Chapter 35
Sullen
Seeing God.
Aphrase I grasped, on some metaphorical level. Stein was maniacal about his pursuit of godhood. His ascension he believed would come from my torture. More than see god, he wanted to be one. He’ll never get there, of course, and I have just had the next best thing.
She showed me God, just now.
And God must sleep, too.
She fell under so quickly, but not until I helped us both to the bathroom and under the shower stream.
The darkness that let me slip off my clothes, slide inside the stall with her.
She was shaking with giddiness and I trembled with fear, but I trust her, don’t I?
I trust this, in the smallest, most fragile way.
It’s how she couldn’t stand Maude close to me. The way she goaded me with tales of Cosmo, but I know she doesn’t love him. Not like she loves me. She got on her hands and knees, scrubbed urine from my old bedroom floor.
No one has ever done a thing like that for me before.
No one ever will again.
She is all I want.
And I helped her dress after the shower, a towel wrapped firmly around my waist. Maybe she saw the letters carved into my chest, along my spine, the F on my thigh, but she didn’t ask me questions, and she didn’t try to touch me, and she let me slide a clean shirt over her head, pull shorts over her round ass.
There are things we should be doing. A battle we should prepare for. She told me what Cosmo said to her when they were alone.
But it is possible we do not survive the night. I will not mind now, dying when I know we are inseparable. Because I gave her what she wanted, what she begged for, and now, she is mine.
Sleeping here, in the bed that is ours, at least for this night.
The bathroom door is pulled to, allowing only a sliver of light inside the room, and perhaps I should turn it off.
Get my own much-needed sleep. But I am sat on the bed, staring at her, the sheet curved over her lower body, allowing me to see the shape of her ass, the length of her spine, her closed eyes, long lashes, damp, blonde strands curled over her cheekbones.
I like this, watching her while she sleeps. She feels good enough to do it, despite the threats of what may come. She feels safe despite it all, and I get to drink her in without her seeing how completely she undoes me.
And she does.
She has unraveled me in ways Stein would be envious of. He tried to empty me, hollow me out, torture and debase me for his godhood. Instead, this girl—my girl—has filled me completely, and it is like I cannot breathe without bumping into her inside my lungs.
The mauve sheets are tangled around her waist, and I reach for them so carefully, pulling them up over her shoulders. If I am gentle, she will not wake. I could be rough, and she would, but…
I do not want that.
Not right now.
I find myself wishing to be careful with her in ways I only ever was with specimens, and even then, not like this.
I would die for her.
But maybe I would live for her, too.
Slowly, I lie on my back and listen to her breathe in the darkness.
Maude, Alivia, Fleet, Elliot; I should find them.
They are here for us, after all. I do not know how Cosmo convinced them, and I do not particularly care.
And it is that, the indifference to any of them and the ache in my chest for her, that keeps me here beside her for one moment more.
That, and her scent, and the steam lingering in the room from our shared shower.
And my protectiveness.
I cannot leave her alone just yet.
Not when my cum is inside of her.
In my head, I see her cradling a baby.
My chest feels heavy. Would I dare?
Everything aches as I think about it; my body is a map of ruin. The stitches are tight, where Stein stabbed me. My shoulders burn. My head is a mess. And there is something in the latter I keep tripping over.
It is almost embarrassing to admit. Weak. Pathetic, like the word carved into my chest.
But no one is here, except a sleeping Karia, and she will not judge me when she does not know.
Sully, she begged.
Stein calls me that, when he wants to feign love or affection for me. Or even just to sharpen the knife of abuse.
But he got it from my mother.
I remember, when I allow myself, whispers of her tenderness. The only woman who ever offered any to me.
The only woman… until Karia.
A giddiness I do not believe I have ever felt in my life runs through me like a current.
A live wire. A smile shapes its way on my face and it is not born from torture or cruelty but something I cannot name.
Maybe it is love. Maybe I want to keep discovering this feeling over and over again, with her.
The only thing I know with any certainty is whatever she has freed in me, there is no going back now. Her jealousy and mine, it broke me free from a cage I have created inside my mind to survive my life.
But now I am out.
Reluctantly I get up, but if I am to live for her, I have to start by being a man she can rely on.
I am careful and painfully quiet; every part of me wants more of her. And yet there is another truth: I want her to sleep. Rest. Be at peace.
She is mine to protect. Her sanctuary is mine to build.
In the dark, I stare at her for another moment. Memorize her, as if I haven’t already. I drink in the sight of her trust in me, evident by her sound sleep
Then I slip on pants and a hoodie, and I reluctantly leave the room. I have to be what she needs.
Haunt Muren is always cold in the corridors. A fault in the pipes or perhaps the fact the only thing maintained here was the surface because the depth—me, as Stein’s project—was always meant to die. Why keep a corpse warm?
But I know the quirks of this house in ways the rest of them won’t.
I had to memorize the sound of Stein’s footsteps, and where I could steal pockets of time without him, for my own sanity.
The library—my mother’s room for all intents and purposes—was always a momentary safe haven, when he wasn’t dragging me out of it.
For one moment as I move through this house, I think of her again.
What would she say, about Karia? About the week? About what is to come?
About us?
She would be horrified, and full of rage.
She might even loathe me, in the moments I have been too weak to be strong for the princess of Writhe.
But if Mercy Rule had to pick a woman to be by my side during it all, I think she would have recognized Karia’s stubborn bravery.
Her beauty is a given, but her mind is what my mother would want for me.
“I assume she is still alive.” Cosmo’s flippant voice in the kitchen drags me out of what could have been.
He has his back to the island, and he is on the floor.
There is a glass in his hand, resting on his thigh.
He is not looking up at me, standing in the doorway, but he knows I’m alone.
Does he recognize her steps, too? A shame I have to end their close friendship.
There are some lines I will not bend for her.
Karia told me, about his father. It seems we have some things in common, where I thought it was all only her.
“She’s sleeping. Not that you deserve to know.”
“Good.” He takes a sip of his drink and ignores my last sentence. “You need to leave her alone now.” The innuendo is there, but I ignore it because he is not wrong. For once.
It doesn’t make me like him any more. I pass him as I cut through the kitchen and grab a glass from the cupboard. Then I fill it from the tap. Hydrating myself without surveillance or fear of the same is so strange.
But this is my house now, isn’t it, unless I’ve fully resigned myself to death? Because the only option for this final stand is Stein’s demise.
I practically fucking own this house, in that case.
And my girl is sleeping right upstairs.
I let myself believe it.
“Where is Sanford?” I ask after I drain the water.
“Where I’ve been keeping him, locked away. There are too many backwards knobs in this house.” I force myself not to react. “He can’t get to her.” He must know that is the only thing I care about.
He takes another drink. I am glad Karia is not here to join him.
“Why are you sitting on the floor?” Doesn’t seem very performance-artist-trying-to-fuck-your-girl of him.
Our eyes meet. His green ones are dim. Not as vibrant as they usually appear. Circles mar his skin, just beneath his lower lash line.
“Do you care?”
“No. But for her safety, we need to talk.” For Karia, I have to do more than run.
He snorts, then sets down his glass, on the floor. “What do you know about Burbank Gates?”
“I was at the Emporium, too.”
He glances at me. “Are we talking or are we going to start swinging?”
I bristle, but don’t snap back at him. The reality is that everything I know about the Principles of Poetic Séance and The Scientist comes from experience.
I was the subject. The experiment. The receiver of all that torture Gates espoused.
I held on so tightly to Maude’s words at the Emporium because I wanted a reason for the abuse.
Turns out, having a why doesn’t make the what any more palatable.
“I know more than most.” It is half a life, half a truth. I know the gist, the texts, the madman from the 1800s. But the fact is I don’t want to know anymore about a dead man who made my family what is is: Fractured.
Cosmo frowns, and I know he sees the past in my eyes, but he doesn’t press.
“What does this have to do with Sanford?”
Cosmo shifts his gaze beyond me, to the window pane above the sink. “Karia said he was a mild follower of Burbank Gates.” It’s a whisper, those words, and I grimace, thinking of them whispering together in the dark. But she didn’t tell him the full truth, it seems.
Sanford told Karia and I that he was fascinated with Burbank Gates. But he said he never gave into the practical applications of the dead man’s pseudo-religion.
Regardless, I do not speak. I won’t tell Cosmo precisely what my grandfather told me. I want to hear this version of events.