19. Am I Important To You?
19
AM I IMPORTANT TO YOU?
KRYPT
“Line up!” Director shouts, forcing us into rank.
The ten of us stand in a line, and it tugs on my already frayed nerves to be at the very end. I glare at Monster before he even opens his mouth to say something about it.
“A fucking cult?!” Director yells at us. “A whole goddamn cult? How the hell do you think we’re going to cover this?”
Director approved Reeven Matterson’s death, but not the death of the entire cult. I didn’t mean to kill them all. I mostly wanted to scare them, take out a few of the more brainwashed ones, and set the rest free with wounds and new outlooks. That’s why we left our masks on. But after Remiel… well, I lost myself in a manic episode, and when I came to, I found the eyes of all my brothers the same as mine. We all dipped into the same depravity last night.
Even Facts, who lifts his jittery hand. “Hello. I have an idea for that.” He pulls a tablet from inside his jacket and hands it to Director.
“A mass suicide?” Director asks. “No one is going to believe that when they worshipped his bloodline.”
“Hello,” Facts repeats. “I wrote a suicide note. It claims that the bloodline has been tainted, and none of them could bear it, so they chose to eradicate it altogether. If you’re wondering how to explain away the state of the… uh, bodies, well, we can use these microchips to our advantage. We can implant them, and when the police and forensics study the bodies, they’ll conclude that they were all chipped and mad. It will also aid in our search to find Axel Graves.”
Kyd sighs dreamily at Axel’s name.
“So, let me get this straight,” Director starts. “You want me to, once again, use your fuck-up as a win? You want me to forgive this major indiscretion, pretend the whole thing never happened, and reward you by getting the police involved in Axel’s lab to make your job easier?”
“Hello.”
“No!” Director cuts Facts off. Facts isn’t always as volatile as the rest of us, but cutting him off while he’s speaking is his biggest trigger. Glitch wraps a hand around Facts’ wrist, holding him steady while he shakes so hard his teeth chatter and his nails dig into his palms, making them bleed. “You will clean this up. You will help the remaining family members of the Matter Cult plan their funerals, and you will offer them the full support of Vile House. They. Weren’t. The. Job! Reeven was the job, and you fucks lost your minds!”
I lost my mind a long time ago. Not my fault he’s just figuring it out now.
“And you.” Director steps in front of Ransom. “I expected more from you.”
“Why?” Ransom asks, chin high. “Because I’m more responsible? Because I’m at the head of the line? Because you put me in a different category than the rest of them?” He steps forward, challenging Director, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him so defiant towards our leader. “I’m here for a fucking reason, Director. You made me like this. You made me one of the ten. Did you forget why?” Ransom radiates such authority that the rest of us get agitated.
But when Director grabs the front of Ransom’s jacket, Monster turns feral. He snarls right next to me, bouncing on the spot and watching Director with such threat in his eyes that I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. He shrugs me off because he hates being touched more than I do.
“Calm, Monster. Ransom can handle his shit,” I whisper, touching him again anyway.
Monster snarls again, eyes on Director. “Don’t fucking?—”
“Monster,” Ransom says smoothly. When their eyes meet, Monster physically relaxes under my hand.
I pull him back in line just as Director nods towards the end. The nine of us are fucking shocked! Ransom has never been at the end. Never. But he keeps his chin up and grins at Director as he walks to the end, putting Seven in the highest ranking spot and me second to the end.
“You’re all cleaning up this mess. I saw the basement footage, and you’re all to fucking blame.” Director paces, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And, Krypt?”
I swing my eyes to him, bored and eager to go see Remiel.
“As punishment, I have a job for you. You aren’t going to like it.” His eyes almost look sympathetic. “Time to put that mind of yours to use.”
Great.
CURRENT RANK
1. Seven
2. Ghost
3. Menace
4. Riot
5. Facts
6. Glitch
7. Kyd
8. Monster
9. Krypt
10. Ransom
The Ambient Raven is open for business, and Cain and Remiel are both at the front desk. If I go in there and act possessive of Remiel, Cain will know who I am and what it means. But if I don’t go in there and act possessive of Remiel, I’ll burn his fucking shop down and break the one limit I told him I’d respect.
Ghost offered to come with me to give me an excuse for being here, but I turned him down. I need time alone with Remiel. After everything last night. After the job I’ve just been given by Director. This might be my last chance to…
He might not need me, but I need him.
The bell chimes when I walk through the front door, drawing their attention. Sad classical music filters through the shop, but it has nothing on the sadness mingling within the darkness of my soul.
Remiel looks at me, alarmed and relieved. My heart thumps out a hard beat, confused by his reaction.
“K-Keegan,” he says, acting the part and hiding my identity.
But when I look at Cain, I give myself away. “Leave.”
Cain’s eyes widen in understanding and Remiel’s face drops.
“Remi?” Cain asks.
“I’m fine. Just go.”
Cain grabs his coffee and walks toward me and the front door, but before he can walk by, I stop him with a look. “Just so we’re clear, I’m the one who protects him. Not you.”
Cain’s the daredevil type, so he levels me with what he thinks is a threatening look and opens his stupid mouth. “And just so you’re clear, he’s my best friend and you won’t take him from me.”
“You sure?” I ask, flicking a Zippo open. “Be easy for me to make you disappear.”
“Keegan!” Remiel warns.
But Cain is smiling. I don’t know what it means. “You ever going to properly introduce me to your friend in the blue mask?” he asks, proving that he now knows who I am.
“From what I hear, you’ve already been properly introduced.” I tilt my head at the door. “Go. Now.”
Cain rolls his fucking eyes at me, and the only thing staying my hand is the pleading look on Remiel’s face. When he leaves, I lock the door behind him and stand here, unsure how to proceed. I’ve never been good at talking, so I don’t really want to do that, but Remiel looks expectant. He has so many questions about last night, and I don’t really have answers, but he… he cares about me. For fuck knows what reason he cares, and maybe that makes him deserving of some sort of explanation.
“Are… are you okay?” he asks me.
Really? That’s his first question. Clearly, I’m okay. I’m standing here, alive and fine, but maybe he means something else. My head isn’t okay. My heart isn’t okay. Because I found out I have one and that it knows how to feel shit. Hard. I don’t like it, and I resent Remiel for waking it up.
If anything, I’m mourning the loss of the sex last night. It was supposed to be about fear and power, but he ruined it by doing exactly what I wanted him to do but never thought he would actually do. I came because of a rush of emotion, not a power dynamic that put me above him. It’s all fucked up and warped, and I don’t know how to level it out.
But being near him now, it’s not sex I’m craving. It’s him. His attention and his anger. I don’t deserve more than that, but I want it anyway. I want him to understand me and become as sick as I am, to understand that maybe we’re matched because we’re both so broken. His brokenness led him to me, and my brokenness helped empower him. We’re matched in pain, but both undeserving of each other.
I don’t deserve his understanding.
He doesn’t deserve to suffer my monsters.
He’s better than I am, and I’ve never cared about something like that before, but…
“Are you hungry?” he asks when I don’t answer. “I haven’t eaten all day. I could… um, take you for dinner?” He rubs his palms together and avoids looking at me.
Dinner? I don’t date. I don’t want to date. I want to skip the dating phase and go straight to ownership and possession. He’s either mine or he’s dead. There is no in-between.
“Krypt?” He slowly walks up to me. When his hand lifts to touch me, I look at it, and he pulls it away.
I grab his wrist and dig my fingers into the scar there, reminding me how important it is to stop Axel Graves. “Don’t treat me like a boyfriend, Remiel.”
He frowns at me. “You got me breakfast at Vile House and then brought me dinner another night. Why can’t I do the same?” He rips his wrist free and pulls the front of his shirt down to show me my name there. “You already fucking branded me and made me yours, so… let me be yours. Let me play pretend.” There’s a new edge to him, something mad and darker than I like, and it has me alert. Many men in the Sauder family have gone mad, and that’s inevitably what led them to suicide, so I have a new eye on Remiel. He’s a risk right now. To himself. Because this mania is new; it has shifted into something destructive rather than productive.
I don’t agree or nod or give any affirmation, but I don’t disagree either, so Remiel opens the door and holds it for me. I step through it and wait on the sidewalk while he locks up. Death Row is busy with evening foot traffic and closing shops. It’s already getting dark since it’s autumn, and the power lines are all weighed down by blackbirds and crows that appear as shadows in the fading light. The air is thick and misty, cool but not windy, and I feel comfortable in the blanket of fog that lines Death Row.
When he puts his keys in his pocket, I watch him instead of everyone else on the street. No one talks to me as Keegan anyway, so it’s easy enough to ignore them, but it makes my teeth hurt when people greet Remiel. My blood burns hotter with every person who looks at us together with questions in their eyes. He’s Remiel Sauder, the poor son of a family of suicidal men who owns their favourite shop and knows them all by the music they play. I’m Keegan Hallows, the crazed son who killed his parents and can’t hold eye contact.
We walk down Death Row together. Remiel leads, but I’m at his back like a stuck shadow, unwilling to let him get far from me. He doesn’t seem bothered by any of it. Not me at his back or the people who look at us.
He walks past the Midnight Diner and pulls open the door to Cauldron, a soup and sandwich place. Its dark brick interior and black and woodsy furnishings appease my hatred for bright things, but it isn’t busy, and that settles me a little more. I slide into the booth opposite him, unsure how to feel about any of this. I’ve never shared a meal with someone other than the ten at Vile House or Ghost and my brother at a restaurant. My parents didn’t even invite me to family meals growing up, instead forcing me to eat in my room with Killian, who eventually refused everything I wasn’t allowed in some show of solidarity.
The deep and slow violin comes from a musician playing in a dark corner, but she’s far enough away that I’m not agitated.
Remiel looks as nervous as I am, but I think our nerves are for different things. His blue eyes are big but sketchy, unsure if he should look at me or not, and his palms have not stopped rubbing together. The outfit he’s wearing must be new, because the creases and lines from the rack are still on the crisp fabric. A pair of dark jeans that look perfect on his lean legs and a charcoal grey button-up sweater that is too preppy for him but looks nice anyway. Around his shop, he wears Crocs, mostly with socks, so they’re still on his feet, bumping mine under the table.
He pushes his hand through his dark blond hair, taking a deep breath. “Do you know what you want?”
I look at him instead of the menu before dropping my eyes to it. When the server comes, she looks at him and not me, and I don’t like her eyes on what’s mine. He orders, and I just say ‘same’ to force her away faster.
“What’s wrong?” Remiel asks, voice low. “Are you okay after… uh, everything?”
“His whole cult is dead.”
He nods to acknowledge that but doesn’t focus on it. Which is weird because this is part of the bargain he made with me, and now he doesn’t care? What’s wrong with him right now? “But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Krypt,” he groans.
“Keegan.”
Remiel looks around to make sure no one heard that, and then he does the weirdest fucking thing. He reaches under the table and takes my hand, holding it right there on my leg. The fuck? I stare at him, too afraid to look away and miss the reasoning for this weird act of affection. I like it, but it pisses me off. Does he think I’m weak and in need of comforting?
“Keegan,” he says, fingers moving through mine. “Why’d you walk away from me last night?”
“Why do you care?” I tilt my head.
“Because I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fucking fine. Jesus.” I almost pull my hand away, but fuck… I can’t. To touch him is as grounding as it is infuriating. “You aren’t my hero, Remiel. Stop acting like it.”
“I don’t get you.” He’s the one to remove his hand, and I almost flip the table when he does. “You act like you own me. You won’t let anyone touch me or look at me. But I can’t be the same for you?”
“You’re not being possessive. You’re being soft, and I don’t… respond to soft.”
But maybe I want to. Maybe I can. Maybe I want Remiel to touch my hand again, and maybe I want to touch him back.
A bowl of soup and half a sandwich are placed in front of each of us, glasses of water set in the middle of the small table. The server leaves just as quickly. I don’t pay attention to what kind of soup it is, but I eat it just to shut myself up. Hungry or horny? Or something else?
“Fine,” Remiel snips, picking up his spoon. “We won’t talk about it. We won’t even acknowledge it. We won’t comment on the fact that I said I wanted you, and for whatever reason, you couldn’t handle that.” He looks at the slices on my neck, the ones that started our game of confessions. “And we won’t even think about the knife you made me hold to your throat while you fucked me .” He almost shouts the last four words.
The restaurant goes silent, and my fury builds. I never look away from Remiel’s eyes, and he never looks away from mine. He’s drawn to my monsters, and right now, he’s rattling their chains so hard they’re bound to break loose.
“Careful, Remiel. Downtown Moros isn’t where you want me breaking free.”
Finally, a spark of something other than worry and pity lights up his blue eyes. It’s defiance and his craving for a challenge. “You keep threatening that, but I’ve never seen you crack. Starting to think it’s all talk.”
Did I do this to him? Did I manipulate and control him so well that I turned him injurious? I’ve accidentally controlled people before and turned them into something they aren’t, which was how I got the sociopathic diagnosis, but my brother does that better, and Remiel is smarter than that. Why does he willingly goad an insane man?
“I’ve never cracked?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Is this another attempt to get me to kill you, Remiel?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then what the fuck do you mean? What I’ve already done to you isn’t cracking?”
“No,” he scoffs. “That’s just you.”
Just me. “Think back. Think of everything I’ve done to you. Think hard, Remiel, and don’t remember it all with rosy sex glasses. I’ll wait, and when you’re done, you can let me know where your goddamn morals are. Because I don’t get it anymore.”
I’ve locked him in a bargain that will never free him. I’ve forced him to watch a girl die, and then scared him so hard he pissed himself. I raped him over her body. I burned his home and his vehicle. I stole his identification. I made him homeless and trapped him with me. I drugged him multiple times. I sexually assaulted him again. I tattooed him against his will. I forced him to show his body to me and ignored his sexuality. I hunted him through the streets of Moros on Initiation Night. I’ve secluded him and kept him from his family and friends. I turned him into a killer. A murderer. Then ditched him when he needed me because he’s developed some sort of attachment to me.
An attachment I refuse to believe is anything other than Stockholm syndrome.
I finish the soup without tasting it and push away the sandwich. Remiel is still eating, thinking, recalling our short history and trying to decide what he thinks of it.
“Eat that,” he tells me, nodding at the sandwich.
I raise my brows.
“Eat it. I know you don’t eat enough.”
I pick it up and rip a bite from the sandwich, shoving his in front of him as a demand for him to eat, too.
“It was the night you tattooed me,” he says, taking a small bite. “The night you showed me who you are. I started meshing that you with this you.”
That makes no sense, so I keep chewing.
“Keegan has been in my life since I was young. I’ve always been scared of you. I never really knew why, other than you being super intense. But now that I know you… fit somewhere, it puts me at ease or something. Keegan became Krypt,” he whispers, “and it…”
I wait.
“It suits you. Moros needs you.”
“But you don’t.” I didn’t mean to say that, and I look away as soon as I do.
“No, I don’t,” he agrees. “But we’re not acknowledging that I want you, so I’ll move on.” He takes another bite and chews slowly. “The reason I like that you became someone else and found where you fit is because it makes sense to me. I’ve never fit. And then I made a stupid and completely suicidal bargain with you, and you treated me like absolute shit.”
Where’s he going with this?
“And brought me to fucking life. You taught me to fight back. To bring forth my darker parts. To let them out because you can handle them. You scare the shit out of me, Keegan, but you make me feel more alive than I’ve ever been before. So, yeah, my morals are all messed up, but I still have them.”
“Just not when it comes to yourself. You’ll let me do anything to you, and that’s not fucking sane, Remiel.”
“Then I’m not sane.” There’s that crazed, almost manic edge to his eyes again, and I don’t like seeing it there. I want him sick and twisted, not internally dark and able to self-harm.
I lean forward, peering into his eyes, trying to decide if he has inner monsters, too. “What’s it gonna look like to you when I finally snap? After everything I’ve done, what’s cracking mean to you?”
Something entirely too dire passes through his gaze, making alarms go off inside me. “Am I important to you?” he asks.
I clench my jaw, distracted by something I should be noticing but am not.
He’s disappointed with my lack of answer, so he sighs. “I don’t know what it looks like when you snap, but here’s what it looks like when I do.” His smile is tepid but monstrous. “Guess we’ll find out what’s stronger. You or my curse.” He lifts his hand, holds up a single pill, and swallows it.