Page 25

KANE

T here are two people I need to avoid. Neither of them leave me alone when they’re not directly in front of me. I blink up at the penthouse ceiling. Niko’s shit is still here, and it must be old because his motorbike helmet is in the corner when he hasn’t ridden his bike in years.

I still allow the false comfort that the guarded building offers. Rowan and Lennox have both made it clear that they’re not afraid of the criminal families I’m employed by. But the reality can’t sink in. If it does, then I’m always going to be within their reach.

My own screams travel through time and fucking haunt me as I continue watching the ceiling. They get louder with each blink. Each beg and fucking cry echoes around my skull until I can’t even hear my own breathing.

I should end it.

It’s a thought I’ve had multiple times and failed on carrying through because my guardian angel is a cunt who only ever appears when I take back control and attempt to end my life.

It doesn’t stop anyone else causing pain.

Only me. The fucker has a vendetta against me, and I know better than to close my eyes to give the memories the opportunity of adding visual reminders to the auditory shit plaguing me.

If I go to Delilah, then I’ll have something else to focus on. She makes it pause and she’s afraid of me. Fear is good. Being the one who instills it is even better.

But I can’t.

If I go to her, I’ll fuck her.

If I fuck her, I’ll fall back into her trap and the fear I need won’t be there. I’ll be her little bitch again, ready to do whatever she needs and a slave to her every whim.

So I don’t move as I force my heart to slow down.

Blowing out all the air in my lungs, I hold myself still and count to thirty before I allow myself to inhale.

The repetitions make me lightheaded, but I continue them to remind myself that I’m in control.

Organs work without any interference but I can control them.

I can stop my breathing whenever the fuck I want.

The power over my lungs doesn’t filter into my limbs as I blindly pick up my phone.

The ceiling blurs as I enter the code and then Delilah is in front of me on an old recording.

She’s so fucking mesmerizing as she walks through the house we shared in only one of my hoodies.

I focus on her, and it silences the screams despite the fact she’s looking for him .

Everything was for him. Her playing the piano, the way she practiced cooking, how she’d stand in the closet and carefully choose her clothes that I’d selected.

But it was for him because Asher was who she was married to.

I was hidden. The irony is that the most deceptive mask I wore was a mental one.

The gas mask, bird mask, the clown, all of those were me. Without them, as Asher, it was him.

I actually thought that she’d piece it together and tell me to go fuck myself. That she knew me so deeply that as soon as she opened her eyes in that hospital, she’d know I wasn’t him.

Pushing my arm under my head, I bring her closer and talk to her—to a version of her anyway.

“I miss you, my pretty girl. Some days, most days to be honest, I wonder what would have happened if I kept you as mine from the first day I met you. If you chose me instead of him, what would our life be like? You’d still be my wife, but it would be something that we both remember instead of me signing the papers while I waited for you to wake up. ”

My eyes droop and I blink as my head falls back over the armrest of the sofa.

“I miss someone knowing me and not being alone. I’ve been alone for so long that I don’t think I can be around other people anymore.”

My vision blurs through the small gap between my lashes. But she’s still there, right in front of me, behind the bars of my lashes.

“It hurts, a soul deep ache that goes when I’m with you…”

Something smooth and cold hits my face and I jump up. The coffee table skids across the floor and my knee throbs, but I quickly sit on the floor. Pulling my knees up, I wrap my arms around my calves and make sure the backs of my ankles are pressed to my ass.

The buzzing comes next.

My muscles seize in time with the high-pitched sound getting closer.

Three doors opening after one another.

One more door and they’ll be here.

Just one.

The control I found over my lungs is ripped from me as they refuse to work in an attempt to prevent what’s about to happen.

But there isn’t a clang. Buzzing fills the air.

No. It’s not in the air. It’s in my throat as I hum, “Eighty-nine.” I slowly rock, winding my arms tighter and tighter around my body to create a cell within a cell.

But this one will protect me. The cage of my body isn’t the same as concrete walls because this prison cell may actually protect me if I can just hold myself firmly enough.

And the buzzing slowly leaves my throat as I continue rocking. Sweat beads on my nape, dripping down my back and making my t-shirt cling to me as I pull my legs closer.

“Eighty-nine.”

It’s not ninety. It’s eighty-nine. Eighty-nine is safe.

But the buzzing gets louder, so loud that it prickles my skin as I flinch away from it.

“Eighty. Nine.”

I rock harder.

“Eighty-nine.”

My entire body quakes, my limbs already betraying me as the tremors rattle through my bones, dragging an ache with them.

Yet there’s no boots.

No metal scraping on metal as the door is unlocked.

No hands ripping the safety of my arms from me.

No hands at all.

Cracking open one eye, I look around the room I’m in.

My chest rapidly moves in my periphery, and the first thing I notice is how open the space is.

One wall is entirely made up of glass. The mezzanine floor above has a black railing that allows me to see everything.

Even the kitchen is open. All open space without any concrete or a cot that I’ll fall through as soon as I sit on it.

My limbs slowly loosen as I sit there, doing a visual sweep of everything around me. It’s not due to comfort, I just can’t physically hold myself together anymore. It’s fucking exhausting, and even breathing is a chore.

One moment is all I need. A minute to remember what it was like to exist without pain. That’s not possible, because memories and life don’t work like that. They both conspire to fuck me over, to fucking rob me of any sanity or peace.

If I wasn’t so tired, I’d rage.

Instead, I drag myself up to stand as the buzzing restarts.

My phone sits on the floor, vibrating across the dark tile, and I snatch it up.

Hope is a bitch, another thing I don’t have control over, because I want it to be Delilah.

I need it to be her, yet Lennox’s name stares at me instead. I answer before the call can end.

“Kane,” he says, and I know it’s Rowan. They sound the same, but my uncle has never called me anything other than little shadow since he came into our lives when I was six years old. “You failed, nephew.”

I don’t have the energy to temper myself and snap, “Fuck you, I don’t want any part of your fucking games.”

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I go to end the call when Rowan’s voice darkens, carrying sadistic joy despite the distance.

“I haven’t begun playing. Yet.” The screen flashes, a message coming through, and I put him on speaker because I’m clearly an idiot. “Follow the dot. If you fail again, there will be a punishment for your disobedience.”

He ends the call, and the three pulsing beeps echo around the room as I watch the screen.

I’ve become accustomed to new technology since rejoining society, but the tracker is weird as fuck.

It shuts down access to anything else on my phone.

There are two green dots moving towards each other.

There are no street names, only coordinates.

The fucked up cunt should have played computer games instead of playing with people’s lives.

Whoever is controlling my device sends a message that automatically pops up.

The jet is ready for you. Don’t run.

Little shadow.

Lennox.

His smoke and daggers bullshit is beginning to piss me off. There isn’t an option to respond and the message fades to show the same blinking dots. I don’t even have a reference of which country they’re in, but I put one foot in front of the other, knowing there isn’t a choice.

Lennox always uses the same hangar, and I decide to make the journey as unpredictable as possible. Swiping Niko’s keys, I go to the underground garage and his sports bike sits untouched beside my car. I make a deal with the shitty universe as I swing my leg over and start the ignition.

If I’m meant to die, I will. If I’m not, you’ll save me.

The roar of the engine bounces around the cement garage as I pull forward without any care for the vehicles around me. Fuck that when I don’t even have any for myself.

As soon as I pass the gates, I’m made aware of just how vulnerable my body is.

There’s nothing stopping the elements or a car from slamming into me.

My t-shirt is plastered to my chest as I increase the odds in my favor and I weave between the cars.

A side mirror brushes the side of my arm, so I go faster.

My eyes dry without the protection of a helmet.

The dying sun stops any headlights from blinding me.

As soon as I hit an open stretch of road, I straighten and slowly let go of the handles.

Stretching my arms out, I roll my wrists and wait for something to topple me.

Anything that proves that I shouldn’t be here because even though I don’t want to die, I can’t prevent the call to death.

It’s a perplexing thing to have one foot in life, yet never really feel like living.

Yet at the same time, I don’t want to die.

The human condition is to suffer and want, hope, dream, fucking battle myself to breathe just once more because life is fickle and the Fates are only ever predictable in their ability to surprise everyone, so it might change.

There’s no guarantee for good or bad in life, but even when it continuously shows me that things can be worse than I possibly imagined, that hope doesn’t die, forcing me to stay alive on the chance it may change because I am a fool.

A hopeful fool that believes the lie that each new rock bottom I find myself in is the worst that civilization has to offer.

And fate is a bitch, a merciless cruel cunt that laughs in the face of that hope because rock bottom doesn’t exist. That’s an earthly invention that people tell themselves to feel better about their shitty circumstances, because if there was a rock bottom, there wouldn’t be a Hell.

Even Hell has levels, different pits that range in depth to extract more of one’s soul while relentlessly punishing them for the simple act of existing.

I’ve envisioned my death countless times, some of them as a comfort, others as a deterrent.

But I can never make my mind up on what I want.

Spending the majority of your life wanting to die is a mindfuck.

I am no more in love with life than I am death, but life I know.

I’m used to the way it ebbs and flows, but death is a huge question mark.

The means are right there but there’s always an excuse to stay alive.

Hate, love, fucking spite. Anything. The smallest morsel of hope drags me back from the edge every fucking time, and I grab the handles again.

No doubt, the guardian angel assigned to me is laughing at my hypocrisy.

The signage for the hangar comes into view, and I don’t slow down as I turn. Rubber burns against the tarmac and the bike wobbles due to the abrupt turn, but I don’t fall. The fucking universe and all its cursed wisdom has decided to save me. A-fucking-gain.

The jet is already waiting as I pull up.

Someone steps down the stairs. His pale blue eyes and dark hair make him look creepy as fuck with the sky darkening.

I don’t know who it is, whether it’s Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.

Not until he stops in front of me at an angle and I see that he doesn’t have a scar on his nape.

Lennox places his hand on my shoulder and lightly dips his head. “Little shadow,”—he squeezes my shoulder,—“you won’t ruin this, will you?”

“Ruin what?” I ask as I turn off the engine and hit the kickstand with the back of my foot.

He doesn’t answer. Like fucking always. If he’s attempting to be a caring mentor, he has some work to do because I never know what’s going on where my uncle is concerned. It’s ten steps above secretive and annoying as fuck.

Swinging my leg over the bike, I go to walk up the stairs when he digs his fingers into my shoulder, dragging me back. “You need to fix your mistake first.”

The weird fuck pushes his two forefingers into my pocket and pulls out my phone. Two blinking dots are still on the screen, but they’re right on top of each other. Placing it in my palm, he says, “Get ready. Know that if you fail again, I’ll be the one to give your punishment.”

I pull away from him, disgust and confusion warring together because he can’t fucking mean it. I know what Rowan’s version of punishments are, the sick cunt. I’ve lived through the punishments he arranged with the rapist pieces of shit he secured freedom for. But Lennox can’t be the same.

Only he is, and remorse pulls his features down as he whispers without moving his lips, “Don’t think it is my choice. A man born into servitude knows only the master.” He gestures to a helicopter further ahead, taking a fortifying breath. “I suggest you move quickly so no one sees your face.”

Lennox leads me into the hangar and hands me a duffel bag. The weight is too light for it to be a weapon. His dress shoes tap against the concrete floor as he stands at the edge of the building. He seems to grow in size, his shoulders broader and spine straighter.

I slowly unzip the bag and take out the mask on top.

The color is deeper than black. It’s a fucking void.

The tech t-shirt and pants are the same, as though I need to slip out of existence.

A warning siren should be blaring, telling me to run, but it doesn’t.

All I have is another vague warning added to the long list that my uncle has given me.