18. Space & Friends
18
SPACE & FRIENDS
REMIEL
What the fuck is going on?
I watch Krypt’s back tattoo disappear up the stairs, blending into the dark hallway until he’s gone from sight. I admitted something to him that hurt to say, and this is how he’s going to treat me? He’s going to mask me, teach me to hunt, cross a name off my list, and then scare me into sick sex… and then leave when I admit I don’t want to hurt him?
Well, fuck him.
I grab the railing and take a step to follow him, but someone latches onto my wrist and pulls me back.
“Better give him a minute.” A jacket is thrown over my shoulders, and when I turn around, I see Killian. Wait. Not Killian. Riot is what his tattoo says, because we’re in Vile House. Krypt’s brother. Holy shit… he’s Vile, too?
I pull the jacket on, thankful that it covers my dick and the cum leaking down my legs. Jesus. What is happening to me? I’m naked in the middle of a dark house where people are dying in the basement and masked men are doing the killing, and all I can think about is getting Krypt back?
“No. I’m not giving him a fucking minute. He’s an asshole who doesn’t?—”
“Know how to feel feelings?” Riot supplies with a charming smile. “Exactly.” He bends down to hand me my pants, and I tug them on just because I feel so stupid. “He was testing you. With the knife. He wanted you to admit you cared about him.”
“Well, I did, didn’t I?”
Riot nods. “Yeah. Thing about Krypt is, he wants something, but he never expects to get it, and once he does, he has no fucking idea how to handle it. You just rocked his very foundation, Remi. My brother doesn’t know the difference between hungry and horny, so you think he’s going to understand the difference between captivity and you willingly being here? Up until now, he was safe using your bargain as an excuse. He doesn’t mind being your jailer because you asked to be a prisoner. You just told him you’re more like his guest, and that’s gonna take him a minute.”
“Why?” I ask, looking up the stairs, barely holding myself back from rushing up there. “Why doesn’t he know the difference? What’s… does he have a diagnosis?”
“He’s got about thirty,” Riot says. “And half of them cross out the other half. No one understands Krypt, not even himself, so it scares him that you want to try.”
I never said that. Maybe I implied it. When I told him his monsters are alluring and his sickness makes me sicker, I meant that I wanted to understand him because I want to learn to understand myself.
“I should go up there. Check on him.”
Riot laughs. “Trust me, he’ll be down in a minute.” That gives me hope, but he shakes his head. “Not for you. Not yet. When Krypt gets overwhelmed, he turns to violence. There are currently twenty people dying in the basement, and the others are holding off to give him the chance to kill off his crazy.”
“By killing the Matter Cult?”
“Yeah. So, if you don’t want to see it, you should go.”
Do I want to see it? Do they deserve to die or should they be let free to make their own choices? I know the right answer, but I’m a changed man, so I ignore it.
“Go where? He never lets me leave. I don’t even have a house anymore.”
“I’ll take him,” Menace says, coming up from the basement. His blue mask is on the top of his head, and now that I see his face, it makes sense why he wanted a night with Cain. He shares an understanding look with Riot. How do they know so much? Were they standing there in the dark, listening and watching us on the stairs?
“Where?”
“Cain’s. Come on, Rem. He’ll be fine. You deserve a night with your friend.”
It’s almost midnight, but Cain is a night owl, and maybe I need to get out of Vile House for a bit. It’s tainting me.
I’m letting it. Willingly.
After a warning from Menace not to reveal his identity to Cain, he drops me off at the front door of my best friend’s house.
“Place isn’t gonna burn down now that you’re here or anything, right?” Cain chirps, handing me a beer.
Honestly, I don’t even know. Maybe, but I don’t say that. Krypt is probably deep in his murder haze right about now, but I don’t know what he’ll be like once he emerges from it. Will he be pissed I’m at Cain’s, or will Riot and Menace keep him contained?
“Do I wanna know what all this is?” Cain asks, motioning to me. “Are you hurt?”
Yeah, I’m covered in blood. Reeven Matterson’s blood is all over my right hand, and Krypt’s blood is everywhere else. “It’s… it’s not my blood. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, Rem. Talk to me. Vent, or whatever.”
Cain is someone whose looks don’t match his personality. He’s harsh, covered in tattoos and piercings, and comes across as dark and unapproachable. But he’s soft and sweet, cares deeply about those he loves, and isn’t ashamed of who he is at all. He blushes a lot while looking angry about it, but he’s also not afraid to ask the blunt questions. We became friends because of our love for music, and over the years, he’s one of the few people who doesn’t look at me like I’m a ticking time bomb for suicide. He’s the only person I feel safe venting to.
“I made a bargain with Vile House,” I admit, drinking half my beer in one pull.
“What?!” He smacks the kitchen table we’re sitting at. “That’s what the calling card was under your sink?”
I nod, looking at the label on my bottle. “Yep.”
“What bargain? With who? Fucking why, Remi? Jesus. I spent one night with that freak in the blue mask, and I… what the fuck?”
The freak in the blue mask… and I can’t even tell Cain who he is. Or that he’s caught his interest. “The purple one, as you saw on the card. His name is Krypt. With a K.”
“A K?” he asks. “Nevermind. That doesn’t even matter. Why the hell did you make a bargain with him?”
“Because I felt like I didn’t have any other choice!” I vent. “My life is dwindling down to the end, Cain. I can feel it. I’m losing myself, and sooner or later, I’m gonna kill myself just to make it stop. There’s shit I need to do before that happens. To protect my family and… to keep Soren alive.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he snips at me. “There’s no such thing as a suicide curse. Sometimes I think it just gets in all your heads. Like you’re all so consumed by it that you think you’re going to succumb to it just because everyone before you has. Be different.”
“You think it’s that easy? You think I want to die? I don’t. I don’t have shit to live for anymore, especially since my house burned down, but I don’t wanna hurt my brother. I fucking know what it feels like to lose a brother, and I don’t want to put Soren through that again. No matter how much I hate him sometimes, he doesn’t deserve that.” Which is so hypocritical of me since I asked Krypt to kill me, but if Soren can live the rest of his life without the curse hanging over his head, it’ll be worth the pain of losing his last brother. The sacrifice will be worth it.
“No one does,” Cain agrees. “And this is just Moros fucking with your head. Nowhere else in the world believes in a stupid suicide curse. Moros just makes dark things seem appealing.”
“Appealing?”
“Believable,” he amends. “What got so bad that you had to go to Vile House?”
I finish my beer, and by the time the bottle hits the table, Cain puts down two more. Fine. I’m scared of what happened tonight. I killed a man and then chased Krypt away by admitting I wanted him, so yeah, I’m gonna get drunk with my best friend and blurt everything except their identities.
“I killed Reeven Matterson tonight.”
Cain’s eyes widen, but his words stay silent. I watch him process that. I mean, death and murder aren’t really uncommon here. Yet another thing Moros makes believable, but I’ve never killed anyone. Cain knows that.
“And his whole cult is in the basement of Vile House right now. Probably being murdered or tortured or toyed with. Because I put Reeven Matterson’s name on my bargain list, and Vile House is following through.” Which means I just revealed a murder to an outsider, and Krypt is probably going to maim me for it.
“Wow.” Cain leans back in his chair, shaking his head and almost laughing. “Honestly, I didn't think you had it in ya. Why the Matter Cult? Because of what they’re doing to your mom’s side?”
I nod. “I’m just sick of everything being so life or death here. Like, yeah, cults are a normal thing, and it’s hard to get out of them, but we did. Mom got us out. And now she’s suffering for it.” And microchipped and brainwashed and acting weird. “I just want that to stop. The Matter Cult doesn’t belong in Moros like the rest of them do, you know? The rest get along, and they work together to protect Moros. The Matter Cult ruins Moros and kills our people.”
“Can’t say I disagree. Death For Life Cult isn’t much better, but at least the ones they kill agree to it. Stupidly,” Cain says, leaning forward with his tattooed elbows on the table. “How’d it feel? To kill him.”
“Well, he wasn’t dead when they took him away, but there was a knife in his heart, so…” A sick grin almost graces my face, but I wipe it away. “It scared me. I got caught up in a power haze, and I don’t know if I wanna feel that again.”
Silence settles in as we both think about that. I know what it feels like now, and I know Cain is trying to imagine it. “Who else is on your list?”
“Gregory Malone.”
He clinks his bottle to mine. “Fuck, I almost… that power haze sounds kind of fun, and I almost wish you didn’t go to Vile House. You should have come to me instead. We could handle Gregory Malone,” he says, laughing. “He’s just a fucking creep.”
“Yeah, a creep who keeps evading me. I need Krypt to end him so he stops stalking me and Soren.”
“Krypt, eh? What’s he like?”
“He burned my house down…”
Cain laughs, the beer taking effect. “Yeah. Guess that answers that. Have you met the rest of them? Do you know who they are under those masks?”
Krypt said that if I ever told anyone, he’d force me to kill myself. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
He leans in more, almost conspiratorially. “Do you know the one in the blue mask?”
“I can’t tell you, Cain. I’m sorry, but you should definitely stay away from him. All of them. They’re…” I don’t want to say sick since Krypt doesn’t enjoy the word, but they’re something like it. “Unstable.”
“They’re Vile Boys.” Cain laughs. “Of course they’re unstable.” There’s a sense of curiosity in his eyes, and it’s going to get him killed. “What happened after you killed Matterson? Why did you get dropped off here?”
Because I triggered a madman’s feelings, and he doesn’t know how to process them. Because I’m gross and vile and feel something for the man who made me his prisoner and then forced me to like it. Because life is finally exciting, and now that I have a taste of the more sinister side, I’m finding a home there. With him. I don’t need him, just like I told him, but I want him. Because my days are numbered, and the ones with him are the first ones I’m truly enjoying. Which is pathetic.
I’ve been in more pain, suffered more, hurt emotionally harder, and been the most terrified of my life since meeting Krypt, yet the feeling of life is so intense it makes me feel truly alive for the first time in my pitiful existence.
Maybe—like a massive maybe—I feel stronger. Strong enough to beat the Sauder curse. Maybe I don’t have to die…
“He needed space to… maim and murder off all his energy.” I finish my beer and set the empty bottle with five others. Not wanting to talk about it anymore, I get up to grab another for each of us. “You ever going to tell me what happened on Initiation Night?”
“You ever going to tell me what happens when you stay with him every night?” he fires back.
I sit down and slide him another beer. “Better get drunk for this.”
“Why?” He’s grinning now, his septum piercing reflecting the light from the candle on the table.
“Did you fuck the one in the blue mask?” I ask instead.
“I’m… I have a girlfriend.”
“Yeah, and I claimed I wasn’t gay.”
Cain barks out a laugh. “Are you?”
“Well, I’m fucking something. He forced me… and now…”
“You like it.” His grin turns wicked. “I cheated on Sadie,” he admits his own truth. “Not like I had much say in it, but…”
I laugh into my bottle, feeling crazed. Two best friends, drinking beer in the middle of the night, talking about our sexual assaults like they weren’t assaults. No wonder we live in Moros. We’re as twisted as this town is.
Did Moros mold us into these people, or would we still be this version of us if we were born somewhere else? I guess we’ll never know.