Page 136 of Heartless Heathens

“Mad that I’ll never get to know the only family that might have cared for me.”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, Pet.” Sonny walked up to me. “You can be as mad at me as you want, that’s your right. But I’m not sorry and I don’t regret my decision to keep you from him, just the same as I tried to keep you away from Frollo.”

His nostrils flared with each exhale.

“Monsters come in different shapes, and they all wear different masks to try to blend in. Frollo’s wears a halo while mine wore a suit and tie. Your grandfather wasn’t a good man. If anyone knows this it’s me. You want to lament on what your life would have been like if you would have been born in his house? You’re looking at it Romina, it looks like me. Arlan was a cold, loveless, son of a bitch who would have done nothing but try to shape you in his image for the sake of his cult. He wouldn’t have loved you, he wouldn’t have raised you, he would have ripped you apart. You would have just been the means to the end for him. I don’t regret shielding you from his hatred. He didn’t deserve to know you.”

His last words echoed through the chapel ceiling and Felix wiped away the tears I didn’t know were falling.

“Okay,” I whispered with trembling lips.

“We need to leave campus,” Sonny said, changing the subject sharply.

“When will you be back?”

“We won’t.” My heart dropped into my stomach and my vision tunneled. The moment I’d been dreading had finally come and I was nowhere near prepared to say goodbye. How was I supposed to move on? What would happen to me now? What would Frollo do to me? “You’re coming with us. The incident with our little friend won't go unnoticed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Even assholes are missed. His parents, friends, people are bound to come looking for him once he misses enough classes. We need to not be here when that happens. Arlan being dead is the excuse we needed to get the fuck out of dodge.”

“Why would anyone think you three are involved?”

“Have you seen these heathens?” Felix laughed, clapping Sonny on the back. “They’re begging to be read their rights.”

With his shirt off, so many more of his tattoos were exposed. Different macabre illustrations decorated Sonny’s chest and his stomach, every one so unique and so definitive of who he was in every way. There was less skin showing than art on his body.

Sonny was rarely shirtless, but he just so happened to be in nothing but sweatpants, still recovering from being drugged. The tattoo of the Balrog covered his entire back in pitch black ink, swirls of red bringing to light the servant of Morgoth. Just a few weeks ago those words would have meant nothing to me, now they were the shape of the key I knew unlocked who Sonny was.

“Why don’t you have tattoos?” I asked Felix curiously.

“I don’t like pain, why? You think I should get some?” He grinned and I shook my head.

“No, I like you just the way you are.” I stroked his face with the palm of my hand, “Plus It’s the only way I can tell you two apart.” I joked, looking over to Corvin before I tried to run away but Felix picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

He smacked my butt, forcing a squeal out of me as he carried me out of the kitchen and through the hallway.

“I’ll show you how you can tell us apart. Let’s get packed up, shall we Mina?”

“Speakingoftattoos…thatlooksnew.” I pointed at Sonny’s neck where he’d squeezed some new gibberish in what looked like elvish script in the little bit of blank space left.

“Fuck off.” He moved his neck away from me and covered the new ink under his collar.

He was hiding something. It was probably her name. That would be fun to mess with.

I made a mental note to come back to it later when he wasn’t feeling so…grief-stricken.

Yeah, it was hard to believe Sonny could feel anything at all sometimes, but I could tell Arlan’s death was hitting him in some way. We were all feeling it. Even before he’d offed his own father, Arlan had been more of a paternal figure to him than Carmine Santorini could have ever been.

It didn’t make him agoodfather figure, but he was a figure nonetheless. Frigid, hard, uncaring about anything if it wasn’t for the sake of the Shrine. Sonny had three meals in his belly but until we moved into that house nearly five years later, he was practically alone. Lessons at home every day with a private tutor and servants who cooked your meals but ate in separate rooms.

Felix and I were already teenagers when Arlan took us in, he’d already long given up on any hope that he could sculpt us into his image. But he knew Sonny would need someone he could trust when he took his place. So he bound us to each other before he’d even explained what it all meant.

I didn’t regret it. I wouldn’t take it back either if I had a choice.

We didn’t.

Destined to not be able to live without one another. Not without pain at least. The kind of pain that eats away at your soul.