5. Slipping
5
SLIPPING
RIOT
Misfit Hall is pathetic compared to Vile House. Our house has character, tunnels, and creepy old treatment rooms that speak to the sinister, evil-experimental side of me. Vile House is as alive as Moros herself, but Misfit Hall is a fucking joke. It used to be a fire station, but now it’s uncared for, dirty, and trashy as hell.
The difference between a gang like The Misfits and us is that we don’t publicly gloat. They throw parties, invite the town to their house, decorate the lawn with red plastic cups, cigarette butts, and beer cans, and generally have all sorts of lowlifes passed out in their numerous beds. We don’t invite anyone but Vile members into our house, unless they’re there to make a bargain.
We respect our space; they destroy their space.
No wonder Moros doesn’t value The Misfits anymore.
I’m early for my meeting with Yates, but I’m here on purpose. Unmasked. Ghost has been slinking around this place for an hour, planting all the devices without anyone noticing him. He’s bored here. The jobs don’t require all his skills, and it’s eating away at him to have to fake it as a member of the gang. So, when he walks into the room he uses as his own here, he sees me sitting on his bed and closes the door behind him.
He's easy to read if you catch him without his shields up, so before he can slam them into place, I catch the rage and the boredom on his face. He fucking loathes that I get to come here as a masked member of the ten while he’ll have to stand at Yates’ side as a lower-ranking member of a useless crew. It makes me grin, and that earns me a fist flying at my face.
I grab it and throw him down on his bed, climbing atop to straddle the feisty bastard. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“The fuck are you doing here?” He bucks, trying to dislodge me. “If you blow my cover with Yates, I’ll help Director kill you.”
“No you won’t.” I smile at him just because he hates it. His blue eyes narrow on my mouth, and his body tenses beneath me, so fucking lithe and toned it gets me going. “What fun would a trip to Hell be if I’m not there herding you exactly where you want to go?”
“I have fun all on my own, thanks,” he says, lifting his hands to throw me off. I pin them beside his dark blond head. “Get the fuck outta my space, Ri-Killian. Jesus. Why are you all up in my business lately?”
“A bargain,” I deadpan, loving how this feels. When I straddled him in his grave, he was so pliant and still. I like the lively version of him even more. “Is this how you fuck people when you’re here? On your back so they don’t see your Vile House tats?”
“From behind,” he snaps. “Want me to show you?”
I definitely do, but he’s not riled up enough yet. I won’t fuck him until he begs, and to be honest, I don’t know if he’ll drop his pride enough to do so. Not with words, anyway. He’ll pull a move, try to overpower me, make true on his threat to rape me, and that’ll be his begging. I’ll know it when I see it. I’ll expect it when I manipulate it out of him.
I hum from deep within my throat as the night sky makes an appearance outside. His face darkens, but his eyes light up because as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he loves this. A challenge. An opponent. A way to blow off steam and be fucking sick about it. There’s a reason we’ve been fighting for years, but now that it’s part of an actual deal we made, it’s coming to a breaking point, and Soren Sauder loves the unknown of it.
I love the unknown of him.
I grin and he glares, but when someone knocks on the door, his eyes turn panicky.
“Sauder? You in there?”
Ghost tries to shove me off to hide, but I pin him down as the door opens. Lockan Tate, one of Moros’ most deceptive men and a member of The Misfits, walks in, pausing when he catches me straddling Ghost. I’m unmasked, and Lock is about to make his own assumptions that’ll piss Ghost off. Even better.
“Didn’t know you two fucked,” he says, closing the door behind him. “Killian.”
“Lockan.” I give him one of my charming smiles, but there’s trouble etched into it. Lockan’s bright green eyes stay on me a few extra seconds, like everyone’s do when they aren’t sure if I’m flirting with them or not, so I meld my smile into a grin and lick my lips. Most people melt, but Lockan just grins back, combing his tattooed fingers through his flop of dark and gold hair to push it back.
Little does Lockan know, his adoptive brother—for lack of a better term—is also my Vile House brother. Glitch has kept the secret from his lifelong friend since he joined, and if it ever comes to light, I’m excited to see how the pieces fall.
When Ghost bucks and tries to throw me off again, I wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze. Not against his windpipe this time, but against the arteries on either side of his neck, proving to him just how well I know how to restrict blood flow to give him a buzz. He takes the hint, eyes widening and lips parting. Ah, such a good boy.
“Am I interrupting?” Lock asks, walking into the room to take something off Ghost’s dresser. “Because I’m not leaving. Give me a show. Better than being out there.” He leans his ass against the edge of the dresser and lights a joint.
Looking down, I see Ghost’s face turn red. I hate red skin. It’s such a weakness not being able to mask your sweaty, flushed features to hide how you feel. Pathetic fools. It irks me to see he has this weakness. I grin, and when I lean my weight back to find his cock thickening beneath my ass, I grin wider.
“I win,” I tell him. “Admit it.”
“Fuck you,” he pants.
“Admit it.”
His hips buck and his knee cracks against my ribs. He throws me off his body and coughs, rubbing at his throat. I laugh, wincing a bit at my ribs, but when I look at him, the victory is in the way he’s so fucking ruffled. Yeah, sweetheart, keep thinking about it. Start begging.
“Shit, you two are hot,” Lock says. “How long has this been?—”
“It’s not. Ever.” Ghost stands, taking the joint from Lock. “Don’t comment on it, asshole.”
Lock laughs, not at all fazed by Ghost’s mood. “Thought you were best friends with Keegan? You been living a ‘best friend’s brother’ fantasy behind his back?”
I chuckle, climbing off the bed. “Bet he creates some amazing fantasies in that dark head of his,” I say, standing with Lock. “Bet I star in them all.”
“Fuck you… Killian.” Ghost inhales the joint. We don’t often fuck up on names outside of our masks, but his temper has always made him stupid, so Lockan notices the hesitation.
To stop the topic, I say, “He usually calls me sweetheart, but he’s embarrassed.”
Ghost’s exhale is shaky. “You need something?” he asks Lock.
“To get the fuck out of this building,” Lock says. “Yates is all worked up about…” He glances at me because I’m the outsider here, and I shouldn’t know about the meeting tonight.
“About me, right?” Ghost asks. “Because I’m requested at this meet-up?”
“Yeah.” Lock nods. “This fucking crew, man. Not what it used to be…”
Ghost doesn’t disagree. Now that I know Lockan hates it here as much as Ghost, it gives me an idea of who Director has in mind to take over The Misfits. Lockan is thirty, like me, and he’s been a loyal member of this crew since he was fifteen. Back then, the leader was awesome and cared about Moros, the locals, and his crew more than anything. Yates fucked everything up and turned them useless and lost them respect in town.
“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?” Ghost asks me. “Fuck off.”
I grin at Lock and then shift it into a smirk I create for Ghost only. “See you later, sweetheart.”
I leave Misfit Hall and head back to the asylum to change and get ready to meet Yates. All the while, my mask slips off and I stop forcing my smile. The pressure fades away as I exhale, and every fake facade slips away, leaving me exhausted from holding everything in place for so long.
Alone, I don’t have to act for anyone. My face can be blank enough to scare because no one is around to terrify. I’ve trained myself to be the perfect representation of whatever is needed in the moment, and without a mask in place… I’m blank. Because under all the pretend and the acting, I don’t know who I am anymore. When I don’t have a person or a situation to manipulate, I don’t know what to do.
It eats at me, this need to be something but never knowing if it’s the real me or a fake version of me. I’ve become so good at pretending that I don’t know how to drop the act, to let it go and let my personality shine through. I don’t even know if I have a personality or if every facet of me has been fabricated over the years, molding and shaping me into whatever version of myself is necessary to survive.
All I know is what I need . Not who I am.
I need attention. I need recognition. I need importance and power. I need superiority. To get all that, I charm and lie and piss people off to get the rise out of them I require. I manipulate and force with no respect for their feelings because fuck them, their feelings don’t matter compared to mine. These are my needs, and it’s a cutthroat world, so I’m going to be the most cutthroat of them all. I’ll do whatever it takes to feed my ego, even if I don’t understand why it craves such things.
I didn’t save my brother as a kid.
I didn’t do anything other than sit with him in the lonely darkness while our parents called him sick but forgot to call me sick because I learned to act better than he could. I never taught him to act. I didn’t fucking help him until I was a teenager and we killed our parents in the span of half an hour. That night, I shed the skin of my former self and became this new, unclear, twisted version of myself. Because this version protected Krypt, the one and only person I give a fuck about in this dire world. I tell myself that I’m his hero and I did it for him, but…
I saved him to give myself the ego boost. I helped him to prove that I was stronger than him. I freed him so we could murder together, so I’d have someone to connect with over something so monumental. I do love him, and he’s my brother…
But it’s too late because he doesn’t even need me anymore.
But Soren does. He can’t chase Death on his own, and if I can aid him in any way, even if it’s sinister and unethical, I’ll do it because of that necessity within me that needs to be in control of everyone and everything. Because of the part of me that needs to shape him into a toy for my own amusement.
“What are you still doing here?” Director asks, coming to stand where I’ve been zoned out, staring through the slats in the door to Gregory Malone’s cell. “Meeting is?—”
“I’m aware.” I ball my fists, loathing that he’s checking up on me. “Come to babysit me like you always do?”
Director steps up beside me, peering at Malone just sitting on the floor. He’s staring at the wall, but his mind hasn’t snapped yet. It will soon, especially now that Axel has permission to test some of his new methods on him.
“I’m not babysitting, but you have to admit, you’re irresponsible sometimes.”
Because my priorities are most important, but other people like to shove theirs down my throat. I want life to be on my agenda, not anyone else’s. When I first became a Vile Boy and joined the ten, Director almost kicked me right back out because I didn’t want to put the needs of a society before my own. I learned to act, and over the years, I got really good at it. Now I care. Not about anyone, but about belonging. I want to be a member of Vile House because this is the most powerful place for me to be. I want to save Moros because it’s the only place I can imagine living. I want to harness the power that comes with wearing a white and black mask, and I want to continue living my agenda with the backing of a society that praises me for who I am instead of chaining me for it.
“I’ve been good,” I remind him, hating that he hasn’t noticed.
“Yeah, you have,” he says, contradicting my thoughts. “But the past few days, you’ve been… I can tell when you’re slipping, Riot.”
“I’m not fucking slipping.”
“What’s going on with you and Ghost?”
I grin at Gregory Malone’s back. “A bargain. You can’t butt in.”
“I can, and I will if things get out of hand. You’re brethren first and foremost.” He turns his back to the door, looking across the hall at another door, its occupant chattering to herself. “I need you. Both of you. Don’t make me step in.”
What would he even do if he stepped in? He’s locked us up, put us through hell, tried to get us to break and bend to his will, but he either fails or doesn’t try to actually succeed… because he never has. Part of me wonders if he just does it to show there are consequences because I’ve never actually gotten the impression that he wants to change us.
“What would you do?” I ask, goading him and letting my facades shift beneath my surface until he gives me a hint at which one he needs right now.
“Step in to make sure you’re both okay.”
“Okay?” I look at him, trying to decipher his meaning.
“I understand your need to rival one another, but the two of you aren’t… your games are deadly, whether you mean for them to be or not. It would hurt me if you ever succeeded in hurting each other irreparably.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So? Are you close to that yet?”
I look away. “I’m keeping him from his curse, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“For him or for you? Who benefits from this?”
We both do. “You’re the one who says I’m sociopathic, so who do you think benefits more?”
“I never… you have some of the traits, Riot. Just be careful and remember that you’re family.” He bumps my shoulder to add ease to the conversation. “And don’t lock me out if he needs help.”
I’ll be the one helping him, thanks.
Done with this conversation, I grab my bag with my change of clothes and my mask. “Have a meeting to get to. Want me to take Lockan Tate out of there?”
Director huffs, adding a smile. “I want you to get him kicked out.”
“Done.”