Equilibrium (Marauders #4.5) by Lina Andersson Read Free Book Online

existence? Who are you to judge? You think you’re so smart, that you know anything. You don’t know shit about me! You see one thing and think that’s all there is about me.”
    He stared at me for a few seconds, and I could see his jaws working.
    “I’m smart enough to not steal Mexican Viagra when I’m trying to escape reality.” He slammed the bag against my chest and took a step back. “It’s the dark blue pills, I suggest you avoid them.”
    I could feel the threatening lump in my throat, and I swallowed it down— forced it down. There was just no fucking way I’d cry in front of this douchebag, and he was going to have to change his own fucking sheets from now on.
    “You don’t know anything about me,” I said again as I stuffed the bag down the back of my pants.
    “Maybe not. Just get the fuck out and stay out, or I’ll tell Brick why you really wanted this so-called job.”
    I stared at him. “You’re not going to tell him now?”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I like him, and I don’t want to be the one who tells him his precious baby girl is just like every other junkie who does whatever it takes for the next fix, even if it’s lying and stealing from her family. I just hope I’m far away when that shit blows up in his face.”
    “I’m not a junkie,” I protested.
    “Yet.”
    “Fuck you,” I mumbled. It didn’t really have the force I would’ve wanted it to, but I knew that if I let things out, I’d start crying, and that wasn’t going to happen.
    He sighed. “Listen, if you wanna deal with it, instead of escaping from it, I’m game. I’ll be here.”
    I took another step back in horror. Deal with it? Did he mean… What did he mean? Like dealing with it, as in… sex? Was he saying I had to have sex with him or he’d tell Dad? Fuck that!
    “There’s no way in hell I’d let you touch me.”
    “Jesus christ, I’m not a monster. I wasn’t going to touch you, and I don’t want to. I mean actually deal with it and stop pretending you’re okay when you’re clearly not. I meant talking. If you wanna talk, I’ll listen.”
    “I’m not pretending.”
    “Yeah, you are.” And now he was smiling, but it still wasn’t a nice smile. “It’s all fake, and we both know it.”
    I eyed him. I wasn’t really thinking about talking to him, not in a million years, but I was wondering how he knew. What he knew.
    “Talk about what?”
    “Whatever you like. I can deal with whatever you throw me, but don’t you dare lie to me by saying you’re fine. You’re not fine, you’re fucking drowning in ‘not fine.’ But until you’re ready to come back to the living, take your bag of chemical happiness and stay the fuck out of my face, because that’s something I can’t deal with.”
    “I’m alive,” I said, and I ended with my back against the door when he leaned closer again. “I’m not drowning.”
    “Yeah, you are. You’re choking on all the shit you’ve got bottled up inside of you, and you’re trying it force it out of your head with the shit you have in that bag. Because you’re terrified of what will come out if you start poking around in your own mind.”
    I felt naked. No one had ever talked to me like that, and most definitely not since I’d been taken. And no one had been more right. I was terrified.
    He stepped back again and motioned for me to leave. When I’d opened the door, I turned around again.
    “I’m alive,” I repeated. It felt necessary to point that out.
    “Yeah, but having a heartbeat doesn’t mean you’re living. Like I said, let me know if you want to do something about that.”
    It felt like being slapped, or as if he’d just reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. Or worse: like he’d seen inside my head and seen all those… things in there. The things I didn’t want to think about, things I hadn’t thought about, but he’d somehow known about them anyway—the things that terrified me. In a few short minutes, he’d