Chapter 59
Aoi
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
It hurts so much, I can’t breathe. My throat burns and rips as if I swallowed blazing nails. I hate it. I hate it. I fucking hate it.
I run faster, away from the sight I just witnessed, from the words I heard and can’t begin to comprehend. My legs tire out as I stumble into a wide room inside the warehouse, and I spin around when I hear footsteps behind me.
“How could you?” I cry my throat hoarse. “You liar. You traitor. You disgusting monster!” My head hurts, my heart aches, everything burns inside. I stumble over my own feet and fall to my knees, scraping them against the concrete. “Why? Why did you do that?”
“Monster? You’re being unfair.” Jason’s voice is cold and his hazel eyes are empty of the familiar glimmer they’d have when looking at me.
“I’m being unfair?”
My entire life I chased his love and affection. There wasn’t a second I didn’t wish him by my side but now?
I want him dead.
My mind fills with painful memories, washing over my consciousness. I remember every beautiful moment in my life.
Every time he picked me up after school.
When he brought me a different book after each visit.
The day I drunkenly confessed to him. Our first time.
My parents laughing brightly. My sister making me watch Anime with her.
My mother kissing my wounded knee when I scraped it after falling off my bike.
My father cooking my favorite meal for my birthday.
“I did what had to be done to keep you, us, together. I didn’t mean for things to go that far.”
He destroyed my life.
“You selfish piece of shit. You killed them!” I grab his collar and restrain myself from choking him right here and now. There are still too many answers missing to my questions. “I made myself believe that my misery was my fault, but it was always yours.”
“No, it was an accident. It was only supposed to be your moth-”
“My mom? I heard you say it! Don’t you dare lie to me.” I blink, trembling as I try to make sense of it all. Hot tears continue streaming down my cheeks and my vision blurs, my entire body shaking. “What the fuck did you do? Explain yourself!”
“She had found out about us. She threatened to tell your father and the cops. I had no choice.”
I take a step back. “So, you killed her? You killed them all to protect your sins? You lied to me my entire life and destroyed everything I had because of your selfishness?”
“My love for you isn’t a sin, Aoi! I truly loved you and I still do. If I hadn’t gotten rid of her, I would have lost you!”
I can’t believe it.
How can he claim to love me when all he’s ever done is lie and manipulate me? He took advantage of my innocence and groomed me. How dare he call it love when all I’ve done is long for that feeling?
Everything I ever thought I knew was a lie. Our relationship, his words, his promises, his love for me. All of it has only ever been an illusion, and I fell for it.
“Shut up! How dare you say you love me? You don’t love me! You’re a sick bastard that groomed me into falling for you.”
How could I be so blind? I’m so stupid. Stupid to believe him, stupid to trust him, to care for him, to love him.
I have nothing left.
A cold whisk of air brushes past my shoulders. I don’t have the strength to raise my head, nor to cry. I’m so exhausted, so incredibly tired of fighting. What have I been fighting for anyway
I’m alone.
“She was going to ruin our relationship. I did it for us!” He raises his voice, clenching a hand over his chest. “You need to understand. I did it because I love you.”
“For us? You did it for yourself. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself! It’s over, Jason. You ruined whatever we were. You ruined me. It was all you, not my mother. Not anyone else. Just you.”
His name tastes like poison on my lips. I want to vomit.
My heart constricts so tightly that I can’t breathe. He grits his teeth and looks down at me as I lean my forehead against the cold floor and let the tears stream.
I can’t think about anything anymore.
Not the good memories, not the bad ones. I want to forget everything, let it sink deep below the waves.
“Aoi…” he reaches for me, and I flinch from his touch.
“Don’t touch me!” I crawl away, shaking as pure terror takes over me. “Who were you talking to?”
“Aoi. Please, Aoi. Listen to me. It was necessary. I didn’t intend for your father and sister to die, too. It was an accident.” He kneels down in front of me. “I swear it.”
“Answer me!”
His cologne envelopes my nose and my stomach lurches over the familiar fragrance. The next second, everything I’ve swallowed in my life comes tumbling out of me.
My throat screams in pain, but I’m devoid of life. My mind goes silent, the thoughts disappear. I peer up from the puddle of vomit in front of me to the horrified expression on my uncle’s face.
“He’s here, isn’t he? I heard you talking to someone. Who was it? Tell me it’s not true. Tell me it’s not him!”
My voice is hoarse from the constant screaming and crying. It sounds so foreign, so old and new. It’s mine and yet it isn’t. Same as the man in front of me.
He’s my uncle, but he isn’t.
He’d been my lover, yet he hadn’t.
It was all a lie. Everything was a lie.
I’m a lie, a fraud.
He doesn’t dare speak up and instead slides closer to me on the ground, silently and carefully watching me.
But there is nothing resembling guilt or even sympathy in his eyes.
I know there was someone else in that room with him. I may not have seen who it was, but I can imagine Jason doing something as twisted as kidnapping the man I love.
Fuck, if I had snuck out of that room sooner, I could have done something. I could have found Visha–if it was him–and get him out of here.
“Answer me.” I grab his collar and shake him violently, trying to get something out of him, but he remains silent.
“How can you choose to shut up now? Why couldn’t you do that earlier?
You bastard! Why did you have to pull me out of the lake?
Couldn’t you have left me to die? Why do you hate me so much? ”
Nothing matters anymore. I have nothing. I am nothing. So, what’s the point?
I just want to kill the grief, the pain, the guilt. I want to kill that void inside me. Rip it out of my chest and squash it underneath my feet. The need for rage claws at my skin, carving circles into my soul and scooping out every ounce of hope I dared to entertain.
The hazel of his irises is soaked in envy. “Because you’re mine. You aren’t allowed to die as long as I haven’t decided it.”
I let go of him, stunned and speechless until the words settle inside me. Like a sponge I absorb the truth as it starts to scrape at the insides of my throat.
The pain of betrayal, lies, and truth twists my intestines and makes me want to hurl again. Instead, I end up feeling a depraved kind of numbness take over.
I want to forget. I don’t care about the truth anymore.
Please, if there’s a god. Let me go back to being ignorant. Reality is too much, it’s too painful. I can’t stand it.
Every time a memory flashes, a stab rips my heart open, and I bleed. I bleed and bleed, more and more. Until everything is drenched in blood, guts, sorrow, and wasted love.
“Jason.”
His eyes are bloodshot and humid when he looks up at me.
He hates to see me being happy, doesn’t he? If he hates me so much, if he hates my possible joy, then why not have me killed along with the others? Why did he pull me out of the lake? Why?
Suddenly, as I gape at his pale face, a memory bursts my train of thought.
When I overdosed for the first and last time, he was crying next to me.
In the hospital, he kept apologizing to me, thinking I was unconscious.
He kept admitting his guilt, he admitted it.
I brushed it aside, wanting to forget that episode but he said that it was all his fault.
At that moment, all I could think was ‘it’s not his fault’ and ‘the universe is cruel’.
Utter bullshit.
“You’re the trigger that caused my downfall.”
He shakes his head frantically. “No, Aoi. You know that’s not true.” He grabs my hand. “I love you and you love me.”
I yank it away and stumble backwards onto the cold concrete. I can’t stay here. I have to leave and go somewhere, anywhere. As long as it’s far away from him, I’ll be fine.
I’m like a sponge. I absorb everything around me but unlike a normal sponge, I can’t squeeze it back out. I absorb everything deep inside me and keep it in until it starts leaking, tearing, and destroying me.
But I’m done being a sponge.
I want to be the ocean. I want to be strong and free. Free of the chains wrapped around my soul, caging me like a slave, unable to escape.
A throbbing pulse savages my head and makes me wince. My shoulders are so heavy, and I just want to be embraced and weep. I want my mother to hold me and hear my father tell me it’ll be fine. I want to see my sister laugh again.
But it’s all gone.
Now there’s only death and rage.
“Speak or die.”
Jason lets out a gasp as I pull out the gun I stole from him when he lowered his guard.
I press it to his forehead.
I’m sick and fucking tired of being weak. Never again will I be weak, never again will he take away what I love.
“Aoi, wait-”
I press the steel harder against his skin and glare. “You don’t get to make demands anymore. Tell me what I want to know or die.”
His shoulders tense but a sudden grin curls on his lips. Shivers run down my spine as his dulled eyes glimmer with mischief. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, my resolve threatening to crumble. “You don’t know me. Not anymore.”
He smiles and it’s agonizing. “You won’t shoot because I’m the only one left of your family. I’m all you have.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I have no family left. You’re a simple parasite that I need to eradicate to be free. You took my real family from me sixteen years ago.”
I can’t recognize my voice anymore. The sharpness and cold are so foreign, yet I’m immensely grateful that I’m still capable of fighting.
I can’t lose to him. I can’t let him get away without getting answers first. I need to know if Visha is here.
“Who were you talking to?” I demand, hands shaking around the gun. “Don’t you dare lie to me again.”
The shake enveloping my body won’t let me escape. I struggle against the numbness of my legs and the raggedness of my breath.
Jason sighs but doesn’t protest any further. “You seem to already know, so why bother asking?”
My lips quiver. “Where is he?”
“Why do you both ask the same damn questions?” Jason brings his hair back and scoffs. “I’ll never understand why you took in that leech of a kid. Why couldn’t you just stay with me? Wasn’t I enough for you? You even had to fall in love with him and make things harder for me.”
His obsessive tone creeps me out, and I get up in a hurry, taking a step back and almost stumbling over my feet. “What is wrong with you? You killed my family and kidnapped me and Visha, yet you still find ways to blame me?”
I’m about to lose my mind. I can feel every ounce of my sanity leave my body the more I breathe the same air as that psychopath.
I start laughing maniacally.
It’s all so ironic.
It isn’t one bit funny, but I can’t stop laughing as my tears stop falling. My skin is filled with crawling ants, and I can only think about ending it all.
“But we can start all over again. It can be just you and me. Please, just give me one more chance,” he pleads, but his tone is nothing more than ordering. “You don’t need him.”
My hands tremble along with the heavy gun. My finger is still on the trigger, and slowly I point it back at him, watching him on his knees. “Where is Visha?”
His expression shifts to annoyance. “Why are you asking about him again? Focus on me, my dear.”
“Answer me!” I need to find Visha and get us out of here. I have no idea if he’s safe or if Jason harmed him, but I can’t poker on his life. “Where. Is. He.”
Jason glares at me and gets up from the ground. He dusts himself off and grins. “How about we make a little deal?” he nonchalantly steps closer to me, pressing his forehead against the gun. “I will bring him to you, but you will stay with me until death do us part.”
I stumble backwards and tighten my grip on the weapon. “You’ve gone mad. You’re in no position to make demands.”
“Listen, my dear. You’re gaining a lot here. You get to see that brat and I get to have you. Visha will be set free. Isn’t that what you want?”
He says his name with such disgust and sarcasm that I want to smack him in the head with the butt of the gun.
I want Visha’s safety and happiness above anything, but can I give myself up for him? Would a swan keep living if their mate died?
I lower the gun and let it hit the ground. Jason smiles and makes his way to me. He reaches for my cheek and closes the distance between our foreheads, his eyes darkening like the void in my chest.
“You’re making the right choice.”
As long as he gets to go home, I don’t care what happens to me.
It’s all for Visha.
The best of me is him.