Assassins Crown

Chapter 13

She was so pale. Beads of sweat coated her face. Her pale blue eyes were lost in another time. And she was so still.

Still as if she were made of stone.

Her long light blonde hair was drenched in sweat at the edges of her face. She was sitting cross legged and seemed not to even be able to breathe.

A rush of panic went through Winston. What happened? What was happening? Did he do this? Was this his fault?

He rushed to her side. As he dropped to his knees in front of her, his body cried out in agony. When he had tripped her to the ground, defenseless, he knew that it was a very bad position for her to be in, but he could not go easy on her, or she would beat him repeatedly.

As soon as she went down, something changed.

He saw it in her dilated eyes and rapid breathing. He went to her to see if she was okay, but it quickly turned into fighting to save his own life.

She had shot up and attacked him unlike he had ever seen before. Over and over she kicked, punched, and lunged.

Attack, attack, attack.

He had tried to get away from her sudden deadly attacks, but she had not relented.

He turned to look at her and was stunned into stillness.

Instead of the confidence and determination that he loved to see in her eyes, there was only horrible terror. Fear of something he could not see, something he could not protect her from.

His panic had risen.

"Nicole! Nicole! It's alright! It's not real! Nicole! Look at me, Nicole!" he had shouted. He had stopped fighting awhile ago, letting her beat and attack him. He was barely fast enough to protect himself from most of her attacks. All he could do was try to get her to come back to him.

"Nicole!" he shouted again.

That's when she had stopped dead, frozen like time itself had stopped ticking. Then she suddenly sat down cross legged and stared blankly at the lake. He had stumbled to get to her and knelt in front of her, looking into her eyes that were a million miles away.

"Nicole?"

He reached out tentatively to her and shook her shoulders a bit; she was as taut as a bowstring. He shook her shoulders once more.

"Nicole! What's wrong? Nicole!" he shouted, now panicked and concerned.

Winston watched as he saw her eyes slowly focus on his face.

They were filled with such sadness that it almost killed him internally. He knew he could never truly understand her deep pain, but he wanted to. He wanted so badly to understand and to take away her pain, that it felt like someone had stabbed him and twisted the blade.

"Nicole," his voice was full of emotion that he had forgotten to disguise. He had said only one word, and it had betrayed him in the biggest way.

But he was so overcome with relief that it overtook the meaning of the betrayal.

He didn't know what possessed him to pull her to his chest and wrap her in his arms. Her hair brushed against his chin, it smelled of sweat and soap.

Then, she returned the gesture and wrapped her arms around his back so tightly that he thought he couldn't breathe.

He was so caught off guard when she didn't immediately pull away, that his surprise drowned out his throbbing pain.

Rosily had big, exciting news that she just could not wait to tell Nicole. She had stopped by her cell but found that she was not there. The guards told her that Captain Winston had taken her outside to spar.