The Farewell #2
Alivia tucks a strand of pink hair behind her ear and offers a small smile.
“All of the documentation is concise. We didn’t embellish, and really…
” She blows out a breath. “We didn’t need to.
It was bad enough.” She glances at me. “I hope it helps.” She likely does not know precisely what we need it for, but I am sure she understands the urgency, the way we spoke to her and Maude about their part in the plan.
“And if you ever need an in at Alexandria U’s library,” she waves a hand in the air vaguely, “well, this was fun, so find me.”
Karia glances at her, shifting her head on my chest. “Thank you,” she says, specifically to Alivia.
Fleet grins again. Maybe he just never stopped. How high is he? “Seriously, let me know if you want me over again or—”
“I heard you the first time,” I cut him off.
He looks sheepish, glancing down at his sneakers. “Right,” he says with a smaller smile.
Maude takes a breath. “Well, we’re leaving.” She is staring right at me.
Karia is staring at her, her own fingers digging into my hoodie as if to keep me still.
I am never going anywhere, Little Sun.
“You know where we meet.”
“Yes,” Karia says coldly.
“If you need anything—”
“We won’t,” my princess interrupts.
This time, Maude’s gaze shifts to her. I fear for the dark-haired woman’s life as Karia’s limbs go tense, as if she is ready for a fight.
“Take care of him,” Maude says softly.
“I already do.” Karia’s clipped tone doesn’t falter.
Maude nods, and surprising me, Karia nods back. I swear I see the ghost of a smile on Maude’s red lips before all four of them disappear down the hall.
Karia turns to me, her gaze searching mine. “What?” she demands. “Did you expect me to be nice? I am not your little obedient housewife—”
I press my finger to her lips. Bare, no gloves. Her mouth is so smooth, plush. I want to sink my cock into it immediately and watch her swallow my cum, but I manage to say, “You were perfect. Please,” I whisper, “always be just like that.”
She blinks.
Then she smiles, her arms stretching around my neck as she kisses my cheekbone. “I love you,” she says.
“I know,” I tell her, breathing in the scent of her hair. Flowers and forest. “And it is my favorite thing in the world.”
When only Von and Isa are left, we are all gathered around the dining room table. Karia insisted on a last supper, and whatever she wants, I give her now. That is how our life will go.
Von cooked while Isadora watched, and Karia insisted on setting the table while I sat at the head of it. Highly uncomfortable for me, being served, but the blood rushing to my cock did not think so.
Now, Von says, “They’ll be difficult. Hardasses.
Don’t let it sway you. They want you to fold, because it’ll make it easier for them.
They’ll offer him witness protection, or our version of it anyway.
” Von twines pasta around his fork, glancing at Isa, the two of them sharing a look I cannot decipher.
He shoves the food in his mouth and swallows, then looks back to me and Karia, adjacent and across from him, respectively.
“You do not give them documentation until they have signed, in blood, your freedom.” He says this very seriously.
Karia rolls her eyes and fidgets with her napkin on her lap, but with her blonde hair twisted up in an elegant braid, tendrils framing her face, she looks every inch a queen.
“He deserves the throne of Writhe. Fuck the blood. They’ve taken enough from us.
I’ll tell them I’ll push for his leadership if they don’t fuck off. ”
I smile and take a sip of water.
Before Von can refute Karia, the doorbell rings, and all four of us freeze. Isadora is the first to move, magically materializing a gun from somewhere under the table.
She glances at me, then Karia. “It’ll be Antwine,” she says softly.
I look to my future wife. Her blue eyes are on mine, and she has gone pale. “I can make him leave,” I promise her. If she is not ready, I can keep him very far away.
Seconds tick by.
Then she snatches my hand in hers and grips me tight. “Just stay by my side,” she whispers fiercely, and I smile at her.
As if I would ever be anywhere else.
“And was is it, exactly, that you want?” Mads Bentzen is all business. He has not smiled once. Not apologized. There is no tear in his eye as he stares at me from across the dining room table, occupying the other head.
In my mind, I imagine my father’s name tattooed on his chest.
The thought of using my butter knife to hack at his blond curls before I gauge out his eyes has flickered across my mind. But for Karia, for the sake of us, I refrain.
She has not looked at her father once. Antwine Ven is seated to the left of Mads, and Scarletta to the right. Her mother she is pretending does not exist.
No one else came.
Von and Isadora are unusually quiet. The table is empty of plates, and there is a bottle of wine no one has drank, nor thought to open. Scarletta told Von to clear the dishes and he did so, as if he were a puppet on a string.
I do not expect either him nor his lover to stick out their necks for me. Maybe Karia, but I know I do not have to factor into their equation for her.
I meet Mads’s light eyes unflinching. “I want this house.”
“Done.” Mads shrugs, his muscles shifting beneath his black suit as he acts as if this is nothing. “Haunt Muren, the home on Ritual Drive, the original hotel, they’re yours.”
I do not think I ever want to step foot into 44 Ritual Drive ever again in my life, but I do not say that. It can rot for all I care. Even the green glow is no longer enough to beckon me back home.
Mads stacks his hands on the table, one on top of the other. “What else.” He demands it, because this is a man who never asks.
I lift my chin. Beneath the table, Karia’s fingers dig into my thigh. “Her. Karia. She stays here with me.”
Antwine shifts on his seat and Scarletta scoffs.
Mads doesn’t even blink.
My heart thumps loudly, my pulse pounding in my ears. I don’t like speaking of my girl as if she is not here, but I understand Writhe. I’m the son of it, after all.
Isa and Von look down at the table. Silence fills Haunt Muren and I pray if there is a ghost here and he’s on my side, he will slit Bentzen’s throat the moment he denies her of me. And he will. I see it in the cold steel of his eyes. He thinks I am not good enough. He thinks I am pathetic.
An unmade creature. The words on my spine. A nothing. Nonentity. A blank. Idiot. Filth. Maggot.
Karia does not stop squeezing me.
I do not lower my gaze from Mads, the leader who took over after my father stepped down to torment me more. The one who turned away from my pain. Who pretended I was not an experiment. A curse. An abused, degraded, starved, beaten child.
I clench what teeth I have left.
“No,” he says. He arches a brow. “Next question.”
“It’s my choice.” Karia’s voice. She is staring him down without fear. “And I am staying with him.”
“Karia—” Antwine starts, but Scarletta overtalks him.
“Don’t be stupid, Karia. Your place is not here.
You do not belong with an outcast. You will return with us, and that is not in question.
” She brushes a strand of white hair from her face, curling it elegantly behind her ear.
Smoothing a hand down her velvet dress, she nods toward her husband, across from her.
“Are you ready to leave with her?” She, too, has a way of making questions sound like statements.
Karia stands so fast her chair falls to the wooden floor with a thud.
“No.” She says it with a growl this time, then she slams her hands on the table, causing it to jump, the wine bottle and empty glasses rattling.
“I am not going anywhere with you. Where were you two? Where the fuck were you?” There is venom in her words I have never heard.
“I murdered two men who wanted to torture me. Assault me. Murder me.” She gestures with a shaky hand toward me.
“And him. Sullen.” Her voice breaks on my name.
“Where the fuck were you, Mads, when you knew all along?” Her tone is quiet now. Lethal.
Von hangs his head.
Isa sits up straighter, as if this has just got a lot more interesting.
Pride beats a rhythm in my chest.
Karia turns to her parents next. “And I know if he knew, you both did too. And when I begged for you to trust me, believe me, Dad, you put Writhe before your own daughter.”
Mads stands now, which means I, too, am on my feet.
“That is the entire point of our organization,” Mads says coldly, one hand on the table as he glares at Karia.
I clench my fists. I look at the wine glasses. I will break one and murder him if he takes a single step toward her.
“It comes first. Before any parent. Any child. Any loyalty. Writhe is first.”
“How does it feel,” Karia asks in a soft voice, “to have the name of a child abuser embedded in your chest? Do you feel like a man, Mads? Does it get you off? Knowing what he did to my… mine, does it make you feel strong?”
Mine. I am.
Mads blinks. I watch his throat roll. But he does not look away from her. His chest rises and falls hard. “You will go home with your parents. If you are lucky,” he flicks his gaze to me for a beat, “he will live.”
Karia stares.
She doesn’t stop.
Then she puts her hand in the pocket of her poofy, pink and black dress that she dragged out from some closet or another of this place, and produces a handgun. Without waiting, without threatening, she aims, and she shoots Mads Bentzen in the shoulder.
He staggers back.
The pop rings in our ears.
And Mads takes a breath, in shock. Time seems to stop.
Then he lunges down the table, wine glasses shattering, the bottle hitting the floor with a thud, chairs scattering, everyone gasping, as he slides off the table and shoves Karia against the wall.
I am in between them before I can breathe. The gun in Karia’s fingers easily comes to my hand, and I bodily force Mads back before I slam the barrel of the gun against the side of his head.
He staggers backward, his hip hitting the table.
When his eyes meet mine, I think he sees it. The rage I have kept pent up inside, wondering, hoping, praying that someone would help me. Find me. Love me. Save me.
And he knew.
And he did nothing.
I hit him again.
And again.
It takes the fifth time for me to realize he is not fighting back.
I do not stop.
I want to cave his head in. I want to see his skull. I want to destroy him for the ways he let me be destroyed. For how he wants to take the only sun I have ever had in my life away from me.
I want him dead.
“Karia.” It is Von’s voice. There is a panicked note in it.
Blood is flecking along my face. The back of my bare hands.
Mads has his head bowed, his face pale, and he does not struggle at all.
He lets me attack him, and when I throw all of my weight behind the final blow, a grunt leaves his lips and he slouches down on the table, then the gun clatters to the floor.
Karia is at my back. When I stagger against her, she loops her arms around me and clings, holding me tight.
Everyone is on their feet, but no one has stopped me. Mads is bleeding, on his chest, and from his head, sticky trails of red curving his cheekbone, dripping over his eye. The wound is gaping; he will need stitches, at the least.
Karia squeezes me close.
And Antwine says, “Sullen.” It is breathless.
Karia answers for me. “You will free us, both of us, or all of the documentation on Stein’s crimes, Klein’s experiments, and Writhe’s involvement will be made public. It can happen in a breath,” she snarls. “Do not tempt me, Daddy.”
I reach a hand up, curling it over her wrist as I feel over two decades of pain crack loose in my chest.
She loves me. The Princess of Writhe is the Queen of Haunt Muren and she has chosen me.
“I’m sorry,” Antwine says. I think he means to speak to his daughter. I think he is saying he cannot agree.
I think I will die without her.
“I’m sorry, Sullen,” he presses. “For what I knew, which wasn’t all, but it was enough. And I did nothing. We did nothing. We’ve seen the recordings. We know enough now.”
My body burns with shame, but I don’t cower.
“I am so sorry.” It sounds as if he has wanted to say that for a long time. Maybe since he didn’t believe Karia back in the hotel when she was begging for me, and he wishes he did.
Scarletta says nothing.
“But I want to have a relationship with my daughter. I will do whatever it takes for you to forgive us.”
I stare at Mads. We all know he has the final say.
He closes his eyes tight. Blood pours. And he says, “Give us the documentation. You are free. From all of this.” He sinks to his knees, right at my feet. He bows his head, and I see crusted blood on his scalp. “And so am I.” He takes a shaky breath. “Fuck you, Stein Rule.”
And for the first time, I wonder how he has suffered, too.