55. Those Forgotten #2
Lev nodded. That was an excellent idea. Perhaps Asher would finally realize how dangerous he was. So Lev told Asher everything he remembered, which was everything that had happened, because of all the things Lev had forgotten, he would never forget Silas’s death.
Asher listened without comment or judgment until Lev sobbed the ending into Asher’s poor battered neck.
“When I woke, Silas was gone.”
Lev straightened and allowed Asher to blot his tears even if he didn’t deserve it. How could he deny him when he looked at Lev with such pained devastation?
“Father had disposed of him, and I was so distraught, a doctor sedated me again, this time with human medicine instead of horse tranquilizers. I kept trying to turn myself in, but Father was willing to spend a fortune and commit whatever crimes were necessary to stop me .
“He refused to tell me what he’d done with Silas’s body, and without a body, there was no murder to confess to. Father may have tried to shield me, but I’ve always been guilty, and I never stopped looking for him.”
“Silas doesn’t know where he was buried?”
“No, probably because I don’t know, and he’s me.”
“What about Luna?”
Lev groaned. “God, the hell I put her through between Silas and how much she feared for me in the months after. She seldom left my side and watched over me while I slept. I believe her when she says Father never told her either.
“Personally, I suspect Father incinerated Silas’s body in the forge, then pulverized his bones, and tossed his remains into the sea.”
“Because Lucian requested to be cremated and buried at sea?”
“Clever as ever, Mr. Blakely.”
Asher grimaced. “Don’t call me that like you’re going to make me leave.”
He was going to. That was true. “We still have until the ocean recedes.”
“Fuck that. If you want me to leave, I’ll fight a hell of a lot dirtier than when you were strangling me.”
Asher took the sword and pressed the blade to the unprotected flesh between the bottom of Lev’s sternum and his ribs, ready to plunge it into his heart. Lev had always known Asher was strong, but now Asher knew that too. Lev’s job was done. Asher would be safe after he left Lichenmoor.
Lev stroked the side of Asher’s neck again. “I know.”
“You could leave with me.”
Lev shook his head. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I won’t let you suffer so many years alongside me only for me to die decades before you.”
“You don’t know that. What happened to only here, only now, only you? ”
“You told him!” Silas hissed, appearing behind Asher on the bed. “That was ours.”
Asher didn’t notice. More confirmation that Lev had been the one to hurt him. He was so grateful Asher already had the sword prepared.
“I’m so sorry, but I love you too much to hurt you.”
“That’s what you’ll be doing if you make me go.
Do you think I could ever be happy, that every breath wouldn’t be agony, if I knew you were haunted by him and your guilt, alone at Lichenmoor with no one to care for you if there’s really…
” Asher’s words were lost to a sob. His eyes hardened with resolve.
“You won’t let yourself have me because you think you don’t deserve to be happy, but you’ve put yourself in solitary confinement for five years. You can’t send me away. You can’t.”
Lev swept Asher’s tears away. “You’ll be sad at first, but you’ll think of me less and less, you’ll find someone to love you like I…” Lev pinched the bridge of his nose and turned his head.
“You can’t even say it. You can’t even finish the sentence and look at me when you say it. I won’t go. You’d be better off killing me than sending me away. I’m your good—” Asher’s own sob interrupted him; he pressed the blade deeper, though not through Lev’s skin yet. “Please.”
Lev didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave him and he couldn’t look at him. He needed to keep him safe and then escort him to the gates.
Silas was too quiet. When Lev lifted his head, Silas was still behind Asher, but he mirrored Lev’s motion in perfect synchrony.
“You think you deserve to be alone, Lev. You think you deserve to suffer, that you need to be punished, but you don’t.”
“Asher…”
“He’s lost the plot, hasn’t he?” Silas said, dropping his little mirror act. “You, of all people, deserve to suffer most. Don’t worry. You’ll kill him next time. We’ve got hours until low tide. If the tides can be trusted with such a storm afoot. It reminds me of the night I killed Father.”
“Shut up!” Lev snapped.
“Lev?” Asher looked over his shoulder and back at Lev.
“I do wish I hadn’t killed him.” Silas grinned smugly. “After all, I’m not a murderer like you, but how else was I supposed to summon you?”
That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
“I thought you’d return on your own, but you’re not Father’s lapdog anymore.”
“Lev, what’s not true?” Asher asked in a brave voice that was clearly bravado.
Damn and fucking blast. He’d said that out loud?
“Oi!” Asher said in an American-attempting-a-footballer sort of way. “Look at me. Only me.”
“He can’t be serious,” Silas said.
Lev ignored him and did as Asher asked.
Asher took Lev’s face in his hands. “Only now. Only me.”
“The sword, Asher.” Lev pulled Asher’s hands down.
Asher groaned and picked it back up.
“Good lad.” Lev leaned in until the bite of the blade pierced through his shirt. “Only now. Only you.”
“Is he still here?” Asher asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Asher…”
“No. We’re only here and now with your asshole ex in the cuckold chair.”
“The cuckold what?”
“Oh come on . You’re not that old.”
“I know what cuckolding is, but I’d no idea there were chairs. I’m simply too soft and sensitive and terrible at sharing.”
Asher laughed, and this time it sounded like his own laugh instead of a quack. It was the most beautiful sound Lev had ever heard, so beautiful he wished he could paint in sound.
Asher sobered. “I have something to say, and I want you to listen and not interrupt me. That goes for both of you.”
Lev nodded. Silas rolled his eyes in a way that projected deepest loathing.
“I know Silas suffered. I know what it’s like to be bullied and have no friends at school, and while my mom does accept me, not everyone in my family does.
It was so difficult. Sometimes it still hurts.
But I’ve never lost a parent or battled an eating disorder.
All of that must have been so heavy for you both.
You were right to break up with him, though. ”
Silas said nothing, but he’d gone eerily still, not in the way he had when he died, but in the way a predator would.
“There’s no excuse for murder, but it was an accident.
You didn’t premeditate it. In America, you’d spend less than a few years in jail, especially if you pled guilty, and when I tried to look up English law, I got a little confused by the lords and whatnot, but the sentence seems similar.
When you throw in that his bones were so brittle, I don’t know if a jury would have convicted you. ”
“You researched English law?”
“Yeah. I’ve researched all kinds of things on your computer during your morning jogs. You wouldn’t stop telling me about how you were basically an axe murderer, and research helps my anxiety. To be informed is to be armed.”
“You were more anxious about my prison sentence than the axe?”
“I worried a little at first, but I know you, and you would never kill me.”
“Asher, I nearly strangled you to death. The only reason you’re even alive is pure luck or some god reaching down from the heavens.”
“No. It was Silas.”
“Silas is dead,” Lev shouted .
Instead of looking afraid, Asher looked amused, which only aggravated Lev more, but he’d already raised his voice once, so he took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry I shouted. I’m not angry with you. I just wish you would accept that there is no Silas for you to blame.”
“Are you done?” Asher asked with so much bloody sass. “Good, because I wasn’t even talking about Silas killing me. I’m still alive because Silas saved me. Side note: I love that for him because I know how much he wanted you to kill me.”
“Asher…”
“No, Snake. Let him finish.” Silas appeared at Lev’s side with his chin perched on his palms. “I’d love to hear more of the mental gymnastics our Asher has twisted himself into to excuse any time you’ve tried to kill someone.”
“Listen to me, Lev.” Asher cupped Lev’s cheek with his free hand. “Only me.”
“Sorry.”
“Silas didn’t want to kill me. He wanted you to remember killing me. He just got the timing wrong. I don’t know shit about ghost physics.”
“Ghost physics?” Lev and Silas both said, though Silas added a derisive snort.
“Do you mean the paranormal ?”
“Don’t be pretentious about vocabulary when I just lost a ton of brain cells.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Silas kept bragging about how sweet his revenge was going to be while he strangled me. I must have closed my eyes or passed out because when I opened my eyes again, you were crying and then you finally looked at me.”
“I’m so sorry for what I put you through, but your version of events doesn’t exculpate me.”
“You’re not listening!” Asher took the sword and threw it at the wardrobe. “Silas is your Ben. He fucked with your head and hurt you, maybe in a different way, but he trapped you. He forced you. I hate him for that and I hate him for torturing you for decades.”
“The feeling is very mutual,” Silas said.
“He’s worse than Ben,” Asher continued. “Because he knew you the way only family could, and he used it against you. I know you killed him, but it sounds like he was so fragile to begin with.”
“I should have been more gentle.”
“You were a victim, Lev, even if he was too.”
“When he went away to school, I was happy.”
“You were happy because you were free, and still he’s trapped you here.”
“No. I trapped myself here. All of this is in my head.”
“Even if you hallucinated him for the last five years, he manipulated you as long as you knew him.”
“What if deep down I chose to kill him?”
“You can’t hold yourself responsible for subconscious thoughts you never had.”
Lev shook his head and looked at Silas who was trying very hard to look unassuming, something he never did.
“Only me.” Asher forced Lev’s face back to him, then removed his hands from Lev’s cheeks.
“Sorry,” Lev said.
“You say sorry too much.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“You can’t say shit because you say sorry as a question.”
Lev smiled in spite of everything.
“Silas made you do things you didn’t want to do, Lev, and then he used it against you.
That false accusation would have ruined your life and put you in prison longer than if you’d pointed the police to his body.
I didn’t see how much I’d been harmed by Ben, how little of it was my fault, until you showed me. Silas hurt you.”
“But you didn’t kill Ben. ”
“And if I’d had to escape?”
Bloody hell. Asher was right. The parallels were there. Ben may have used BDSM to control Asher, but Silas had controlled Lev with sex and secrets too.
“I’d have praised you,” Lev conceded.
“Exactly. You’ve been grieving Silas all this time and thought it was guilt, and I think it’s time to stop.”
Asher kissed Lev gently and continued. “Silas’s epitaph said, True death only comes for those forgotten.
It’s a comforting thought. When people die they live on inside your memories.
But what if some people should be forgotten?
What if you’ve kept Silas’s memory alive for so long that it’s hurting you? ”