In the header is a beautiful cover made by my talented friend @tale_a_grammer 🤩😍 The couple definitely has this Natesia vibe, and I love your little subtitle 'The future is forbidden'!! Thank you so much, I love it 😍❤!! What do you guys think? I love when my readers are inspired to make covers and other arts for my stories! 🥺❤
"Oh, finally you're home!"
No, it isn't home, Nate immediately feels the protest of his heart in an excruciating thud, even stronger than the turn of his too-full stomach, when he finds Pamela fuming, her voice bouncing against the walls of the large room to crash against his painful skull.
"I've been calling you for hours! Where is your phone, and where have you been?"
"I was at work, and my phone was... turned off." He's already bypassing her, trying to escape the oppressive and too-loud atmosphere.
But he can't go far as she steps in front of him, still making sure she isn't touching him, and her nose is scrunching up in disgust, even in the two feet separating them.
"Work?! You reek alcohol from a mile away."
"I went for a drink with Darrell after." Lying is becoming a second nature, and he's even surprised that despite his blurred thoughts, his lies are coming out so clear. "Is that a crime too?" he adds in a mutter, the word and its sourness already loud enough to arise another wave of sickness in his guts, but hopefully, quiet enough to go unheard by Pamela, and her loud sigh must just be annoyance.
After all, his sour mood is contradicting her 'busy' schedule, which she is surely about to expound to him when Ettie announces that someone is at the door.
It's already late, and he's pretty sure they haven't been expecting anyone. His memory might not be the most reliable, as it's haunted by the same suffocating clouds, but seeing Pamela's simple jeans, they clearly aren't expecting anyone. So who can it be?
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! A man stopped by to see you, and he insisted on only talking to you in person." She rolls her eyes, while his are wide open, the alcohol completely vanishing from his body as each supposition is sobering him up a little more.
It's someone Pamela doesn't know and who is looking to speak only to him. It has to be related to his 'crimes', though the authorities don't 'ask' to 'talk'. So it's someone else...
"I told him to come back tonight in the hope you'd be there finally."
Pamela is already heading for the door, and Nate rushes to follow her despite the paralyzing dread coming back in his veins to replace the sweet alcohol.
As she is wrapping her hand around the handle, only one supposition is left in his mind: Anastasia's fiancé. His piercing gaze is still imprinted in Nate's memory, permeating a bad feeling even deeper with the echo of his words, and it's so vivid that he has to blink a few times when the door gives way to a man that is nothing like Fergus.
This man is older, with grizzled hair and a gaze totally opposite of Fergus's clear and threatening eyes, and although Nate has never met him, he immediately recognizes the strong features of his face; he's seen them on someone else.
"Nathaniel Johnson?" The man's voice leaves Nate no doubt, but he needs a few seconds to react and nod as the mention of his full name is knocking him with too many flashbacks at once.
"Y-yes... yes... Hello," he stammers, straightening himself as if he was really standing up after a hard punch, and it earns him a cautious look from the man – unless he's just watching the real marks of punches Nate has got from yesterday's fight.
Between his black eye, two-day stubble, crinkled shirt, and messy hair, he doesn't resemble the honorable Captain Johnson, most promising soldier of his generation. He isn't anymore, seeing how easily he's lost his fight demonstration. Yet it isn't the biggest battle he's lost yesterday, and the strongest blows he's received are visible in his empty gaze and the darkness engulfing him all without his angel, his fire, his light.
He just looks like a ghost now. He is a ghost, and the man even has to put on his glasses to check if this ghost is really Nathaniel Johnson, as apparently, he has done his research to know how Nathaniel Johnson is looking, and the way he's squinting his eyes between his phone – surely displaying a perfect picture of Nate – and Nate himself could be offensive for anyone else. But Nate is only focused on one thing: it must be important if this man is making sure so carefully that he's speaking to him.
"Pamela, can you go check if I locked my car correctly? I'm not sure." He doesn't know how he's reacting so quickly when his brain is glitching in front of this man, yet it's probably because this instinct doesn't come from his head.
"The lock is automatic, baby." She offers him one of her perfect smiles as her curious brown eyes are traveling between him and the man at the door, and even if it's painful in all his sore muscles, he forces the same rictus in return.
"Yeah, but I think I've left the key inside. So can you go check, please?"
From the twitch of her smile, as she mutters a 'sure...', it's clear she has caught his diverting technique, and even if she leaves them alone – reluctantly – Nate knows he'll have some lies to make up after.
But for the moment, his main preoccupation is the man standing in front of him and whatever the reason for his visit is.
"So you wanted to see me?"
"Um, yes, I'm Matthew Carter."
This, Nate has already guessed it.
"I think you knew my father, Alex Carter?"
"Um, yes... I met him once... and we talked about gardening and how to keep roses..." Nate tries to swallow the memories rushing back in all his body.
He can still feel Anastasia's touch on his skin, smell her perfume mixing with the fresh scent of rain, see each word of the blank-covered book in his mind, and hear Alex Carter's words whispered to him 'Don't let her slip through your fingers. You would regret it'.
Regret isn't strong enough to describe the devastating feelings that are tearing him apart after letting her go completely.
"You probably don't know, but he left us yesterday."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Nate replies almost instinctively as his stunned mind has trouble processing this information, and he can't bring himself to be sad.
It's what Alex has wished. He's been longing to join his love, and a small part of him is even envying them because they now have eternity together, a chance not everyone has, a chance Nate will never have.
"Thank you." Matthew nods, probably aware that it's been his father's wish too, and it's becoming obvious he isn't here to hear condolences as his hand is snaking inside his black coat. "And before he left... he's asked me to give you this."
"What? Are you sure?" Nate asks, even if the simple white envelope Matthew is holding out is already attracting all his being.
It's the simplest item in the shiny entrance, but it's catching the lights and Nate's breath.
"Yes, I've searched enough to know there's only one Nathaniel Johnson!" In spite of his smile, as he shakes his head, Matthew has taken his father's last wishes really seriously. "Though I was surprised that you were from the army." He cocks an eyebrow, his smile morphing into the same smirk as his father, and Nate can only lower his gaze.
Alex hasn't known he's a soldier, a he-man. He probably wouldn't have given him something if he had known. He hasn't been fond of the army, and if he had witnessed how Nate has treated Anastasia, he would surely have hated him, almost as much as Nate despises himself.
"Do you know what's inside?" he whispers as if afraid secrets could be revealed in the silence, and from what he's learned of Alex Carter, it might indeed be dangerous and forbidden. However, it isn't fear weighing on his shaky hand as he reaches out.
"No." Matthew shrugs, putting his hands back in his pockets as soon as Nate has the envelope in his. "I trust my father," he adds in front of Nate's wide gaze, smiling at the tight grip Nate has on the plain item, like he's holding something heavier and more precious than a piece of paper.
Yet Nate is still a stranger for this man, and no matter how light the content of the envelope is, it's an incredible proof of trust.
"Well, I should go. I think my mission is accomplished, and my family is waiting for me."
"Um, yes... Thank you." Finding himself humbly short on words, Nate holds out his arm to shake Matthew's hand, and the man returns it without another word, probably sensing that Nate is already lost somewhere else.
As he's said, his mission is 'accomplished', and he disappears as rapidly and unexpectedly as he's come, leaving Nate alone with the white envelope and the torturing thuds of his heart echoing in the silence around. It's those loud bangs that are instantly guiding his fingers on the adhesive seal, while his mind is still too dazed to react.
It would be safer to wait, as Pamela can come back at any minute, but he can't stay in the dark one more second. He's already too haunted with unsaid.
'I have something to tell you...', these unsaid words will echo emptily in his chest forever. Whatever Anastasia has been about to tell him, he's sure she hasn't planned for what has happened; he hasn't either. Though anyone else could have guessed it, and now, he's rushing to open the envelope to find some hope, an answer, maybe a magic formula to turn back time or escape.
It's stupid and hopeless, but that's what he is, along with some other bad words resonating in his stunned mind, and they're growing defeaning when he pulls out the single piece of paper.
A photo, that's what the envelope contains, no magic formula, no answer, no help. He could say all the hope vanishes from his body, yet it has already left his whole being, and he's just blinking hopelessly at the picture to try to understand. Alex Carter has had all his head. He's been smart and wise. So it has to hold an important meaning.
He finds himself frowning at the photo in search of a clue, and his chest tightens painfully as he realizes that no matter how much he tries to intoxicate himself with alcohol or anything, Anastasia will always be permeated deeper. She's there in the scar of his arm tickling with her healing touch, in the pendant over his heart, in every shiver of his skin lacking her fire, in each of his suffocating breaths. Even his dazed brain is following the patterns of her logical mind.
However, he doesn't want it any other way. He would never want to forget her no matter how harrowing the memories are in every part of him. He even closes his eyes to let her invade him completely, and when he reopens them, he tries to view things how she would with her piercing eyes.
He sees a young couple, whose features can't be recognized because they're facing each other. The boy is wearing a black leather jacket, and the girl has a denim jacket engulfing her small frame. Yet what he catches is beyond that.
The most important is their wide smiles and how they seem lost in their own world, staring at each other as if nothing else mattered. He knows this feeling: love, freedom. It's like this every time he looks into Anastasia's magnetizing eyes, and he can still picture each spark of their colors in his mind.
He isn't sure if he's still observing the photo or escaping in his own memories... How they would get lost in their own safe bubble of happiness, and nothing else has mattered but Anastasia, his angel. The world could have stopped spinning, and they wouldn't have minded; in fact, he would have loved for the world to freeze, so they would have been able to stay together forever.
His blurry eyes shoot open on that thought, and these images suddenly appear so far away, nothing like the concrete photo. Anastasia and he could never have this. They don't even have pictures together.
He doesn't understand why Alex has given him this photo. Of course, he easily guesses it's him and his wife when they've been younger, as it's written all over the photo: freedom and love, two concepts from another time, two things impossible now for Anastasia and him. But what has Alex tried to say?
Is it to mock them? No, in spite of the sourness searing his chest, Nate is aware that Alex would have never. He hasn't been a bad person.
To push them to risk it all? Maybe, but Nate can't. He can't risk Anastasia's life. It isn't worth it. He isn't worth it. He knows since their first encounter how precious her life is, and every second he's spent with her has made him realize a little bit more that he wouldn't survive if anything happened to her.
He's almost giving up once more and throwing the photo away, when his fingers turn it, acting on their own or driven by a determined instinct that isn't his, but whatever it is, it's the right move because there's more on the other side.
Three little words that ring deafeningly in his head, although it's in his chest that he feels the harsh blow.
Three little words that give all their meaning to the picture. Alex has been conscious of their power.
Yet Nate hasn't been able to keep them. He's only done the contrary these past two days.
Yesterday, he's received all the blows without resisting with Anastasia and in his fight demonstration after, to then, run away and hide to suffer, retreating. Today, he's called in sick at work only to make himself more ill. He's tortured himself, taking refuge in the treehouse where everything is as marked by Anastasia as his heart, or at least, what remains of it.
The ticking bomb he's expected since the start of their 'let it be' has finally exploded, and the hole inside his chest is the proof that it's been more devastating than he could have ever imagined. It has left him with no strength to 'fight for it'.
He's so weak that he's stared at his phone all day, in hopes for something he doesn't deserve. It's also why he's stayed at the treehouse: in a hopeless hope to see her angelic figure appear, even if she has thrown him back his key, and after everything he's made her go through, she will never come back. This fact has sunk in through this endless day, and with it, he's drowned a little bit more in alcohol.
It's for the better, the safer, he's concluded, turning off his phone when Pamela and Darrell have started to become too insistent.
He's aware that he's avoiding everyone and everything like a coward, even his best friend who is covering and lying for him. However, Darrell can't understand what it's like to have his heart wrecked and to be more haunted by the tears he's caused to someone else than by his own. He would tell him it's for the better, the safer, but as much as Nate knows it and has repeated it to Anastasia, he can't hear it.
It's exactly like the treehouse. He's found himself with a lighter in his hands a few times during the day, yet he can't bring himself to burn it, even if everything is a reminder she's gone, even if everything is of no use anymore. With her sweet scent permeated in the sheets, her ripped lingerie laying in a corner, and a bottle of green juice in the fridge, it's still home. Maybe he still has hope, or what is more probable: he's just a coward.
So 'fight for it', those words are only making him powerless. His clenched fists are of useless for this kind of fight, and he realizes how paralyzed he is in front of a simple square of paper when Pamela's footsteps clinking on the floor make him jump out of his trance.
It's like he's been crippled, stricken by lightning; that's what it feels like in his stiff muscles. Three little words can really have power, especially when they're echoing in Anastasia's sweet accent.
He just has time to hide the photo in his chest pocket, near his heart, before Pamela appears in front of him, and when her eyes travel carefully from the now-closed door to him, he covers his emotions the same way, putting his 'perfect' mask on, ready to lie like a coward.
Nevertheless, if there's one thing he's learned in his years in the military, it's that sometimes you have to retreat to save the most precious, whether it's while planning for a decisive attack or capitulating forever.
***
'Fight for it', Nate has looked at it from all angles again and again, but it still hasn't given him any answer, except the roar of his heart reminding him he's a coward.
He shouldn't even be looking at this picture right now, when there are too many people around, yet his trembling hands have pulled it out instinctively, and it's better than glancing around like an addict in search of a special silhouette.
He doesn't even know if she'll be there today, or any other day. He's wondered every second in the last days where she could be, what she could be doing. He hopes she's with her family, loved and safe, because he's witnessed how much they care for her, and he prays she isn't with her fiancé, even if he's too well aware that he'll soon have her all the time.
Nate is haunted by a bad feeling about this man, and it's more than just sour jealousy in his guts. But what can he do? He's let her go, pushed her away.
Now, the only things left to soothe his torments are images of her he's painting in his mind, picturing her safe and happy, with her luminous smile and soft eyes, yet they always morph into her trembling lips and blurred gaze. The worst is that he's the one who has turned them that way, and they'll be forever imprinted in his memory.
Maybe that's why he's here... As much as he's tried to convince himself that it's because he has to go back to his life and pretend everything is normal, he can't help the skip of his tattered heart with the hope to see her. Just a glimpse of her smile or her frown would be better than the last memory he has of her, although the last shred of his heart is dreaming for more – a 'more' that is impossible for so many reasons, shattering this last little piece of his heart, and he repeats them in his head to annihilate this dangerous hope.
'Fight for it', it's a battle indeed, a battle against himself, and he has no idea how he would react if he met her right now.
Two days ago, he's battled the hardest fight of his life, struggling against his fingers and their itch to dry her tears, wrestling against the rush in his arms to hold her and never let her go, combatting his lips dying to scream the three words from his heart and all his being to stay impassive when Anastasia is the one who makes him impassioned. He isn't sure he would have enough strength today. Yet remembering what is at stake and the nightmare that has almost become a freezing reality can give him the strength of despair.
He would do it all over again; he would let his heart get torn away with each of her tears he pulls out, if it means she's safe. He would do anything for his angel. Though it's probably useless since she must already hate him, and she'll never want to be near him ever again.
His gaze has now drifted from the picture, staring out the plate-glass windows of the briefing room, which has a great view on the main hallway on the floor below, and while his eyes are chasing hopelessly every silhouette wrapped in a white uniform, he doesn't find more answer.
"Dude! Finally!"
He's harshly pulled out of his helpless stare and thoughts by the loud call, and he has to grab his forehead to adjust his focus on his best friend's wide blue eyes.
"Where the fuck were you?! Did you get my calls?"
"I'm here now. You're happy?" he grumbles, trying to shut Darrell's rushed tone that is echoing too loudly through his skull, and he would roll his eyes if the pounding in his head wasn't coming back stronger.
He should be used by now to his best friend's loud voice and hearing it when he's hungover. He doesn't even remember drinking that much yesterday, yet it's the first time that the aspirin is doing nothing.
"I called you all night! Where the fuck were you?! I have something to tell you," Darrell continues, this time, in a whisper, but it's still too loud for Nate as he's just above his ear.
"I turned off my phone. I needed some time alone..." he mutters, realizing exactly why the pills have no effect when the throbbing in his chest gets stronger than the one in his head.
"Okay, now can we talk?" Darrell wraps an arm around Nate's shoulder, trying to pull him away, and when he senses that his friend isn't moving, he adds, "It's about your rebel chick."
It works. Nate instantly flinches at the words. 'Your rebel chick', he recognizes who is it, yet the words don't fit her.
"She isn't mine." She has never been; she will never be, he can hear it echoing deafeningly in the pounding of his head. "I told you it's over. So you have nothing to worry about, and I don't need your sermon."
Besides, the word 'chick' can't describe the incredible woman she is, the pure angel, Anastasia. As for 'rebel'...
"And I already told you she isn't a rebel," he seethes through his clenched teeth to prevent himself from lashing out at his friend or being dangerously loud.
"That, I wouldn't be so sure..."
If he has faltered at Darrell's words before, now, he's frozen, and he finally takes in the deadly seriousness in his friend's wide eyes. It's louder than any shout for his hammering heart.
"W-what do you mean?"
Darrell doesn't reply, pulling Nate to the far corner of the room and throwing a careful glance around, and only when Nate follows his gaze, does he notice his other colleagues all dressed in the army's colors, whether it's official uniforms or simple workout clothes.
Luckily, they're all busy chatting or drinking coffee, but too soon, they'll discuss future missions.
"I saw her last night," Darrell finally blurts out in a whisper when he's sure no one can hear, and Nate doesn't need more to understand, though his friend still makes sure to annihilate any possible hope based on misunderstandings. "When I was in covert, she went in their den with the Cerberus and another chick."
"N-no," Nate can only stammer, knocked out. He doesn't feel the throbbing in his head; he doesn't feel anything anymore.
He's dead inside. He's dead if his angel is being led to 'hell' by that Cerberus, and a cold, lethal rage is rising from deep inside his guts as his fists are ready to kill that man. Yet he knows he isn't the problem.
"Don't worry, I erased her from the computer," Darrell adds as if reading his best friend's thoughts, and Nate lets out a breath, which barely eases an inch of the vice grip inside his chest. "You're lucky I was alone because no one could replace you."
Oh yes, Nate has forgotten this detail: he should have been there if he hadn't been a coward yesterday, though he isn't sure what would have happened if he had. It wouldn't have been pretty.
It already doesn't look good at this instant, as his fists and all his muscles are tensed like rock, and a layer of sweat is starting to spread on his cold skin. The wave of acid growing from his guts to his mouth has almost the sour taste of blood, and he would kill if he knew who to fight.
"But there won't always be someone to save her. You better talk to her before she makes her way on that list and..." Darrell doesn't finish, probably because of how bad Nate is already looking.
He knows the words anyway; they're resonating with each strong thump of his heart. He's thought his heart has been ripped apart the other day, but what remains is still desperately beating for Anastasia. What would destroy it fully would be if those words came true, and his mind is already spiraling with horrifying visions in a cloud of thick smoke.
"I'm the last person she would listen," he murmurs breathlessly, the tears welling up yet not coming out.
Too many have already dropped in his drinks yesterday, and what is left is stuck behind his eyes with the horrible visions, everything building an impossible pressure inside his head.
However, even through the blurriness of his eyes, the sorry expression falling over his friend's face, from his lowering eyebrows to his lips tucked together, shows too clearly how hopeless it is.
"Can't you talk to someone who could stop her?"
Nate lets out a shallow sigh... No one can stop the tornado Anastasia.
The ravaging disaster is appearing closer and closer, and as he still has no answer, his gaze crashes down along with his heart, both ironically landing on the paper he must have dropped on the floor with the shock. 'Fight for it'...
It feels like he's already lost, without even fighting, as he kneels down to grab the picture, and what is crushing him is sourer and more violent than defeat. He's lost himself when he's let her go, and he can't lose her totally.
It's not even a battle for a happy ending; it's a battle to save her life, and that's why he gets up, trembling, and ready to beg her miserably to stop like the coward he is.
It's a hopeless solution, yet it's the only one he sees in front of the 'fight for it' – at least until his eyes lift from the paper and catch some other words in bold computer font, and somewhere between Alex's handwriting, the large 'mission', and the deadline with today's date, it all lights up.
If he can't fight alone; he has to find help, and this may be the answer. It might not be a bright fire, but it's a tiny glimmer of hope, and it's enough. It's all he needs in the dark clouds of his mind as he rushes to the small screen, his eyes skimming the details of the call for applications he's passed by many times without realizing it's been an answer, maybe the answer.
The way it all clicks with the beats of his heart at this instant is almost too perfect, and he has a feeling he's got help from above, his gaze finding his way back to the picture in his hand for a second before focusing on Darrell.
"I got it. I know what to do." He still can't smile or forget the dreadful scenarios inside his head, but at least, the strength is coming back to revive all his muscles, especially the one inside his chest, and he finds quickly his trained reflexes. "I just need you to make sure she doesn't end up on the lists while I organize."
"Do you realize I can't go spying there 24/7?" Darrell lifts an eyebrow, probably seeing the madness in Nate's brown gaze, although he can hear that it's despair as his friend is begging him.
"Please! It's just for a few days max, please."
"Okay, I'll try to keep an eye," Darrell gives in with a roll of his eyes before narrowing them at Nate. "But you better tell me what you're planning."
"I will." With one last glance at the words 'Call for mission' on the noticeboard screen, Nate nods to his best friend, a simple gesture with much more meaning, as he's entrusting his most precious treasure to him.
While he wishes he could make sure himself that Anastasia is safe –and he will soon – he's too well aware he can't be on every front, and his brother-in-arms is the only one he trusts in the meantime.
"But first, I have something to do." His fingers are instinctively closing in a fist, though this one has a special aim and direction as he's holding his compass pendant. He hopes it will lead him to happiness and freedom with his angel, but if it's too late for this battle, he'll just fight for Anastasia, her safety and happiness.
He still doesn't know exactly how, and there are so many details that he has to plan, yet one thing is sure: he has no choice but to succeed in this impossible mission.
So... What do you think of Nate's reaction? Completely different from Ana, right? He's been drowning in his sorrow like a coward 💔😭 But now, will he 'fight for it'? 😉
Tell me what you think his 'impossible mission' idea is?
Also, were you surprised that Darrell is telling him about Ana? I know some of you don't trust him, but Nate does, and he's a true friend 💕
I hope you liked this chapter! Don't forget to comment and vote ⭐ to let me know what you think 😉
The support you show me every day on this story is making me so happy 🤩 It means the world to me, and I love you, my little rays of sunshine 😘❤