Page 34 of The Order of Disorder

“I remember when you were just a kid,” he says. “Tiny little thing, all bones and eyes. Wouldn’t talk to anyone. Wouldn’t even eat unless I sat beside you.”

I say nothing. Because it’s true. And I hate that it’s true.

He studies my face like he’s remembering something fond. Or pretending to.

“You used to follow me everywhere.”

“I was thirteen,” I mutter. “Didn’t know any better.”

Something sharp flashes across his expression, but he swallows it.

“You’re not a kid anymore,” he says finally. “But I’m still looking after you, Max. I’ll always look after you.”

“Look after me?” I spit out. “How the hell is this looking after me?

His expression tightens, eyes narrowing.

“You dragged me back here like I was some fucking—”

“Don’t start,” he cuts in. “You don’t get to mouth off like you didn’t bring this on yourself.”

I take a step toward him. “You let Silas—”

In a blink, his hand is around my throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just enough to make my breath hitch. Just enough to remind me what he’s capable of. His thumb presses lightly against the side of my neck, like he’s measuring how far he’d have to go to shut me up for good.

“That’s enough.”

His eyes are all ice now. The warmth, the memory, the flicker of the boy I used to know…all gone.

“I fed you. Clothed you. Protected you when no one else would.”

“You drugged me.”

He laughs, darkly. “And look at you now. Got a taste for it, clearly.”

He drops his hand and steps back.

“Where the fuck is your collar?”

I shrug.

He scrubs a hand down his chin, slow and tight, the way he does when he’s deciding whether or not it’s worth breaking something.

“Fine.”

He walks to the door, opens it, and pauses to look back at me.

“Stay here for now. I’ll send Cash up for you later.”

The door shuts and the lock clicks into place. I pull out my baggie and count the remaining pills.

What feels like days later, Cash’s voice jolts me out of a dreamless sleep.

“Max? I gotta bring you downstairs.”

I turn my head to the doorway to see him standing there. The TV’s on, a cacophony of noise at the end of the bed that I’m not paying any attention to, and I’m sprawled out on Billy’s bed, foggy and out of it.

Make ‘em last,Maze had said, and I had every intention to, but the last six pills in his little baggie had been too much to resist as the hours had clicked away in this unbearable bedroom. My thoughts kept drifting, too painfully, to everything that had happened in here.