Chapter Fifty-Nine
Cade
T he office is too bright as Rutherford clicks his pen into action and crosses his legs. It makes my eye twitch worse, and I realize that this was a stupid fucking idea. He’s a smug bastard with only one goal: to put me back in Briarcreek. To strap me down and pump me full of antipsychotics like I’m a specimen to experiment on.
But I need help.
Sky’s words won’t stop bouncing around in my skull like an obnoxious song, and I don’t know what to do. You would never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. But wouldn’t I? That’s the plan, for fuck’s sake. I’m taking out everyone, collateral damage in the hundreds, Sky included. I know I would deserve it, but she wouldn’t. And Callie wouldn’t. The girl is afraid of her own shadow and she’s never done anything to me. And Bobby… While he wouldn’t be blown to bits, his heart would. I’m on the fence about Ruby, but the last shred of logic I have tells me the way she annoys me isn’t worthy of death.
I shift in the leather chair, sure that Rutherford has x-ray vision and can see into my thoughts. A bead of sweat forms on my temple. I’m not here to confess or for him to stop me. I’m here because… I don’t fucking know why I’m here. It’s not like he can help me if I can’t tell him anything. And that’s even if he wanted to help me. Which he doesn’t. He just wants to watch me squirm. But I’m desperate. My mind is eating me alive.
You’re good, Cade.
Her words don’t make sense. I’m not good. I would have killed her. I have spent the last three years strengthening neural pathways of murder. She wasn’t Sky as she flitted away with incriminating evidence. She was someone who could ruin my plans. I knew going into this that I would have to be ruthless in protecting a secret like this one. That’s why I have the damn ax. That’s why I’ve trained myself that if I ever came back and found someone impaled by it, I would have no remorse. But now I’ve taken it down.
It was too close of a call. What if she comes back and triggers it again? Whatever I decide, I don’t want Sky taken too soon. I want as much time with her as possible. And what am I deciding?
“Do you think plans can change?” I break the silence, fingering the knife in my pocket.
“Have plans changed, Cade?” Rutherford asks in that pretentious way, as if we’ve spoken about ‘plans’ before and he knows what I’m referring to.
But we haven’t. And he can’t. And the response is stupid. A question answered with a question. Is this all he’s capable of? I’m finally here, willing to take any expertise he has, and this is what I get.
I grit my teeth and look out the window. Rutherford has a home office in an immaculate cabin just fifteen miles from Briarcreek. And while I hate being so close to hell, I do like being in the woods. The trees differ from Hillcrest, not so mottled and repressed, but lively and green. Every shade of flourishment under the sun. The light even hits differently off campus. I almost wonder if I would have been able to build bombs in a forest so vibrant. Would I have even wanted to? What if Hillcrest is a poison shoved down my throat every day and once I graduate, I could get better?
“How much do you think environment affects a person?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the trees, and pretending that Rutherford isn’t a sadist who confines people to the worst environment possible.
The fluorescent lights of Briarcreek still blind me when I close my eyes, and the nightmares of sterile floors and walls are something I don’t think I will ever be free of.
“You’re inquisitive today.” He ignores my question.
Asshole. I could get better answers from an internet search. This was a waste of time. And time is running out.