Page 4 of Beyond Hate (Beyond #3)

Otto

H e was… good.

Different.

Nicholas had watched dozens of people being tortured, and he’d never given up his pride to save them. He’d never even blinked. And Marco… fuck, Marco had never been worth saving, but…

He didn’t remember that. He didn’t remember the way our oldest brother had been more than happy to sell us out any time it would please his mother. Any time it would save him from being hurt.

And it was strange, but the soft, quiet expression that crossed his face when he finally gave himself over to letting me feed him was almost… peaceful. Like he’d given in to what was happening and his mind wanted him to understand that it was good . That it was right.

Something inside me felt it too. I had to chalk it up to knowing that his willingness to give in to me taking care of him were lines of weakness I could use to break everything he was.

There was still a part of me that thought about putting the knife I held between his lips and twisting, but it was easy to keep that part at bay when London leaned forward and stuck his tongue out for me.

It made me think of other things—things I hadn’t intended to consider.

Moments I’d tried to forget.

The nights when Nicholas would sneak into my room and press his lips against my throat, whispering that we had to keep quiet so no one would know.

The nights I’d felt like a whole person…

I pushed myself up from my bed before I had a chance to think, and it wasn’t hard to make my way down the quiet, dimly lit hallways of the facility.

I was sure I was on camera—Nathaniel West probably had some automation set up to alert him when people were moving around so he could watch from the comfort of his home and feel like God observing ants.

I didn’t care.

I wasn’t here for him.

I wasn’t here for anything but my revenge.

I wasn’t here for anything but…

London was curled on his side, and even in the low light of the room, I could see the way his shoulders were shaking with silent tears he tried to keep to himself.

I wondered whether he did it so I wouldn’t hear if I walked by, or if he was trying to make sure that the two men asleep in the room with him weren’t disturbed.

I unlocked the door and slid inside, and felt his entire body stiffen when I crawled into the bed behind him.

How many nights had this situation been reversed? Me, crying because of some atrocity that my adoptive mother made me commit, and Nicholas, the son who looked just like her, crawling silently between my sheets and wrapping me up in his arms.

When my arms slid around him , the reaction was completely different.

London went stiff beneath my touch, though the fine tremble of fear that pulsed along his shoulders told me he knew exactly who was there. I couldn’t help myself. I dropped my head and buried my face in his hair, inhaling his scent.

This was different too. Nicholas had always smelled dark, smoky, like blood and soot. Like danger.

London smelled faintly of sweat and fear, but beneath it he was sweet. Warm like vanilla and sunlight. I took another deep breath and splayed my fingers on his waist.

“Please don’t,” he whispered. It was like those words were the only thing he could say.

I knew what he thought I was going to do…

which was why I heard the soft sound of confusion he let out when I slid my fingers upward and settled my palm over his chest—his thundering heart—and pulled him until he was pressed back against me.

“Don’t what, London?”

Did some of the tension in his shoulders ease when I said his name?

When he breathed in, his entire body shuddered. I wasn’t sure if he was still beneath my touch because he was afraid that moving would get him hurt, or if some part of him remembered when we used to do this.

“I…” It was like he wasn’t sure what to ask now that he’d gotten my attention. When he didn’t say anything, I shifted my hand up to his shoulder, turning him so we were facing one another. It let me feel the rapid-fire thundering of his heart against the steady beat of my own.

And it gave me the sensation of his small hands coming up between us like he could actually overpower me. Like he could force me away from him.

He wasn’t even trying. He paused with his fingers resting against my shoulders, half pretending he wanted to push me away while lying silently in the bed beside me.

The low lighting would have made it so easy for me to pretend this was just like every other time before. Every other time in a life that wasn’t ours anymore.

Except I remembered the last time—Nikki slipping into the bed, wrapping me up in his arms. Telling me he loved me, that he would do whatever he had to if it meant keeping me safe.

Nikki, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple when he left the next morning.

And then his mother coming in a few hours later.

Time after that passed differently, a mixture of agony and despair where he never crawled into my bed again. Every waking moment was torture and starvation, horror and longing to just die.

But I remembered my last time with him—my last moments. Nikki, looking me in the eyes as our mother finally pulled out a gun and put it to the back of my head. Nikki, mouthing the words, “Look at me, Otto.”

I remembered it all.

Every moment he could have helped me—every moment he could have at least had the decency to sneak into the room and fucking suffocate me with a pillow so I didn’t have to suffer anymore.

Every moment he did nothing .

I needed to pay him back for every one of those moments.

I skated my nose along the pulse at his throat, drawing the scent of him deep into my lungs like it could water the seeds of hatred taking root and help them blossom into the threat on my tongue.

“I’m going to make your life a living hell.

Do you know that?” I nuzzled into his ear, and beneath my palm, his heart started to speed again.

When my fingers danced along his side, he squirmed…

but he wasn’t trying to pull away from me.

London moved closer, even though I wasn’t sure he realized he was doing it.

Interesting.

It was even more interesting when I lifted my hands up, threading my fingers through his hair to yank his head back… and he gasped.

The sound made me pause, made my fingers tighten. Even in the dark of the room, I could almost feel him staring at me with wide, anxious eyes. His breath came in ragged little pants that played heat against my lips.

When I yanked on his hair again, he squirmed, the gasp turning into a little whine that caught at the back of his throat. He tried and failed to hide it. Tried and failed to stop his body from rocking forward, to press closer to me like he couldn’t help it.

Nikki hadn’t liked pain. If I’d been rough at all, he’d complained. He’d been able to take it just fine, and he’d dished it out as though he was doing something as casual as cooking breakfast.

But he didn’t like it.

Judging by the way London’s cock jumped against my leg where he was plastered to me, I’d say that was another difference between the two of them.

Fuck…

I liked this one.

There were so many little cracks and divots, so many places where someone else had crept in from one life to the next—while I’d been dead . When I looked at him, when I felt him against me, it was hard to wrap myself around the shape of my hate. It was hard to feel anything but… London.

Everything was London.

I pulled back with a snarl, and froze when I realized his small hands were fisted in my shirt, keeping me from moving away.

He was shivering so hard his teeth were clattering together, and even in the low light of the room I could see how wide his blue eyes were as he searched the darkness, trying to make out my face.

Nikki never looked at me like that either.

Fuck.

He looked terrified, but at the same time it was like finding my eyes was the only thing he could think to do, the only thing that would let him breathe.

I leaned in, close enough that I could feel the heat of his shuddery breath against my skin again.

Close enough that I could make out the slightest shine of tears in his gaze.

“London…” I whispered his name softly. So soft that it was more a sigh than a word. Soft enough that I fed it to his trembling lips in the darkness and wondered if he could hear me.

Apparently he could, because he nodded—quick enough that it brushed his nose against mine—and pulled himself closer.

“I’m not who you think I am. I didn’t hurt you. I wouldn’t… I…”

I didn’t think when I leaned forward and brushed my mouth against his—didn’t think when my arm slid around his waist and pulled him until there was no space left between us. His terror made him shiver, and apparently the effect of that terror made him hard where he pressed against my stomach.

No… this wasn’t Nikki.

And it wasn’t like Nikki’s kiss when I swiped my tongue against his lips… Because that’s why I was kissing him; I would know that kiss anywhere.

I knew his taste, his touch. I knew what it felt like to completely lose myself to him, and I could tell as soon as London’s body jerked against me, trying to pull away while his hips bucked almost of their own accord, that I wasn’t falling into anything. He was shattering under my touch.

Just that brief brush of lips.

Just a moment.

A second.

And when his hands suddenly slapped against my chest and he twisted back with a low sound, I knew .

He was…

Fuck, he was different.

My brows drew together. I couldn’t let this change my plans—I had plans .

I wanted to hurt him.

I wanted to make him pay.

I wanted…

“Otto, please…” In the dark, when I couldn’t see him, when the ghost of those blue eyes wasn’t taunting me. I didn’t recognize the voice.

I didn’t, and I did.

Because it wasn’t Nikki… but fuck me if he didn’t sound like every perfect moment I’d ever longed for and never had a chance to keep.

I hadn’t had a chance to keep it because I’d died.

“You might not remember now, London. But you will.” I leaned in, brushing my lips against his again, caught up in the way they were salty and wet from his tears. It was almost intoxicating.

“What do you mean?”

“This place? These people? They have a way to bring past lives to the forefront. They have a way to make you who you were.” He froze under my touch, still like a statue except for the way his breath came in a sharp, terrified intake.

“They brought me back to life after you killed me. Or, well…” I leaned closer.

“Maybe not you, but the person you were. That’s who they’ll eventually bring back. ”

The silence that met me was deafening, and his fingers on my chest twitched nervously, clenching and unclenching until he finally drew in a breath to speak.

“What happens to me when they do?”

My eyes slid shut, the answer coming out before I could stop it. “You won’t exist anymore.”

“I…” Another beat of silence, and then tears. Soft at first, a hiccupping sob that he tried to hide. But then I heard it again. And again.

When I pulled him to my chest, he only struggled for a second before going limp in my arms. London was still as my fingers smoothed soothingly up and down his back, but he shivered when I carefully started to thread them through his hair.

Like he couldn’t fight it anymore, his head dropped to my shoulder. It took him three tries before he managed to catch his breath so he could speak.

“I don’t want to die.” He said it like a revelation, like it was news to him too. What had happened to him his entire life that he just now realized he wanted to live? I’d read a file on him, but the words orphan and foster system meant nothing. I needed to hear it from him.

What made London London .

I wanted to know.

I needed to know.

And I couldn’t know, because what I’d said was the truth. When they injected him, London wouldn’t exist anymore. He’d go to whatever place the personality that existed in this body went to. To sleep? To death? To some dormant state, waiting for their turn again?

No matter the answer, he’d be gone, and Nikki would be here… and I…

“Otto, please… I don’t want to die.”

“Shh, London.” I pressed my lips to the warmth of his hair, inhaling the soft scent of sweat and fear and some undercurrent that was almost saccharine. “I didn’t want to die either, you know?”

And even though he should have pushed me away—even though I should have gotten up and left—he finally gave in completely, wrapping his arms around me and giving himself over to tears.

It was kind of fucked up that he was so starved for comfort that he was going to take it from the man who threatened to kill him.

But shit… hadn’t I done the same? Even though I knew Nikki had betrayed me, I’d wanted his arms until the very end.

I’d fallen into his eyes in those final moments and let myself remember when it had been good as our mother shot me.

Fate was a fucked-up bitch.