Page 10 of A Taste Of Truth
“It’ll make you behave.”
My gaze swings back to her, irritation with him causing the move. Serviceable behaviour or lack thereof isn’t a rational nor relevant explanation for my life. I don’t misbehave. I exist in the way that I do. Which inevitably routes my behaviour in the direction I choose to fulfil the proposed intention of the goal. There isn’t a set of guidelines that apply to me, nor has there been one in my family for generations. We are, and have always been, Jones’s.
“How do you feel about me behaving?” I ask her.
She steps back a few paces until she’s in the chair on the far side of the room, long legs crossing over each other as she sits. “Doesn’t sound much fun.” Exactly. No entertainment at all. If my life can be deemed entertaining. I look at Gray again, bolstered by my ally in the corner who’s on the same fucking wavelength as me. “But then you tried to kill yourself the way you were, four times according to your supposed friend here, which means your life wasn’t fun being the way you were.” I look back again, a sneer etched in. “Maybe there’s more to life than constantly misbehaving. Why don’t we find out?” I’m not the slightest interested in finding any of that out.
If anyone’s changing my life or the way I live it, it’ll be me.
Standing slowly, I walk towards the door. I’m done with this. I don’t even know why I’ve been tolerating it. I’ll go upstairs and lie down for a while. Sleep perhaps. Get some strength back and then … I don’t know. Either way, I’m not having these two prod and probe where they’re not welcome. I, as I’ve just remembered, am Malachi Jones. This isn’t acceptable.
Infuriatingly, the door stays closed rather than the scanner recognising my eyes like it should.
“Only when I say,” Gray murmurs.
“I can’t even leave?”
“No.”
“How have you managed that?”
“Not relevant.”
I turn and lean on the damn thing, sighing. “Stick it in me then.” What difference does it make? I haven’t got the energy to deal with it anymore, nor have I got the inclination to fight about something neither of them understand. I’ll deal with it when I’m feeling alive again, perhaps push people off the roof to make me feel better about life.
The sharp stab that instantly goes into my upper arm barely interests me, and neither does the sight of the door opening. Heat and odour assaults me instantaneously, the stench of the structure I’ve created wafting back at me in waves. I labour through the people to get to the elevator and away from them, too exhausted to even acknowledge my hatred of it all at this point in time. Maybe I should call Faith. At least she’ll begin her games for me to attempt tolerating.
Finally inside the elevator, I go to close the door. Little Alice slips in bedside me before the doors slide to, her body resting on the steel.
“Go away.”
“No. You’re stuck with me.”
Sneering, I look down at her and then back up to the mirrored walls. A fucked up man reflects back at me – pale, lifeless, and pitiful if I’m honest with myself. It makes me sigh and run a hand over my chest, fingers then tearing at the bandages on my wrists. The ridge of glue and stitches runs under my thumb, highlighting the damage, until I slide the bracelets back into place to mask it – again.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
I look back at her again. “What?”
“Food? Gray said you should eat.” I snarl and focus on my reflection again, uninterested in anything Gray has said. “You can eat it off me if you like.”
My face swings back to her slowly.
She smirks and walks to the front of the steel box, shoulders rolling. The sweater gets peeled off her body and handed to back to me, arms stretched high as if she’s limbering up. I don’t know why about that, but for the first time in a while the vision of something interesting makes me think about smiling.
My gaze grazes the blues flowers and green vines on show, lips twitching upwards at the feral beauty of the artwork. It’s intricate and raw, as if each one tumbling into the next shows some part of her only she understands.
“First you eat, and then we sleep, Malachi.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know, but one way or another you’re my route home so I guess we’ll find out.”
Chapter 5
Ally
Dinner conversation, if it can be called that, is non-existent. He led me to this room, sat me at one end of the vast table, and then preceded to order from a maid who miraculously appeared within minutes. She might have been the same one I’ve met before, or maybe not. I don’t know, but now I’m actually laid out on the table because he said that I’d offered it.