Page 10 of Genesis (Alter Arlo #2)

I’M SICK. I’M SICKER

ZADE

Floating. In the lake. In my mind. Weightless enough to ride the surface, but dark-minded enough to sink to the bottom. Which would win?

Drag me under and keep me forever.

Pull me to safety and show me how to live.

The stars multiplied through the drips of water on the lenses of Zan’s glasses.

Everything blurred and sound became muffled with my head tipped back in the lake, ears under the water and face above.

Floating. Could I feel him here? Was Zan surrounding me?

Had his body decomposed and poisoned the lake or was this hostility only from myself?

Weeds that felt like hands gripped the back of my body, but they never pulled me under. They caressed and taunted—teased me with the prospect of drowning. On the edge of death, with no way to get there, I kept floating.

Memories hurt. Reminders of reality hurt worse.

Cadoc hurt most of all. Seeing him without Zan wasn’t natural.

They’d been attached at the hip since the moment they met, and to see him alone hurt my eyes.

Hurt my heart. Cadoc wasn’t meant to be alone.

He was meant to love aggressively and protect fiercely.

He had no one left to love, and only me left to protect.

I knew he’d resent me for it forever, but maybe he needed that resentment to keep moving forward. Forward seemed backwards.

“Fuck you!” Cadoc snarled, his open palms slapping the lake. “Fuck you for defying me! Fuck you for tricking me. Fuck you for not following the plan.” Too angry to cry, he just yelled at a lake. “Fuck you for leaving me.”

I held my breath and sank. The glasses stayed on my face, but the lenses cleared when I submerged.

I looked through the rippling surface, seeing the moon and the stars and the darkness.

Did they look back? Were they watching me try to drink the lake that contained my brother’s dead body? Would they judge me for it?

I choked on Zan’s water. I gasped for life while chasing death. The lake filled my stomach and my lungs. Baptized.

“No!” Cadoc’s voice hit my ears at the same time my face broke the surface of the lake. “No! You don’t get to die, too!” He hauled me up and smacked my back.

I threw up Zan. Coughing and spluttering the lake all over him while he just snarled at me, I looked at him and saw him look at Zan. I was Zan.

“Fuck,” he groaned as soon as I stopped choking.

His big hands held the sides of my neck, and I crumpled under the sensation of being my twin.

Cadoc looked at me like he’d always looked at Zan, and as much as it hurt, it felt fucking good.

Too good. My body heated up and my mind fucked off, leaving me in a predicament I didn’t want to get out of.

I’d be Zan if he just kept looking at me like that.

Loved. Chosen. Admired. Desired.

Cadoc’s eyes searched my face, trying to break through the illusion.

With Zan lapping all around us, Cadoc felt him, and he put the feeling onto my body.

He pulled me closer, and my body pressed into his, choking me with a different sensation.

Oh no. I wanted it. I liked it. I wanted him to take me like he’d claimed Zan and never let me go.

It was the first good feeling in weeks, and I was too weak to sacrifice it.

I knew he was high and confused. I knew his mind wasn’t right. I knew this was wrong. I knew I wasn’t gay and that my body was only reacting to the desire to be desired.

“Fuck,” Cadoc whispered again, one hand trailing down my back. He grabbed my ass and my legs wrapped around his waist, the press of his hard cock foreign but wanted.

So wrong.

I barely saw him through the blurred and dirty lenses, but I felt him all over me. His hands grabbed like he’d never wanted anything more. His chest heaved with the restraint he barely showed. His fingers trembled, trying to break through the farce and see me for who I really was.

Keep me as Zan. Don’t stop touching me like that. Pick me.

Cadoc whimpered. Then snarled. Then grabbed my ass and rocked me on his hard dick.

My body responded, my cock full of the blood that should have gone to my brain.

I moaned, and it must have sounded like Zan’s moan because it set off a chain reaction in Cadoc that dipped us into the worst and best parts of hell.

Cadoc grabbed the back of my head and crashed his mouth to mine. I’d never been kissed. I’d still never been kissed because Cadoc was kissing Zan. I liked it, anyway, and that just pissed me off. Sick. I was sick.

His teeth tugged at my lip, and I was a weak enough loser to let him do it—to enjoy him doing it.

Zan’s glasses pressed into my eyes, forcing me to close them.

I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and pretended.

Pretended to be gay so I could have this.

Pretended to be Zan. Pretended that he wasn’t using me to get some sick satisfaction out of my dead brother.

Pretended I didn’t hate myself for wanting it, needing it, fucking begging for it.

“Fuck,” he hissed, ducking his head in an attempt to stop himself.

I didn’t think when I said, “Don’t stop.”

Cadoc whimpered, but his mouth hit mine again and his hands pulled me in harder. I’d fuck him—let him fuck me—just to make this sick feeling last. Just to feel something good among all the bad. I could hate myself for it when the drugs wore off.

He kissed like a savage. He bit and nipped and forced his tongue into my mouth so hard I couldn’t even breathe.

Didn’t want to breathe. Kill me with pleasure I don’t deserve.

His cock was hard and straining against mine, and when the lake waved and rocked us, I had half a second to appreciate that it was Zan trying to force us apart.

It only made Cadoc cling to me harder. My legs wrapped tightly around his hips, my skin scorching water droplets between us, and my mind dipping so far into the gutter that I imagined what it’d feel like to actually have him fuck me.

I hated him. He got my brother killed. He fucked up my life and left me alone. I wanted him to fuck me just so he’d hate himself as much as I hated myself. My anger mixed with desire, and the concoction was fucking sinister.

He noticed. My anger wasn’t like Zan’s anger. Cadoc pulled back, reality hitting him just as hard as the wave of the lake.

“Fuck!” He shoved me away. Grabbed me back. Pushed me down. Pulled me up. “I want you to be Zan. Fuck, I want you to be Zan.”

I’d always wanted to be Zan. Be loved like him. Be admired like him. Be doted on like him. But I wasn’t. Never would be. No matter how much my body resembled his, my anger would always differentiate me from my twin.

“Goddammit,” Cadoc groaned. He leaned in, almost like he wanted to sneak one more guilty kiss from me, but he growled and backed away at the last second. “Drugs,” he huffed, pulling my limp body to the shore. I let him. I had no fight left in me.

We sat there, asses in the sand, knees bent, elbows resting on them. He lit a cigarette, and then he lit another, passing it to me. I didn’t smoke, but I guess he never did drugs either, so I took it and tried not to think about my dick softening between my legs.

“It can’t happen,” he said after three more cigarettes. “Ever.”

“I know.”

“Do you even want it?” he asked, then shook his head. “You don’t want it. You don’t want me.”

No, I didn’t. I just wanted the intensity of the way he used to look at Zan. I wanted someone to be so addicted to my body that they couldn’t keep their hands off it. I wanted passion and protection, longing and lust, and to be the whole world to someone. I never would be. Especially not to Cadoc.

“I’d have done it,” he admitted. “And then you’d hate me for it. Because I want your body, not you. I’d fuck you and pretend you were him because I’m… fucking sick. And you’d let me just because…”

“I’m sicker,” I supplied.

“It can’t ever happen,” he reiterated. “Ever.”

I took the glasses off and accepted another cigarette from him.

We needed space. We needed to get away from each other without actually leaving one another.

We needed Genesis. If we had a place to live and the freedom to wander without constantly being at each other’s sides, we’d develop some distance, our hatred would continue to simmer at a low boil, and we’d learn to exist in a community together.

We were connected, whether we wanted it or not, but I could never be Cadoc’s whole world, and he could never be mine.

We’d been denying that truth for a month now, wandering the grey area like we’d actually be able to heal one another.

We didn’t need each other. We needed help.

Distractions. To watch over each other from a distance.

“It’s just the drugs,” I said, using them as an excuse.

“Is it?” He looked at me, blue eyes punishing.

I didn’t know. Sure, the drugs dropped our guards and inhibited our better judgement, but it was also deep-seated fear, guilt, pain, and a terrible way of coping with a loss we both felt deep in our souls. A death connected us and we didn’t know how to sort through the bullshit of that.

Cadoc pulled the crumpled receipt from his pack, running his fingers over Zan’s shitty writing.

I watched him for a bit, knowing he hurt—knowing we both hurt in different ways.

I took the family photo into my hands, placing my thumb over my parents’ faces.

Amelia. Guilt swept through me, so I pushed it away.

I couldn’t mourn her right now; I needed time to feel the full guilt of her death.

But Zan. The only reason I could grieve for him was because I had a finger to point at Cadoc.

Rationally, I knew Zan’s death wasn’t his fault, but it felt better to blame him, so I’d continue doing it.

Amelia, on the other hand, was one hundred percent on me.

I brought her to that cliff and stood beside her as she died.

I lost her body by passing out after Cadoc pulled us from the lake.

I held out the photo for Cadoc. He trembled all over, hesitating long enough that I pulled it away.

He grabbed my wrist and took the photo, putting the receipt in my hand instead.

I ran my finger over Zan’s words, almost laughed at the price of lube they’d bought, and smoothed out the creases to preserve it for Cadoc.

“We’re going to Genesis in the morning,” Cadoc said. “We stick together, deal? Always?”

I nodded, liking that and hating it simultaneously. “Always.”

Second promise of my life.