A single bullet // M.C ✔️

73

"She's lying, Calum!" I was fuming, leaving their home. "How dare she tell lies about my dead father?" Dread for even wanting to go and meet them filled me as I thought over every word that left her rosy-tinted lips. She may look like Calum, but she's nothing like my brother.

"Nicky, we don't entirely know if it is a lie..."

"Don't you start too," I was seething. I didn't want to put it all on the kiwi. He was the first friend I had in this whole thing, and I'll be darned if his mom has just ruined it for me.

"No, Nicky. I'm being serious. We know nothing about your dad. Only you do, and it's clear he never told you if any gang was involved. He never told you. You were adopted."

"And I was happy with that..."

I hadn't spoken since arriving back at Michael's. I  just sat there staring off to space in his arms. All anger had flooded out of my body. He had tried multiple times to get me to even say if I liked them or not, but no words left my parted lips. Even Calum didn't speak of it. I could tell he was slightly annoyed at it and deep down wished this was why he had arranged the meeting. He could have been there, and there would be no current secrets between the two of us.

I didn't want it to be a secret, but I couldn't just blurt out that apparently my dad was the old leader of Unbroken, your arch-rival gang. That would make me linked to it, and it would wear us thin. Tensions would be high. I didn't know how to word my feelings, and for the first time in a while, I was drained and scared. If Dad was involved in Unbroken, Noah had already kidnapped me. What if he comes back to do more and finish the job? Kill my whole family off.

"Speak to me, Nicky," Michael's voice pulled me out of my deep thoughts. As I looked up at him, I knew my stare was blank, but I couldn't fix it. I didn't have it in me to fix it.

"There's nothing to say," there's so much to say I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but the words got stuck. I couldn't pull the words out of my mind to even start, to even say something just to ease whatever is happening in his mind right now. He sighed softly before nodding and resting his chin on the top of my head, tightening his arms around my waist, just holding me together.

Words were scrambled in my mind, and I didn't have it in me to form sentences, to even make sense of what I was told. As little as Sharon told me, it sent my mind into a huge frenzy, and the theories of Dad being a leader of a gang were present in all of them. I felt mentally and physically shattered and emotional; so much was happening at once, and I didn't know how to get my brain to process it and just pick one thing out. A starting point.

It's why I secretly wished Kensie was here and not with Luke the next city over as a little getaway from everything for a bit of a trip. Words would have flown out if it was her with me and not Michael, and I hated that; I should be able to do it with him too. Shifting slightly, I faced and turned more into his body, his warmth now covering half my face as I sighed softly, breathing in his familiar aftershave. Maybe this is all I needed.

"I didn't like her," I whispered, seeing the slight shock fall on his face and his mouth drop open before he swiftly shut it. I had heard stories over the last few days before the meeting them of how much Sharon loves the boys, how they treat them as her own. How I'll be welcomed with open arms as theirs, no one she really dislikes. It had taken a while for her to agree to even see Calum, stating Adam was too busy to be here before Calum just simply said that doesn't matter. "I-" I couldn't expand on my thoughts, closing my eyes.