15. For BetterFor Worse?
15
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?
KRYPT
Remiel is drugged again, but this time it’s keeping him calm. The sun is barely up, but I hauled his broken and abused body through the tunnels, and when we got to the asylum, Director gave him something to keep him subdued. As his body and brain are being scanned and Director is watching the screens, Ghost glares at my back so hard that I finally turn around to glare right back at him.
“Something to say?”
“Take it outside,” Director snaps at the two of us.
I push past Ghost and exit the room, walking down the empty hallway until he shoves me into the stairwell. We aren’t masked, so right now, we’re Keegan and Soren, and we have to be careful, but fuck him if he thinks I’m going to buckle under his glare.
“What’d I tell you if you raped my brother again?”
I need a joint. “I didn’t rape him.” Only with my fingers. “He asked for it.” And fuck, it was marvellous. I couldn’t tell if I was breaking or healing, had no idea what I was doing, but Remiel asked for sickness, and I fucking gave it to him.
“Remi?” he scoffs. “Remi asked to be fucked that hard? He asked for all those marks on his body? He asked to be sliced open by your blade?”
“Begged.”
Ghost bristles, trembling so hard the railing he’s leaning on rattles. “So help me fucking god, Keegan. If you?—”
“You never know when to shut your mouth, do you?” My brother walks into the stairwell and butts his chest against Ghost’s. “You think you have any say here?”
Ghost and Riot, currently Soren and Killian, square off, and whatever simmers between them isn’t any of my business, nor do I give a shit. I leave them there and get back to Remiel, who is just being helped off the table. I try not to snarl at the nurse who touched him; she should be losing a finger by my rules. He’s a bit wobbly, but it should wear off soon.
“You good?” I ask him. The words feel strange and come out too fast. Holding him up, I keep his gown closed. Like fuck anyone else in this place is going to see the ass that now belongs to me.
“What’s this for?” he asks. “Did you break me last night?”
I sit him down on the examination table just as Director walks back into the room. Remiel doesn’t know he’s Director, though. “Hi, Remi. I’m Dr. Cooper.”
“I know who you are. Lab scientist… doing scans?” Remiel asks, skeptical. “Why am I here?”
“Because your mom cut you open and we’re making sure she didn’t leave anything behind,” I blurt out.
“What?” He gasps, looking at me before swinging his attention back to Director. “Leave what behind?”
“By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that your mother is… acting a bit out of character.”
“Uh, yeah. Sometimes. My brother told me to stay away from her.”
Director nods, looking at me as if to ask how much I’ve told him. Which is nothing. I selfishly wanted his attention on me, not his mother. So, while Director gives him the Cliffs Notes version of what we think is happening with this microchip, I watch as Remiel shatters just a little more. He’s alluring while broken, and I want to break him more.
His breakdown from last night was so different from this. Last night, he went psychotic. Dipped into the depraved parts of his psyche and revelled in the darkness. Today, he’s a scared little lamb, wondering how he can be the hero of his mom’s life. But I like that there’s a selfish side to him, too. Because his first question is about himself.
“What do my scans show? Is there something inside me?”
“They look clear,” Director says, but I notice something in his tone. He’s lying, and I don’t know what about, so I stare at the images of the scans, trying to make sense of something I don’t understand. “We just wanted to make sure.”
“How do you know all this?” Remiel asks Director, smarter than I thought he was. He’s putting the pieces together, wondering how Dr. Cooper relates to Vile House.
“I’ve been made aware because of my area of expertise,” he answers smoothly. Smoother than the lie he just told Remiel about his scans. I don’t see anything that stands out in the images, but I also don’t know what I’m looking for. “We’re trying to formulate a drug to counteract the chip. Or what we think is a chip.”
“Remi.” The door bangs open and Ghost looks in. “Let’s go. I need a minute with you.”
I shove Ghost out the door and leave Remiel to get dressed. Director follows us out with a warning. “You’re best friends. Act like it,” he reminds us before taking the tablet with Remiel’s scans and going back to work.
“The fuck is your problem, Soren? You know he’s mine.”
“He’s my brother!”
“And I’ll protect him the best way I know how. Lay off.”
He grabs the front of my jacket, getting in my face while nurses and staff members pretend to ignore us. This portion of the asylum isn’t busy and is mostly used for us, but it’s safer to use first names here while unmasked. “If I accept this, and that’s a massive ‘if,’ I won’t lay off. He’s still my brother, even if his life belongs to you, and I’m not giving up. I will find a way to keep him alive.”
“As will I.”
Ghost sighs. He’s egotistical enough to see it as a competition, like he can’t bear to be beaten if I find a way to protect Remiel before he can. “Just don’t keep him from me. I don’t know how much longer…”
“I have shit to do with Killian, anyway. I’ll come grab him from you later.” I break his hold on my jacket and grab his instead. “If you touch him or anything happens to him under your watch…”
Ghost rolls his eyes. “You fucked my brother, Kr…eegan. What’s that, like the third time in your life you’ve fucked? I have a right to be pissed.”
“Be pissed all you want. It’s not going to change anything.” I shove him away. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Killian?”
He grins, and it’s fucking vile. “Bit locked up at the moment.” He walks inside the treatment room, and I leave before I can bite his head off for being near Remiel.
I find my brother locked in a freezer in the morgue.
After hours of checking tourists, we have four of them bound and gagged on the floor of the old mining cave.
I also have Gregory Malone’s pinky finger in my pocket because he touched Remiel’s hand the other night in the cemetery. I warned him I’d cut parts off anyone who touched him, and that includes unintentional touches. Fuck Gregory Malone.
Monster circles the four captives, and Ransom watches Monster fondly. Riot stands at my side, and all four of us have our masks on.
“What’d they do?” Ransom asks.
Riot points at each one in turn. “That one can’t remember why he’s in Moros. That one says he’s from here, but I have no idea who he is, and neither does Krypt. She claims to be looking for a doctor but doesn’t remember his name, and she’s… just batshit.”
The batshit girl is the only one looking at us. The rest of them are cowering on the ground, looking confused and scared.
“We’ll get them scanned and then have Glitch try to figure out what’s up with their minds.” Ransom looks at Monster, still pacing.
“If they’re even chipped.” Riot sighs. “The fuck is this chip thing? I thought that shit was only in sci-fi movies. This is Moros. We’re stuck in the past, not advanced in science.”
“Axel,” Monster seethes. “It’s him.”
“Yeah, but what are these chips? Like actual microchips?” I ask, because I haven’t seen one yet, and now I’m invested because Director lied about Remiel’s scans.
“Facts and Glitch have been studying them after Menace gets them out. Director doesn’t want anyone at the asylum to know about them yet, so for now, Menace is playing surgeon. They say they’re like little bundles of wires that embed in the brain tissue.” Ransom rips his eyes from Monster to look at us. “I get how Axel might be implanting randoms, but how’d he get Ghost’s mom under his blade?”
“We don’t even know if it is surgical,” Riot says. “Glitch said something about nasal implants or something.”
The four of us aren’t the smart ones. We’re better at haunting, destroying, stalking, and killing. Torture and information extraction are more up our alley than trying to understand something scientific. Ransom is smart, but not in science, so he’s just as lost as we are. I’m bored with this conversation, and I’ve already been away from Remiel longer than I care to be. I promised to keep him safe, and I’m not doing that while standing in a mine.
“This is Glitch’s and Facts’ department,” I say. “Let’s just get these four to them, let Menace fuck around in their heads, and see what Director wants to do with them.”
Separately, we all make our way back to Vile House, getting the four tourists locked in the asylum’s cells. Director is going to scan them, and whatever he finds will dictate what happens next.
On my way up the stairs from the house’s cellar, I run into Ghost. “Why the fuck aren’t you with Remiel?”
“He’s in my room. Chill.”
I push past him, unhappy with that. He’s supposed to be in my room, not Ghost’s. “Wait, Krypt.” He touches my shoulder and pulls away just as fast. “I need you to be my best friend for a minute.”
“I’m always your best friend. It’s you acting like a jackass that’s fucking that all up.” I look at him.
“It’s you making a bargain with Remi that’s fucking it all up,” he snaps back before calming down. “I want Remi to stay here.”
“He is.”
“I mean all the time. I don’t want him going back to my mom’s place.”
“He won’t.”
“What about Selena?” Ghost asks. “She’s in the city all week for school but comes home on the weekends. She stays there.”
Selena isn’t my responsibility, but Ghost is my best friend, so I lean against the wall and block the stairs with him. “Well, Seven says she’s killing her initiation tests. Maybe she can stay here in one of the communal bunks. Want me to ask Director?”
Seven runs the initiates. He’s in charge of weeding out the weak ones and finding the strengths of the ones who have what it takes to be here. Pretty sure he gets off on torturing them and pushing them past all their limits. Selena is doing well, and even though she’s one of only three females who has made it this far, she’s fitting in nicely. But if we invite her to stay in one of the communal rooms reserved for the lower-ranking members, she’ll learn our identities, and that’s not usually allowed until they’re fully pledged. Not unless they were raised in this house from childhood, like Ransom was.
“He’ll say no,” Ghost says, rubbing the back of his head. His hair is darker than Remiel’s but their blue eyes are the same shade, and over the years, the colour has calmed me. Even more so now. “She’s not allowed here until she’s a member, and I don’t know… if she doesn’t make the cut, I’d rather her not know I’m Vile.”
“What do you want to do, then?”
“I’ll stay at Mom’s with her on weekends when she’s there, but maybe you can bring Remi around a bit so we can watch out for both of them when we aren’t doing Vile business?” he asks. “I mean, more often than not, she’s here anyway, doing her tests, so…”
I don’t want Remiel anywhere near his mother, but I understand Ghost’s worry about his sister, too. It’s the least suspicious thing we can do since we’ve been best friends for most of our teen and adult lives. Keegan and Soren used to hang out at the Sauder house all the time, so it won’t look weird if we continue.
“Remiel is my priority,” I tell him.
“Then help me make Selena mine.”
“Selena isn’t cursed like you two are,” I remind him. “I’m going to keep Remiel alive so that it keeps you alive, and Selena is secondary to all that.”
Ghost nods to accept that. “Alright. So we go together if it comes up?”
“Fine. Or she can stay at my place in town.”
“That’ll cause questions I’m not ready to answer yet.”
I purse my lips, itching to get back to Remiel. “Okay, your mom’s place if it comes up. How was he today?”
“He’s freaked out about Mom and this chip thing, but… I dunno. He seems different. More determined or something.” Ghost’s eyes meet mine. “I’m not saying you’re good for him, but maybe he’s growing a bit of a backbone. Still pissed at you for raping him.”
I’m still unsure if I’m meant to feel guilty about that.
“He wants to know why I’m in The Misfits if I’m a Vile Boy. He’s got a lot of questions.”
“And we have a lot of answers,” I say. “Let me know when you’re ready to tell him.” When he nods, I head up the stairs, but he calls me back.
“Krypt?”
I pause.
“Let me know when you’re dealing with Reeven Matterson. I want in on that one.”
I grin at the stairs and nod without looking back. “Look in the cells,” I tell him, nodding down at the basement I just came from. “Matterson and his cult are already here.”
“We doing it tonight?” he asks. He’s missed out on all the fun today. While he’s been staying with his brother, the Vile Boys who were free have been capturing the Matter Cult. They’re here, and I’m itching to get to them. But first, Remiel.
“Tonight. Get ready.”
Ghost has just as much of a reason to hate Matterson as Remiel does. Might be a nice brotherly bonding experience.
“I’ll fucking kill you for today, Ghost,” Riot says, coming down the stairs ahead of me. It gets me moving, and when I hear Ghost taunt him right back about whatever happened at the asylum, I walk faster.
I ignore everyone in the cafeteria, grabbing a plate full of food for Remiel. On my way to Ghost’s room, I pause in the hallway when I find Remiel sitting on the floor outside my locked door. He’s tuning a guitar, focused on the work, completely oblivious to being watched. It pleases something within me that he didn’t wait in his brother’s room. He’s mine, and he’s finally realizing it.
“Whose is that?” I ask, startling him.
He stands, looking at me like he’s relieved to see me. “I don’t know. Came with this.” He holds up a Vile calling card. An orange one. Seven’s. My anger ramps up. “And this.” He flips it over, and instead of a message written on the back, there’s a bunch of money taped there. He flips the money up, and written underneath it is Seven’s pretty handwriting.
Relax, Krypt. It’s just a job.
Remiel smiles at the look on my face, but he pockets the card and sighs. “Is that for me?” He nods at the plate.
I unlock my door and let him in, handing him the plate. He takes it, wincing as he sits at the desk in the corner.
“Tender,” he explains.
I turn warm. I want him tender twenty-four-seven, battered and bruised from my obsession. Marked as mine and aching with the remnants of my cock, never able to forget about me for long. Ghost was right when he said it was only the third time I’ve fucked someone, but being with Remiel wasn’t like being with the first two. I’m engrossed now. And when I fixate on something, it’s damn near impossible to pull me out of it.
“Eat,” I tell him, walking to my dresser to light a joint. I need to calm my mind because it’s been spinning ever since Director’s tone of voice changed when he told Remiel about his scan results.
I don’t know anything about this chip, or wires, or whatever the fuck they are, and up until Remiel became mine, I didn’t really care. I mean, I want to protect Moros from Dr. Axel Graves and stop him from turning our people into his minions, but I’ve never given much thought to it beyond that. Now Remiel has been injured by his mother, and above that, he became my responsibility. His life is in my hands, and maybe I’m realizing that I want to do more with him than just own him.
I glance at him from the corner of my eye, wondering what he learned when he spent two years as a psychology student. Would he know what makes me sick? Would he be able to help me understand myself? Do I even have the right to ask after everything I’ve done to him? He’s a morbid person, and I know he hasn’t dropped his goal to entice me into killing him to end the family curse, so I don’t know where we stand. All I know is that he’s changing me.
For better or for worse?
“Are you bleeding?” he asks.
When I turn, my lungs full of smoke, he nods at my pant leg. The blood isn’t visible on the black material, but it marks the dresser where I leaned. Gregory Malone’s finger is still in my pocket.
“When Reeven Matterson dies, someone is going to have to take over his following. They aren’t levelheaded enough to think for themselves right now.” I reach into my pocket to make sure the finger is still there. “We’re going to see if Abigail from Death For Life will take them in.” It’s a lie because the entire cult is already in the basement, but I want to know what Remiel thinks about it.
Remiel drops his fork and frowns at me. “They don’t fucking deserve it. They deserve to flounder! Reeven Matterson has been killing my mom’s family for years, and they’re the ones who do it!” He stands, trying to challenge me.
My blood rushes faster. “They’re brainwashed idiots who do what their master tells them to do.”
“So you think they need a new master?” he barks at me.
“Why not? At least Death For Life doesn’t kill innocents. Just each other.”
“Innocents,” Remiel scoffs. “ Are there innocents in Moros?”
“Are you innocent, Remiel?” I step closer to him, offering him the joint. He glares at it, having learned a lesson from the other night. “What makes you better than them? You watched a girl die in the woods, didn’t you?”
“You killed her,” he accuses.
“Did I?” I tilt my head.
He doesn’t know the answer and can’t prove it either way. “You throat fucked me over her body.”
“Mm.” I inhale weed and exhale evil. “I did.”
He narrows his nice blue eyes at me. “Are you proud of that?”
“More confused by it than anything,” I tell him, stamping out the joint. “Sexual reactions aren’t really my thing.”
“Oh,” he says quietly, like this news has surprised him. He nearly looks flattered. “Could have fooled me.”
“You’re a bad influence on me.” I put out my joint.
“How?” he asks, slightly hesitant about the answer.
I grab the front of his hoodie and pull him to my chest. Breathing in the scent of him to ground myself, I push him to his knees. He fights me, but not hard enough to make it believable.
“You make my cock hard.” I move his hand to it, pinning it there. “You make me impulsive. You make me territorial. You distract me, Remiel.”
His fingers flex around my shaft, but he refuses to acknowledge it. “I don’t do anything but what you tell me to do, so it’s your own fault.”
“Are we pointing fingers now?” I ask. “Undo my pants.”
“No.”
“Who came to Vile House to strike a bargain?” I ask.
He undoes my pants.
“Who made a deal that involved giving their life away?”
He pulls down the zipper.
“Who accepted the terms of the deal without clarifying anything but the names on his list?”
He swallows, looking up at me.
“Who, Remiel?”
“Me,” he admits.
“So, where are the fingers pointed? You know the reputation of Vile House and the men who live in it, yet you came here willingly to strike a bargain. Now our bargain is struck, and you still want to act like it’s all my fault?” I nod at my pants. “Take ownership of your actions, hero.”
“I am taking ownership. I just didn’t expect… the rest.” He looks up at me, and fucking hell, my cock aches for him. “Bargains aren’t usually sexual. So I’ve heard.”
No, they aren’t. And they don’t always include full ownership, but I’m making my own rules, setting my own standards. “Did you not beg to be fucked the other night?” I run my fingers through his hair, gently for the first time. “Do you want to act insulted one minute and needy the next? I can play whatever game you need to play to justify it to yourself.”
“Why can’t I be both?” he asks, ripping open my pants. “Why can’t I hate you and want you? Why can’t I be disgusted by the things you’ve done and need you anyway? What are the rules here, Krypt?” He pulls me free from my pants.
“The rules are simple. You’re mine. Whatever other lies you have to tell to make that stick is fine with me.” I move my hand down to cup his chin while my dick bobs in front of his face. “So, what’ll it be? Am I forcing my way between your lips, or are you going to open them willingly?”
“Do you have a preference?” he taunts, all attitude. “Do you get a thrill out of forcing me?”
“I get a thrill out of having you. The method doesn’t matter.”
I almost smirk when he looks insulted. Does my hero want to be taken? Does he want me so ravenous for him I can’t contain myself? He must, because he purses his lips together and sits back on his heels, deciding for both of us.
I force my thumb between his lips and hook it over his bottom row of teeth. Pulling down until his jaw cracks and his teeth indent the pad of my thumb, I offer him a smile. A real one. One that usually makes people cringe. Remiel doesn’t cringe. He doesn’t look away either.
“Okay, hero. Have it your way.”
I push the head of my cock to his lips, and when he reacts by flinching, I force it all the way to the back of his throat. It’s dry, so it hurts a bit, but he coughs around me and slobbers all over it. With my hand on the back of his head, I thrust my hips and take what’s mine. What he so willingly wants to give me without admitting it to himself. The constriction of his throat and the scrape of his teeth accompanies the warmth of his mouth, and it feels so good I close my eyes. My inner monsters rattle my brain, wanting to see our sinister hero on his knees for us.
“You like to be taken,” I state, but he doesn’t have control of his tongue to answer. “And you want to be ashamed of it, right? You want to hate yourself for being raped and liking it.”
He pulls back. “I didn’t like it!”
“No?”
He hesitates. “Not the first time.”
I watch him for a second, admiring the truth. He opens all on his own, granting me entrance to his mouth. I push in until he gags.
Outside my bedroom door, the sound of shrieking and screaming drifts up from the basement’s cells. The soundtrack is almost as nice as Remiel’s cello music, and when I look down at him again, fear clouds his eyes, somehow making them brighter. He comes alive while afraid, and it charms my darker parts, daring them to come forth and scare him even more.
I hit the light switch, bathing my bedroom in darkness. Remiel whimpers, trying to back off my dick, but I hold him there until he chokes around me. When he chokes so hard his body buckles forward, I let him off.
“What—who was that?”
“Open your mouth.”
His glossy eyes reflect the purple glow of my neon sign, illuminating the spit dripping down his chin. I swipe my thumb through it and loosen my hold on my inner demons, granting them just a little freedom. Remiel notices, and his throat rolls with a heavy swallow. He opens his mouth, and his hand lands on the crotch of his pants, rubbing.
I circle his lips with the tip, mixing precum with his drool. He’s beautiful down there, so broken, yet powerful. And he’s a liar. Because he’s not tempting me into murdering him. He’s bowing before me because he fucking knows I own him. Remiel was born and bred in Moros, but until I saw his ID the night of our bargain, I didn’t know he was a legal citizen. There’s a need inside me that wants to wipe him from the face of the earth and turn him into a phantom soul only I control. I want him to be my secret, my saviour, and my downfall. Because I’ve always been sick, but Remiel makes me sicker.
“Lick.”
Remiel moans, but it sounds conflicted. His tongue swipes the tip of my cock, making me tremble. “You barely even reacted the first time. What’s different now?” His lips run down the length of me, and when he licks from base to tip, I inhale deeply to tame myself.
“You are,” I tell him.
“Krypt, I?—”
The sound of a siren echoes through Vile House, and if I thought I stood a chance of taming myself before, I definitely don’t now. My eyes meet his, and something malevolent fills me.
I smile at him.