Chapter 44
THE NIGHT BEFORE
“I would like you to kill me.”
Octavius Button stared at his father in complete disbelief.
“Wh-what?”
“I would like you to k—”
“No, I heard you,” Octavius said, his already-growing nausea increasing significantly.
“So, what is the problem?” Mr. Button asked, staring at his son, unblinking.
Octavius was almost certain that the cancer must have spread to his father’s brain. That was the only explanation for any of this.
“What is the problem?” Octavius repeated, still in a state of shock.
Mr. Button squinted at Octavius as though scanning his face for answers to an unasked question, and then he ahhed.
“I’m not asking you to shoot me like some hapless animal, if that’s what you’re afraid of.
It would all be private. My doctor knows about it and has agreed to provide the morphine, but understandably won’t be able to administer it because of the risk to his medical license.
I would just need you to be the one to inject the medication into my bloodstream; it shouldn’t take long.
Dr. Benson estimates ten minutes at most.” His father casually rattled this off, as though discussing a simple business merger.
“If you agree to do me this favor, Octavius, I will restore your entire inheritance. There will be no other conditions, no hidden agendas.”
Silence followed, Octavius glaring down at his father, who was continuing to calmly play himself at chess.
“You want to pay me … to commit murder?” the boy finally said.
“Yes. Though I didn’t realize it would bother you so much … considering you’ve done it before,” Mr. Button replied with a tired grimace.
Octavius froze, a chill running through him now. “That was an accident,” he said.
“Was it now?” Mr. Button said. “I didn’t realize that deliberately tampering with the brakes on a car constituted an accident.” There was a moment of complete stillness as his father looked on at him with a bone-chilling coldness.
His father was making it sound like he had hurt Adam on purpose.
He felt shaky as he finally forced himself to speak. “I—I d-didn’t know you were giving the car to Adam. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone … I didn’t think—”
“That’s right, you didn’t think. And then a boy died and now I have to pay a small price to ensure that the Gray family never feels the urge to investigate the truth behind Adam’s death.
Thanks to me it remains a tragic accident, and not the handiwork of a child with too much time on his hands.
” Mr. Button’s words hung between them both in the constricting air of Olympus.
His words resembled the truth so closely that Octavius had convinced himself over the years that they were the truth. That he was nothing more than this thoughtless boy who did this bad thing. But the truth was a lot more complicated than that.
The truth was an intricate spiderweb fueled by a series of tragic events.
And the true story began a few weeks before that night three years ago. The night of Adam’s death. The night of the seventh-annual Prodigy Ball, where a white-haired boy, so desperate to impress his father, did something he most definitely should not have done.
Octavius Button had always been skilled with his hands.
It was why he had taken to music so quickly, and also why, during the summer of his twelfth year of living, he’d started working on cars in the garage at the back of the Manor for fun.
Teaching himself how to repair and disassemble any vehicle.
He’d become so good at doing this that he’d even gotten himself a secret weekend job at a garage, far enough from the Manor that no one other than his sister Fola knew about, where he’d fix cars for a man known as “Big Rick” (which he’d always found to be a strange name seeing as Rick was neither tall nor large).
Octavius had become so good at fixing cars that he sometimes considered it might be his real prodigy talent. And like with all his talents, he couldn’t wait to showcase it to his father.
The Manor’s main garage housed many impressive cars. There were fifteen or so similar-looking automobiles, and he’d made his choice at random, noting its exact color, its registered license plate and key detailing. Then quickly began his careful dismantlement.
His plan had been to meddle with the brakes, and perhaps one or two other parts needed for optimal car function.
He’d known his father periodically liked to take the cars for a drive around the estate, so Octavius had hoped that eventually his father would notice that one of the cars was not working and would call the mechanic to come and fix it, but instead, Octavius would be on hand to come and save the day—showing off his very impressive skills and in turn making his father proud.
This, of course, is not what happened. Unbeknownst to Octavius, his father had gifted that particular car to Adam Gray for his eighteenth birthday a week before the ball, after getting it completely customized (like changing it to Adam’s favorite color—electric blue).
It looked nothing like it had before. Yet it was the same car that Adam took Bilal and Octavius for a ride in.
The same car whose brakes could therefore not, at the pivotal moment, stop them from crashing into the tree, nearly killing them all.
And it was all Octavius’s fault.
His father had told him as much once he’d found out why the car had failed that night. He’d lived with the weight of this mistake for three years, and would have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life. Knowing he was the reason Adam had died. That his actions had caused so much pain.
He was glad nothing happened to Bilal. He could barely live with himself as it was; if he’d killed his brother too, he wouldn’t be able to live at all.
It had been the reason he’d left the Manor for good soon after. It was the reason he’d had his inheritance slashed. The reason he barely spoke to his family anymore, and hated returning to the Manor. It was all a reminder of how lethal his touch truly was.
And the worst part was that none of this would have ever happened if he hadn’t cared so much about making his father proud.
Octavius didn’t realize he was crying until he felt the uncomfortable sensation of tears tickling his chin. He sniffed and wiped his face. “I … I need to think,” he said, turning away from his father now.
“Take your time. But do remember that I am dying and would like to get this over and done with as soon as possible.”
“Y-yeah, I’ll be, umm, quick,” Octavius said as he discreetly took his phone out from his pocket and sent out a text.
Octavius: BENJAMIN IS IN OLYMPUS.
And then he slipped his phone away, still not turning around.
He wasn’t actually thinking it over. He already knew he wasn’t going to do it, even if it meant his inheritance would remain depleted.
Despite his history, Octavius wasn’t a murderer.
There was no way in hell that he could hurt his father, but he didn’t want to tell him that just yet. He had a feeling that saying no to this request might have dire consequences for him. He needed to mentally map out an escape plan.
“You don’t have to decide tonight, my boy, we can talk tomorrow. Come to Eden early in the morning and we can discuss the arrangements—”
“What arrangements?” A steely figure appeared in the doorway.
Octavius looked up and was surprised to see Bilal standing there, a mixture of worry and confusion written on his face. Still, relief spread through Octavius. Bilal had seen his message.
Even though the Button siblings’ group chat had been largely inactive since Octavius had left the Manor, no one had yet exited the chat.
The last message sent before tonight had been a whole year ago, and it was Romeo asking if everyone was doing okay.
As expected, no one had replied. The answer was always the same anyway.
Despite how hostile things had become between them all, the fact that no one had left the group always felt like a sign to Octavius that when he needed his siblings, they would be there.
“Nothing that concerns you, Bilal,” Mr. Button said.
Bilal’s eyes flickered over to Octavius, who seemed worse than he had earlier. But there was also a look in Octavius’s eyes, a look Bilal recognized from when they were still close. A look asking for his older brother to rescue him from himself.
“I think it should concern me, Father,” Bilal said.
Mr. Button’s eyebrow quirked up. “Is that right?”
Bilal stood up straighter, a defiance in his expression as he nodded. “Yes.”
Mr. Button’s gaze flickered over the booted cast Bilal was wearing.
“Hmm, that’s a shame … I would have thought your primary concern should be the fact that you will probably never fence professionally again due to your …
self-inflicted injury,” Mr. Button replied unfeelingly.
Octavius watched the color drain from his brother’s face.
Self-inflicted? Octavius thought.
“How—” Bilal began, his face the very picture of fear.
“Wrong question, my boy.” Mr. Button smiled widely now, moving a chess piece across the table as he did.
“It is not a matter of how I know. That’s easy, I have access to all of your medical records.
The question is why … Why would you be so foolish?
Throwing away the career I built for you.
The doctor wrote that you had tried to hurt yourself.
Do you know what doing this has cost you—”
“Stop it,” Octavius said, hating how hurt Bilal looked now.
“Stop what? Stop holding you children accountable for your reckless actions?”
“No, stop being a cruel prick,” Octavius said before his brain could even process it. His eyes widened as he took in his father’s calm demeanor.
“We will discuss all of this in the morning. You too, Bilal, we need to figure out what on earth you are going to do now that you are completely useless,” Mr. Button pronounced icily.
Before either of them could respond, another voice came from the entrance.
“Tavi? Are you okay? What happened?” It was a panicked Fola, her eyes darting around the room in confusion as she took in the scene.
Bilal looked as though he was on the verge of crying, and Octavius seemed like he was about to be sick. And her father … well, her father looked like his usual self. Shifting chess pieces around the board while the world moved on around him.
“He’s fine—” Mr. Button began with a wave of his hand, but he was cut off.
“Dad asked me to kill him,” Octavius said.
“WHAT?” Bilal’s and Fola’s voices merged with each other’s.
Their father looked up from his game then, a dangerous glimmer in his eye as silence followed.
“What do you mean by that, Tavi?” Fola asked, stepping forward, her dyed honey-blond curls swishing about as she went to stand in front of him.
His father gave him a look that said: Be careful of what move you make next, Octavius.
Octavius didn’t care anymore about making the right move or the wrong one. He just knew which move he didn’t want to make, and that was whichever one his father wanted.
“He’s dying—stage four cancer. The doctors say he has less than a year, but he wants to end his life now. He’s asked me to do it, and he is trying to bribe me with my inheritance.” It all came tumbling out of his mouth then; he felt like humpty-dumpty sitting on the edge of the wall.
“What the actual fuck?” Bilal said.
Fola whipped her head around, her eyes wide. “Father, is … is this true?”
Mr. Button moved another piece.
“If you are to trust what your brother says, then you may believe it to be true. But if you trust me, my dear daughter, then you’ll know where the real truth lies.”
This is what their father always did with Fola. He handed her ultimatums, making her choose him over everyone else, over and over again.
Octavius had never held it against his sister.
He knew why she was this way. He remembered a childhood of nasty remarks about her made by the media, remarks about how she looked nothing like a genius, let alone one that was a math and chess genius; they were convinced that she must be cheating somehow, must be a fraud.
Accusations he never got. He knew she fought every day to prove that she was better, not because she believed in it, but because she needed to make sure everyone else did.
Having their father’s favor and favoritism was one way to ensure that she was always protected from most of the media’s scorn.
Fola’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two most important men in her life, but she remained quiet and that was answer enough.
Their father smiled.
“I trust what Octavius says,” Bilal replied, and then looked his brother in the eye. “You can’t kill him, Octavius. It is a trap. It’ll ruin your future.”
“I know, I’m not going to—” Octavius began, but Bilal was talking again.
“Let me do it,” Bilal said.
“What? Bilal, what are you saying?” Fola asked, her voice wobbling.
“I have no future,” Bilal replied. “Let me be the one to kill him.”