Little Miss Babysitter

-- 35 -- (Nate's P.O.V)

I got an overwhelming amount of people telling me D, to surprise them, so that is exactly what I'll do. This was fun! I'll take polls like this in the future.
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My head pounded from the horrifying crack of gunpowder. Dust floated all around me in the compact quarter, and I found myself staggering backwards.

There was a gun in my hand. I faintly recognized it as mine. At the other side of the room, a look of shock melded on my father's face as he looked from me, to the gun, to the oozing hole in his chest, and back to me again. Had I really just gunned down my own flesh and blood?

"You naïve son of a bitch." Martin sputtered, withering against the wall. The unsteady board creaked against his weight, and I feared that they would collapse. Just how I was about to. "I was the one thing that kept you safe but now... You're as good as dead. Just like me."

"You fucker threatened my family!" I hissed and pointed the barrel of the gun at his head. He noticably stiffened. "I told you I was done."

"No one leaves the Bastille." He coughed, his eyes travelling to every depth of the room. Must be nice to study every detail of your tomb. "Not even you."

"I left." I poured out before he could add any snarky remark. "I wasn't gonna tell jack to anybody. But you knew if you dared threaten to kill Ela or Rosie or Mason or Liam, I was going to come after you. You brought this on yourself."

"Brought what?" He laughed into the air, giving a maniacal scream at the tail. "Death? Boy, I was dead before you were born. And I am proud to say that you've followed directly in my footsteps."

"I am nothing like you."

"Wrong." He spoke with an unwavering sense of cockiness, one that I so craved to blast right off of that smug face of his. "Your life was over the moment you got your learner's permit."

"Stop talking!" I pressed my hands to my ears, as if that would drown out all the noise that was coming from his lips.

"You thought that you could hide away in Lala Land with the lovely Angela Fischer?"

"Shut the fuck up before I shove my gun up your throat."

He smeared a red grin on his lips with his index finger and breathed in the air as if it tasted as sweet as lemonade. I don't know why the action terrified me, but it did. It sent a deep rooted chill to run through my bones, and I raised my gun, aimed directly for his chest, or where the heart was presumed to be.

"Pretty thing, she is." He started up again, his eyelids falling. "Thank god she'll remember me for the rest of her life, just like you will. You'll never be able to see her again, you do know that, right?"

I faltered. My eyebrows rose in fright and my mouth cracked open. He chose this opportunity to pounce. Not with his hands, no. But much more fiercely than he could have.

"I've ruined you." He gave me a cheeky smile. "You're dead, son. As soon as my heart stops beating, you're allowed to leave, Nathaniel. Just don't hit your ass on the way out, 'cause you better pray that my boys don't get to you before the police does. You better pray, boy."

I remained silent and watched him cower with pain. It had begun to mute, the pain. It was like being stabbed by a thorn and seeing all of your lifeforce leak from your body, but not feeling much except fatigue.

"Tell your mother," He coughed again, this time willing up blood to dribble down his chin in an eager river. "That blood ties end with the knots being too strong they break. They're never cut. You're me more than you know it."