29. Arson
Arson
I maintain my distance as she processes what happened with Aries. Twenty-four hours of careful avoidance—bringing her food but not sharing a meal, checking security systems while she sleeps, working in the outer rooms when she’s awake.
Clinical. Efficient. Removed.
I can’t even count how many times I’ve told myself it’s better this way. Distance protects us both from the bond that started to form in the shower and bed. From the unexpected tenderness that threatens years of carefully cultivated hatred. From the uncomfortable realization that I’ve come to care about what happens to her. I hate it. I hate that I’ve used her, that I allowed my brother to hurt her and made her a pawn in a war she had nothing to do with.
She spends most of the day in bed, curled away from the door, sometimes sleeping, sometimes staring at the wall. Processing. Mourning. Coming to terms with the death of a fantasy she’s carried for years.
I recognize the stillness and the careful conservation of energy. I perfected it in the institution—this method of rebuilding internal defenses after they’ve been shattered. So I give her space. Give her time. More consideration than I’ve shown anyone in years.
By the morning of the second day, I can tell something has changed. She emerges from the bedroom while I’m reviewing surveillance footage, hair damp from a shower, wearing my clothes still but with a new determination in her posture. The broken girl from yesterday has disappeared.
“We need to talk,” she says, voice steady despite the lingering shadows under her eyes.
I close the laptop, giving her my full attention while maintaining physical distance. “About?”
“What happens next?” She sits across from me at the small table, hands folded precisely on its surface. “What is the plan now that Aries is secure again?”
“I’m sorry, but there is no ‘we’ in this discussion,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. “You’ve seen what happens when you get involved. It’s better if you focus on recovering.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m involved. Have been since the moment I recognized you weren’t Aries at that party. Since I found Mother’s files. Since we had sex.”
“A series of mistakes,” I counter, “that won’t be repeated.”
“Mistakes?” She leans forward as if she didn’t hear me correctly. “Is that what you call what happened between us?”
This is dangerous territory. Uncomfortable, I stand, putting more distance between us. “What happened was the result of chemicals, adrenaline, and poor judgment. Nothing more.”
The lie tastes bitter, but necessary. Whatever connection formed between us in those hours of tenderness is a vulnerability I can’t afford to acknowledge. Not now. Not with everything finally falling into place.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Her directness surprises me. “Something changed between us. I felt it, and I know you felt it, too.”
“The only thing that’s changed,” I say coldly, “is that you’ve finally seen Aries for the piece of shit he is. Don’t mistake my gratitude for something deeper, Lilian. It’s beneath both of us.”
“Gratitude?” She stands, matching my movement, refusing to be physically dominated even as I tower over her. “You think that’s what this is about?”
“I think you’ve had your illusions about one brother shattered.” I do my best to keep all emotion out of my voice. “And now you’re transferring those feelings to the other. It’s basic psychology.”
She laughs, but the sound holds no humor. “For someone so observant, you can be remarkably blind when it suits you.”
“And you can be remarkably naive.” I move to the security monitors, checking them more as a distraction than necessity. Anything to avoid the intensity in her eyes. “This isn’t your fight. Never was. You were a complication I should have handled differently from the start.”
“A complication?” She follows me, refusing to be dismissed. “Is that what you call someone who helped you? Who offered you information about the family you didn’t have? Who gave you?—”
“Gave me what?” I turn sharply, cutting her off. “Your body? Is that what you were about to say? Because my experience was a bit different from yours. Nothing was given. You didn’t give anyone anything. We took it.”
Color flushes her cheeks, but she doesn’t back down. “I was going to say who gave you trust. Who believed in your right to justice even while questioning your methods.”
The unexpected response throws me off-balance. I recalibrate, reinforcing my emotional walls. “Then you’re even more naive than I thought. There’s no justice to be had, Lilian. Only revenge. Only making them pay for what they did to me. For what they took from me.”
“And what about what they did to the others?” she challenges me. “The files I found showed dozens of victims. Children who disappeared into institutions like you did. Families that were destroyed. Don’t they deserve justice, too?”
They do, but not at the cost of my revenge.
“They’re not my concern.”
“They could be.” She steps closer, close enough now that I can smell the shampoo she used— my shampoo. “We could expose them. Not just what they did to you, but the whole operation. We could make it impossible for them to hurt anyone else.”
“Again,” I repeat, infusing the word with all the contempt I can muster. “There is no ‘we’ in any of this. You were always meant to be leveraged. A way to hurt Aries. Nothing more.”
The lie cuts deep—I see it in the brief flash of pain that flickers across her features. But she rallies quickly, anger replacing hurt.
“That’s a fucking lie,” she says again with even more conviction. “You promised me. Said we had a deal. My body for his freedom, remember? I held up my end.”
“And look how well that turned out for you,” I snap, patience fracturing. “Nearly raped on a concrete floor, and left for dead. Is that the kind of ‘involvement’ you’re so eager to continue forward with?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” I laugh harshly. “Nothing about this is fair. Nothing about what they did to me was fair. Nothing about what Aries did to you was fair. Welcome to reality, Little Sister. It’s uglier than your fantasies.”
She flinches at the cruelty but stands her ground. “That’s not what this is. This isn’t about fairness. This is you pushing me away because you’re afraid of getting attached.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Liar,” she says softly. “You’re terrified. Of caring about me, of letting someone in.” I don’t respond, mainly because I don’t have a response. I’m not ready to talk about my feelings for her, let alone face or put to name what we are, or could be.
“Why is it so hard to admit?” she presses, stepping closer, eliminating the careful distance I’ve maintained. “Why can’t you acknowledge that something changed between us? That for a moment, you actually let someone see the real you?”
“Because there is no real me ,” I snarl, backing away. “There’s only what they created in that place. Only what the family made me.”
“ Our family,” she corrects. “They hurt me, too. Different methods, same control.”
“It’s not the same,” I insist, anger building at her persistent attempts to create equivalence between her comfortable captivity and my institutional hell. “You have no idea what I endured. What they took from me.”
“Then tell me.” Her voice softens, almost pleading. “Let me understand. Let me help, Aries.” Aries. The name hangs in the air between us, a simple slip of the tongue with the impact of detonation. Aries. Aries. Aries . It’s been about him my entire fucking life. The golden boy who let me take the blame, who let me fall between the cracks.
Lilian sees where this is headed immediately. She blinks once, then twice, and it’s like she herself can’t believe the mistake she’s made.
“I meant—” she starts, but it’s too late.
Something inside me snaps, like a bone breaking beneath pressure. I no longer feel in control of myself, of my body. All I can think to do is make her see ME. Make her FEEL me. In an instant, I’m across the room. I grab her by the upper arms, my grip bruising. I know I shouldn’t hurt her, that I should be gentle with her, but I can’t be bothered by her feelings, not when she continues to call me his name, shredding me to pieces every single fucking time.
“Say it again,” I demand, voice deadly quiet. “Say his name again while looking at me.”
“Arson, I’m sorry, it was a mistake?—”
“A mistake?” A laugh escapes me, the sound harsh and broken. “Ever heard of a Freudian slip? It’s the mind’s way of revealing what’s hidden beneath. Which means you’re still thinking of him. Wishing I was still him.” I snarl at her, unable to hold my anger in. “After everything he did to you.”
How could she care for him, when it’s so painfully obvious he doesn’t care for her?
Fear flashes in her eyes, but she doesn’t struggle, doesn’t try to pull away. “Don’t do this. I know what you’re thinking and it’s not true. We both know I didn’t mean to say his name.”
“But you did.” My grip tightens, fury building like a physical force beneath my skin. “How can you expect me to think otherwise when you spent years wanting him. Years building fantasies around the noble stepbrother who kept you at a distance under the illusion of safety. Only to discover he’s not the person you thought he was. But you still want him. And that’s where I come in, right? You’ll settle for the less-than brother, the broken replacement, because we’re identical twins, so it feels like you’re still fulfilling that fantasy, right?”
“Stop it,” she says, voice stronger now despite the fear. “You’re not a copy of him. You’re not a replacement. You’re?—”
“What?” I demand, giving her a small shake. “Please tell me, what am I to you, Lilian? The monster you’ve decided to fuck because your golden boy turned out to be just as monstrous? The devil you know? The backup plan?”
“That’s not—” She’s scrambling for the right words to say, but there are none. There is only the truth, even if she doesn’t want to see it.
“You want to know why I’m pushing you away?” My control splinters further with each word. “Because I know every time you look at me, you see him. Every time you touch me, you’re imagining I’m him. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.”
“That’s not true,” she insists. Tears gather in her eyes, but don’t fall. Not yet. “I see you. I’ve always seen you. From the very beginning, I knew there was something different.”
“Liar.” It’s a bitter taste on my tongue to call her a liar because somehow I know she could tell I wasn’t Aries, but that doesn’t matter. Not right now. “If you know, if you can tell us apart so well, then why did you just call me by his name?”
Her lips part, and guilt fills her eyes. All I can do is shake my head, letting the disappointment and anger consume me. “After everything he did to you, the way he used you and discarded you.” Anger burns, threatening to suffocate me. “After everything I did for you. I had never cared for someone else, never given a shit about another human like that, and still, his name is the one on your lips!” I hate how raw and broken my voice sounds, but more than anything, I hate that I let her do this to me.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional. I swear.”
Nothing she says is going to change how I feel. I don’t want to hear her voice right now. I don’t want to listen to her lies. A plan forms in my mind—not calculated, not strategic, nothing but pure animal rage driving me toward something I’ll regret. I start dragging her toward the door, my grip unrelenting despite her struggles and protests.
“What are you doing?” she asks in a rushed voice, not quite afraid but balancing on the edge of fear.
“Is it really so hard to tell the difference between us?” I ask in a barely contained growl while pulling her down the corridor. “I didn’t think so, but I suppose if you can’t tell yet, then maybe you haven’t spent enough time with your beloved hero.”
“Don’t!” She tries to dig her feet into the ground, but she’s half my size. Her efforts to stop me are futile at best.
“Oh, sweet Lilian. I tried to help you, tried to show you how different we are, but I should’ve realized sometimes the easiest way to learn something is to experience it firsthand.” I drag her down the stairs, my grip unyielding despite her attempts to break free.
“I didn’t mean it!” she protests, her voice echoing off the concrete.
I refuse to listen, refuse to accept her excuses. The rushing in my ears drowns out everything but the fury pulsing through my veins.
“Arson, stop!” she gasps as I yank her around the corner toward Aries’s cell. “You’re hurting me!”
“Good,” I snarl, beyond reason, beyond the careful control I’ve maintained for years. I want to hurt her; I want to make her feel the pain she’s making me feel right now. “Maybe you need to feel pain, experience it firsthand to be able to tell us apart.”
The security door beeps as I swipe the card, and hydraulics hiss when it opens to the holding area. Aries looks up from his cot, chains rattling as he moves to a standing position. A look of amusement crosses his features when he sees Lilian struggling in my grip. Even as monstrous as he is, I know the truth. I know he cares about her far more than he leads on.
With one hand at the back of her neck, I slam her against the observation window, forcing her face against the glass, and use my other hand to pin her hips against the wall. The position is deliberately reminiscent of how I took her days ago—a crude reminder of intimacy now twisted into punishment.
“Look at him,” I demand, voice tight with barely controlled rage. “Look at him and tell me we’re the same. Tell me you can’t tell us apart.”
“I never said—” she starts, her voice muffled against the glass.
“Say it.” I press her face against the glass a little harder, and she winces. “Say we’re different. Say my name.” Through the glass, Aries watches with predatory interest, head tilted at a slight angle, like he used to when we were kids—studying weaknesses, calculating advantages.
“Arson,” she speaks clearly, her breath fogging the glass. “You’re Arson. He is Aries. I know who you are.”
“Do you?” I lean closer, speaking directly into her ear while maintaining eye contact with Aries through the glass. “Then why the fuck is his name on your lips? Why does he have a place in your thoughts after treating you with so much disdain?”
Aries steps closer to the window, chains dragging across the concrete floor.
“Trouble in paradise already?” he calls, voice carrying clearly through the intercom I never switched off. “It’s a shame. I thought you two were so perfect together. The damaged girl and the psychopath.” His mockery only feeds the rage festering inside me.
Lilian squeaks as I sink my fingers deeper into her hips. I ignore the slight tremble of her body, the fear radiating off her.
“Tell him,” I demand. “Tell him how you called me by his name. How even after he used you and left you for dead, it’s still him you think about.”
“That’s not true,” she insists, voice breaking. “It was a mistake—just a slip.”
A laugh fills the air, the sound identical to mine but somehow colder that belongs to Aries. “A Freudian slip, I believe they call it. Revealing deeper truth through verbal errors.” Stepping closer to the glass, he continues, “What seems to be the problem, Brother? Insecure about your position in her affections?”
“Shut up,” I snarl at him and tug Lilian away from the glass an inch so I can get a good look at her face. “Is this what you want? Who you want? After everything he did to you?”
“No,” she whispers, and tears finally trail down her cheeks. “Please. Arson, listen to me. This isn’t you. I’m sorry.”
“Isn’t it?” Aries taunts through the glass. “All you’ve known this whole time is what we wanted you to know, what we wanted you to see. When in reality this is exactly who he is. Who we both are. Monsters with identical faces.”
He’s right. As much as I hate him and as much as I want revenge, there is no denying that we’re more similar than we are different.
“She still doesn’t see it,” I tell Aries, voice dropping lower as something dark and irrevocable takes root. “Still doesn’t understand what we are. What we’re capable of.”
Aries’s smile widens, recognizing the dangerous edge in my tone.
There’s almost a manic glint in his eyes, and that look both excites me and makes me sick to my stomach. “Then show her, Brother. Show her exactly what happens when someone confuses us.” The suggestion feels like permission, a release of whatever final restraint has been holding me back.
If I don’t do this, Lilian will never see me. She’ll never see the difference.
With deliberate movements, I pull Lilian away from the glass, one hand gripping her arm while the other reaches for the security keypad.
“Wait! What are you doing?” Her voice rises with genuine alarm as she pieces the puzzle together in her mind. “Arson, don’t.”
I punch in the security code, and the door to Aries’s cell slides open with a pneumatic hiss. For a moment, everyone freezes. Lilian stares in horror at the open doorway, Aries stands motionless as if unable to believe his luck, and then there is me vibrating with a rage so complete it feels like clarity.
“If you want him so bad…” I tell Lilian, voice eerily calm now, “then you can have him.”
I don’t give her the chance to respond. I shove her forward with enough force that she stumbles into the cell, catching herself against the far wall. Aries’s gaze follows her movements with precision, watching as she regains her balance.
She shakes her head slowly as if she can’t believe what’s happening.
“What are you doing?” she repeats, panic edging her voice. Like a mouse caught in a trap, she tries to escape, but I block her path, maintaining position in the doorway.
“Giving you what you want, what you’ve always wanted.”
“No. I don’t want this,” she insists, her fearful eyes darting between Aries and me, who remains strategically still, chains limiting his movement but not eliminating it entirely. “Arson, please. This isn’t funny.”
“Do I look amused?” I ask coldly, crossing my arms over my chest.
Aries shifts, and his chains clink with the movement. The sound makes her flinch, attention divided between the twin threats.
“If your goal is for him to hurt me, then you’re going to be really disappointed.” Her voice wobbles, giving her away. Not even she believes the words she’s saying.
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” I step backward through the doorway. “And if he does, then you’ll remember who is who next time.”
“That’s not fair!” She lunges forward, trying to reach the door, but I’m already activating the closing mechanism. The hydraulics engage, the heavy door beginning its inevitable slide shut. Her chest starts to rise and fall rapidly, and clear panic contours her face.
“Arson, don’t do this! Please!”
The desperation in her voice should satisfy me, should soothe the raw wound of hearing my brother’s name on her lips. Instead, it lodges like a shard of glass in my chest, painful and impossible to ignore. It didn’t have to be this way. It hurts like hell, but I maintain course.
My pride demands it, the rage I’m feeling…I can’t turn back now.
“If you want Aries so badly,” I say as the door closes between us, “you can fucking have him.”
Her face in that final moment—terror mixed with betrayal, with confusion, with hurt—burns itself into my memory as the lock engages with a definitive click.
“Enjoy your time together,” I call through the intercom, voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. “Isn’t this what you’ve wanted since you were sixteen? Your precious Aries all to yourself?”
It’s obvious this isn’t what she wants. Painfully obvious. Through the observation window, she presses herself against the far wall, putting as much distance between herself and Aries as she can. Her blue eyes pierce mine, wide with disbelief and a betrayal so raw it would be visible even without our strange connection.
“But… you promised to protect me.” Her bottom lip trembles, and her voice begs me to go to her, to comfort her. “You said you wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”
The reminder cuts deep—deeper than I anticipated. In the aftermath of what happened, I did promise that in the gentle moments that followed. Promised it with my hands, my body, in every tender stroke.
“Promises were made to be broken.” I feel so cold inside I can’t even tell who I am anymore. “Consider this a lesson in trust. In distinguishing between twins.”
Aries watches our exchange with calculated interest, though he doesn’t make a move toward her. The chains limit his range, but not enough to keep her truly safe if he decides to act. We both know this. She knows this. And it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
“Please don’t leave me here,” she says, a final appeal that lands with surprising accuracy. “This isn’t you. This is what they made you. What they wanted you to become.”
Part of me knows that to be true, and for a moment, I see myself as she does—acting exactly as the institution programmed me to act.
Violent. Reactive.
Using others as weapons without regard for collateral damage.
I’m becoming the very thing I hate.
The realization hits me right in the chest, and the rage drains away as quickly as it erupted, leaving a streak of horror in its wake.
What have I done? What am I doing?
I blink, feeling more than just my own pain at that moment, and reach for the control panel. My finger hovers over the door release, but I pause when Aries speaks.
“Reconsidering already, Brother?” he taunts. “Always so predictable and weak.”
Our eyes lock through the glass, identical faces mirroring a lifetime’s worth of hatred. Opening that door now means admitting my mistake.
It means proving him right by showing my one and only weakness: her. It means surrendering whatever twisted victory this moment represents.
Pride wars with the unfamiliar urge to protect. To fix what I’ve broken. To honor what formed between Lilian and me in those quiet moments after the violence.
“Arson,” Lilian says, voice steadier now despite her obvious fear. “Don’t do this. Don’t be what they made you. Be the person I know you are.”
Her words echo through my thoughts with such precision it’s unsettling, like she can see inside my mind, past the monster to whatever remains of the person I might have been. No. I slam the door closed in my mind. Taking a step back from the controls, I try to mask the conflict and confusion I’m feeling.
“You wanted to be involved,” I say, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. “This is what involvement looks like.”
The moment the door locks, separating us with inches of reinforced material, regret floods me—it’s instant and overwhelming. Admitting that now, with Aries watching, with everything balanced on this moment of cruelty, feels impossible.
I turn away from the observation window, unable to bear the wounded betrayal in Lilian’s eyes a moment longer. Each step down the corridor feels heavier than the last as if I’m physically dragging the weight of what I’ve just done behind me.
What kind of monster am I becoming? What kind of monster have I always been?
The question haunts me as I climb the stairs, hands shaking with an emotion I can’t— won’t —name. This was never part of the plan. She was supposed to be a tool, a means to hurt Aries and nothing more. When did she become someone whose pain affects me? Whose betrayal—real or imagined—cuts deep enough to make me act against my own interests?
I pause at the top of the stairs, torn between returning to fix my mistake and continuing forward to preserve what’s left of my pride. The war between these impulses paralyzes me, foreign in its intensity. I’ve spent a decade calculating every move, controlling every reaction. This reckless emotional response is dangerous.
Unpredictable.
Just like locking her in that cell was dangerous.
Unpredictable.
Potentially deadly.
The thought of what Aries might do to her hurts like a physical wound. He’s restrained, yes, but not completely immobilized. I might as well have handed him a loaded gun to use against me. Lilian, someone I’ve shown I care about, however reluctantly.
“Fuck,” I mutter, raking both hands through my hair. The rage has evaporated completely, leaving only cold, clear horror in its wake.
I need to get her out of there. Now. Before— Before what? Before Aries hurts her? Before he says something to turn her against me permanently? Before he convinces her that he’s the lesser evil between identical monsters? Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of—that given enough time alone with him, she’ll recognize something in Aries worth salvaging. Something familiar from years of watching him and wanting him. That she’ll realize her slip of the tongue wasn’t a mistake but a deeper truth about where her heart truly lies.
Fuck me. I change direction, moving toward the security room instead of returning to the cell. If I can’t bring myself to admit my mistake face-to-face, I can at least monitor the situation.
Make sure Aries doesn’t hurt her again and intervene if necessary.
The bank of monitors flickers to life as I enter the security codes, cameras activating to show multiple angles of the cell. Lilian still stands pressed against the far wall. Aries watches her with interest from his limited radius. I sink into the chair, eyes fixed on the screen, fingers hovering over the emergency release that would open the cell door instantly if need be.
I won’t leave her in there for long. It won’t take long to prove my point. To make her see the difference between us once and for all.
I need to see where her loyalties are when faced with both versions of the same face.
To prove to myself that I can still control the situation. That emotions haven’t completely compromised ten years of careful planning. But even as I form the justification, I know it’s a lie. This isn’t a strategy. This is jealousy, pure and simple.
Ugly, human, and terrifyingly new.