Breaking Hope (Finding Sky edit)

Chapter 38

I tried to breathe a bit easier, but my lungs resisted as I walked across the public foyer in the ground floor of the flat block where Jac and Liam live. I wasn't as fit as Ella. She had some insane level of fitness for someone who was seventeen. Wait - she's not seventeen. I know that. She's nineteen - they were joking about it earlier in the flat. Her Mum said she's nearly twenty and she said she had only just turned nineteen. I heard that. But my brain was telling me I was stupid and she was seventeen and she was Nate's twin, and she wasn't adopted. She was the bitchy twin of Nate, and because she was a William she was a threat. She was a threat to me. They wanted me dead. I was an idiot for re-associating with them.

My stomach dropped as I realised my conflicting mind meant David was near, and was pushing my brain into submission of the stupid and false bullshit he was feeding to me. But I felt relieved and smiled slightly as Ella lead me over to the doors leading to the cold, bitter winter streets of Denver as my brain could now sort out the lies that were forced upon me.

Ella held the door open for me as I walked out in front of her, immediately hugging myself and wishing I had thought to bring a jacket with me. Looking up the street, I saw there were no cars. Only the streetlights emitted light onto the otherwise dead pathways below. We stood outside the building slightly and I looked up, praying that lights would be on in the Williams' flat but sure enough, there was nothing.

I just had to be brave and fight this out myself.

'Where do you want to walk too?' I asked Ella, trying to remain calm. She looked over at me and nodded slightly. I could guess she was starting to fight the physical effects of David's gift and was regaining control of her body, but what I found odd was that I was in no way affected. He wasn't making me move. Where even is he?

'Up the street, just around the corner.' And she walked off north, and I slowly followed her, unwilling to make myself another target but completely unwilling to let Ella walk off alone. A few hundred feet up the road, she turned left into a smaller pathway coming off this and disappeared off view. I had to jog to catch up with her, and as I ran into the corner I ran straight into the arms of Antonio.

'Hope, good to see you again.' David said, and I saw Ella stand completely still behind him, back turned to his back. I watched as he turned around, grabbing the gun from her jean's waist belt, tutting slightly. 'Sad, isn't it. Seventeen years old, and forced to carry a gun. This is why you don't associate with their family, Hope. I did warn you.'

'But I'm sixteen and you want me to join your empire.' I asked back as Antonio continued to hold my wrists so I couldn't run off.

'Still want this music scholarship?'

'You're not fooling me with that bullshit lie anymore, David. That plan was just to fool my parents and the Williams.' I replied back, and I noticed a muscle in Ella's arm twitch.

'Correct. But you never corrected them, did you? Your parents got the joyful news this evening when they got home. A letter addressed to them was on the doormat when they got in. They were so happy. They thought it's your break. They said they're proud.' He smiled a sick, twisted smile of disgust. He was repulsive to even think about.

'You're evil.' I grinded out.

'No, I'm brilliant.' He replied back, and Antonio laughed.

'You sick, twisted, evil son of a bitch!' I yelled, and a punch to my gut followed. I hugged my abdomen, collapsing slightly as the pain rippled through the core of my body.

'Don't you dare talk to me like that?! You have no idea the cost I have gone through to come and get you, to save you from this madness! And you treat me like this!!' He yelled back, coming into my face and spitting as well as I flinched. He proceeded to shout a string of evil, manipulative and crude words at me, the vain in his head pulsing as he stormed away, loosening his tie. 'Where's Lucy?'