Her Knight In Rusty Armor

Chapter XXIII

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A Forlorn Pair
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A calloused hand roughly grasped my face, making me wince in pain. As the owner of the hand rammed his knuckles into my ribs, a sharp pain boomed through my chest like fireworks in an empty void of a sky, making me crash onto the firm ground below as it successfully knocked the air out of my lungs. Gasping for breath, I coughed vigorously, feeling the metallic taste of warm blood pool into my mouth.

I spat the blood onto the floor, eyed it with a grimace, hated the man standing before me.

"Why are you–?" I coughed out some more blood. "Why are you doing t-this?"

"'Cause," he growled as he walked closer to me, landing a kick on my shins to which I hissed in pain, "you're worthless."

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Breathing heavily, I sat up in my bed, my eyes darting around the bedroom to grasp any signs of Zane. When I found none, I realised that it was just a dream.

A freakin' nightmare, at that.

Peering around, I glanced at Kate, who was still asleep. I checked the time on my phone; it was four in the morning, and I felt the sleep previously hanging on my eyelids scuttle away.

Wanting to get my mind off the dream, I opened Instagram and scrolled through the home feed, heaving a sigh upon seeing on the home feed the same things I would see every day.

A birthday cake, a cringy couple, quotes about heartbreak, memes, advertisements...

A thought popped up in my mind.

I searched for Kate's name on the search bar, exhaling a log breath through my nose upon clicking on her profile and seeing that she had about fifteen posts up.

Without realising it, I began stalking her.

I was such a stalker and a sucker for her.

She was too pretty. All those posts made me feel something in my stomach, something I was quite sure I had never felt before.

Something like... butterflies?

As I scrolled down, those butterflies made no attempts whatsoever to stop fluttering about, and kept on multiplying throughout my entire ribcage, forming an entire kaleidoscope of them.

Sighing shakily, I laid down on my stomach, turning my phone off and resting my head sideways on the pillow to look at Kate.

I didn't know how many minutes had passed by with me remaining in that same position, just examining her perfectly sculpted features as she remained rapt in her own world of drowsiness. Sometimes – in my case, especially – reality was kind of better than dreams.

A small smile tugged at her lips. I couldn't help but think about what, or who, she was picturing in her mind. Who could it be?

Abruptly, she stirred in her sleep. My gut feeling told me that half awake, so I had to close my eyes immediately in order to lay low.

I heard shuffling; she sat upright, and I could practically feel her gaze trailing on me, my bare skin tingling oddly.

A minute passed. She was still sitting up in her bed. I peeked through a crack from under my eyelid, only to find her peering at the window, from where the hazy light of daybreak was tinkling through. I hastily shut my eyes close again when her eyes returned back to me.