps of my heart ceased. Not as erratic now , the plump silence began to prevail. It painted the room with darkness, shadows more dire than how it already was.
"Slept good?" the sound of him, the voice of a traitor.
I closed my eyes, twisting my wrist. The ones that now laid useless by my sides, captive under the coils of tightly bound ropes to the armrest of a wooden chair.
"Don't strain" he was closer, in front of me. The familiar scent of old spice and cool after shave. I detected them right before me. But right now, darkness was more soothing than his face. So I tried harder, the thin rope fibers cuts through my sensitive skin. I sucked in a gasp when I felt his cold hand grab them both. Pressing my futile struggle to a halt. "You are hurting yourself"
Softer. He sounded softer. Like as if he actually was worried.
That son of a-
"Open your eyes" he requested. Gnawing the inside of my cheek I shut them tighter. I wanted to rip that voice away from him, the sound that had promised me of so many things. So much trust. I trusted him so much.
"Take. your. hands. away" hoarse. Fatigued and cracked I spit the words out. A few seconds passes off until I felt the weight of his palms lift from my wrist. But then I jerk my head to side as they cupped my cheeks.
"I said open your eyes" he growls, not a trace of him left. Hollow and demanding. He scared me "look at me"
I did.
Shamefully I accepted defeat.
He looked the same. Pale skin, dark hair and brown eyes. But there was no warmth, life or humanity in them. He looked like the imposter of boy who replicated madness. He was not Nathan.
Was Nathan even the person who I thought he was?
"Go to hell" gritting my teeth i look away, my skin crawled with disgust from his touch. When he ceased his hold on me, I breathed in relief. But it was short lived as I spotted the smirk on his face.
"We are in hell. El"
"Don't call me that" I almost scream, my nails whitens as I clutch them firm against the bar. An act of restraint to bottle up the devastated broken sobs that begged to be freed.
"I will El. You will always be my Elaine" he drops them like It was a fact. His eyes curious and unbothered by what he was saying.
My Elaine?
Why is this happening?
"I am Elzina Nathan" calling his name out loud fills my inside with sickness. The stretch of a horrible headache had me grate my teeth in reflex. Giving him a show of how weak i was now.
And his corrupted eyes did seem satisfied as he sat down on a bulky leather one seater a step to my side. When he smiled with ease, resting his back on it. As if he was beckoning the thinnest of faith I was holding onto.
But I was mistaken.
When his eyes hardened, I couldn't recognize him anymore. In an arms length sat a stranger. A crazed man. A living nightmare. And when he opened his mouth to speak again, I know I couldn't have been more right.
"You will always remain the pathetic girl that I first saw so alone and broken in my mother's clinic" his eyes dissolves. The sharp intensity now a distinct recollection of memory. Then a smile breaks out, a happy glimmer despite he did his best to stay intimidating "you were so beautiful El. You had long dark hair, the prettiest grey eyes, the nervous little jitters as you kept playing with you mothers pendant. It was the first time I was captivated by a girl. You just looked so alone"
I could feel the tension of pulse in my throat. Sweat sinks down my forehead, though the room hissed with crisp cold air. I was even in an extra navy blue jacket that didn't belonged to me. And the nauseating perception of whose it might be made my furious need to escape increase manifold.
"I fell in love with you the very moment El." I snapped my gaze laced with horror and disbelief.
"We were fourteen then. You are crazy Nathan" screaming I wiggle my wrist, twisting it enough until a damp wetness smeared across my right. Blood.
He just watched the wound with deep interest.
When his eyes met mine, the fire and cruel compassion was nowhere to be seen. It was stark rigid coldness.
"I can't fall in love when I was fourteen. But you can marry Alexander at eighteen?" his head angles to the side, a motion of challenging curiosity in it.
I know the wisdom In his earthy brown eyes, I have them myself. I know how easy it was for him to manipulate, to segregate the secretive emotions from a person. I know how easy it was for him to destroy things.
But his intelligence was what that least bothered me. It was the balance of his absurd crazy antics with it. And right now, to hear him utter Alex's name, With such menace and poison. I wanted to cry out loud. Beg him to let us be.
"Why are you doing this? You were my best friend" the streak of tears, it tingles my cheeks. I had given up already.
He was right.
I am still weak.
"No El. It was my job to be your friend. To keep you close, to know your life. Your mind. I was your best friend when all I ever wanted was to be your everything. It only gets better when you know that it was not just you I spied on every morning I woke up_" he chuckles, his hand slowly extends till his index hooks over the spiral of the cable, he tugs at it enough to let my skin breath in relief. But the relief was sure not entertained by my heart that thrashed at his words with such anxiousness that It was unhealthy "-You think I got into stuart on scholarship El?" he smirks.
The silence befalls. The ticks of clock stark as it ripples the dense atmosphere.
And denser betrayal.
"You were there for Alex" so lost. Like a wreck I ask even though I knew the answer. My voice so low and small. "You spied on him for a year. It was you who Alex's father wanted to keep him safe from. It was the person you work for"
A tattered breath leaves my parted lips. The frosty smoke scatters.
"You were aware of who I was all this time" I whisper to myself. But there was no way he hadn't heard it.
"That's my smart girl" He says proudly.
"Who is it?" I ask. No plead this wise. "Who is it that wants to see me dead so bad?"
He stares at me like he doesn't want to reveal it just yet. To Bath in my misery more. To spot the vulnerability that Elaine once was. The one he apparently loved.
But Elzina was nowhere near what her past was. Brutal, shredded into sharpness. I can cut through him If wasn't bounded. My anger had no boundaries, and it was the safest thing to conjure it for the right time.
"Not dead. Just out of way. If anything I saved you El. That night when the accident took place, I wasn't aware of what was being planned. To stop it, to save you I sold my loyalty. No matter how wrong it was, i did everything I was ordered to in exchange for your life. I kept you in the dark, I was by the shadows when you cried, I was nice to you all the time and I kept Alexander Alive so that you could smile. Do you even know how much it killed me to see you with him?"
Raging. There was a sudden edge to his tone like It angered him to think about it. But if his lunacy was soaring height so was my anger.
"Kept him Alive?" I tested the foul words slowly. "I love him Nathan. I can't live if something happened to Alex. Do you even realize what you are saying? You are a traitor. I can't even hate you now. You disgust me" I holler as much as my fragile body was capable of.
His nose flared, he shuts his eyes inhaling.
"He will find me. Where ever I am now. They will find me" reviling I blink the tears away.
He opens his eyes to look at me, raising a brow he leans a bit near. A jolt of cowardly instinct causes me to jerk back, startled.
"They won't"
The confidence he had installed in those words sends a spine chilling shiver to trek through me.
"What do mean?" I croak.
His gaze falls to my wrist, simultaneously as he shuffles through his hoodie. He pulls out something metallic that glistens as the shady lights reflects against it. it takes me a couple of second to realize that it was . My watch.
"I had lot of time in my hand while you slept so peacefully" he runs his thumb across the rich glassy dial. Then he looks at me, his stance pours me a devilish promise as he smirks "I meddled with the tracker, had some fun with it. According to the navigation. We are now heading towards Washington D.C." He smiles with a wink.
Hacker.
One more of a gifted skill in the hands of a sinner.
Swallowing a mouthful of dryness I look at the block of a small ventilation high above the wall.
"Where am i?" i question before I could help the stubbornness in me to take over. The destitute won. I need to know.
"If I told you, I have to kill you" I almost taunt my neck at the speed I looked at him. Only to watch him watching me. The mischevieous dent of his dimple apparent. "Just kidding. I would rather kiss you"
In other circumstances I would've have squirmed, growled or most certainly have puked.
But now-
"I hope to see you rot in prison for the rest of your life" like a wildfire it lurks it's way out. I was never violent, but I know I was never humane either. Life has been too cruel to me, I don't see the reason to treat anything right now.
I-i just wanted to go home.
A wish.
If only it was so easy to be granted with one.
There were no spitfire exchanged after that. Minutes passed as we breathed the same air. He appeared to be the image of a boy next door you all will label as the helpful jock, while I must look like a hostage who was far gone.
We must look nothing close to what we actually were.
A billionaire and a psychopath.
The mere thought churns my insides. It became painful to the point when I couldn't latch on the silence anymore. I know it was time- I know he was waiting for it.
"Who is it?" brimming with respite, I ask. Sounding dead yet some how dreaded. "Who is he?"
He lifts his gaze, I watch as his lips part. His eyes strains as he gulps, like saying it would mean the end of my questions. And it was- I dedicated my sanity for this. For that one name.
He doesn't answer. By the sudden manner his gaze travelled to someone behind me. It was evident. My answer stood there. Just few steps away.
"What makes you think it's a he sweetie?"
Feather and breeze. Like silk the voice snakes the air. The echo of heels clicks against the wooden ground.
I don't turn. I don't even look up even after I spot the figure that now stood in front of me. The women's long thin leg clad in white pencil skirt.
Scared.
Hesitant.
But mostly drowned in outrageous hatred, I finally will myself to look up. Wider and wider, my gaze takes in her form.
The form of what I thought was impossibility.
The form of unquenchable reluctance.
The form of Keira White.
***