23. Zach
Chapter 23
Zach
“Morning, Boss.”
I look up and frown at Cassius. It takes me a few seconds to move after the shock of seeing him at my door so early in the morning. “The fuck you doing?” I hiss, lurching across the room, hauling him inside, and shutting the door quietly behind him.
First Reuben, now this? You’d swear everyone had a fucking brain aneurysm this week with how they’ve been acting.
“How’d it go?”
“You couldn’t wait?” I swipe a hand through my hair. “This is far from fucking circumspect.”
“Circumspect,” Cassius repeats under his breath, his eyes moving away from mine. “Smells dank in here. You still got that fatty around?”
“Cassius, you have to leave!” I hurriedly lower my voice. “No one can see you in my room.”
“Why?” He drags a finger over my desk as if inspecting it for dust. “They’d just think we were fucking.”
He’s immaculately dressed this morning. Could be the cooler weather—those same clouds that keep threatening are gathering force—that made him put on his blazer, but there’s no possible explanation for his perfect tie.
I grab the sleeve of his jacket and twist the fabric, using that grip to turn him around. “Look at me,” I snap when his eyes slide away from mine.
“Relax, Boss.” He drawls.
I hurriedly release him and step back. “How are you feeling, Cass?” I ask warily.
We start a dance, him and I. He moves to the left, I slide to the right. Round and round we go, where we’ll stop, nobody knows.
“Honestly? A little left out.” He sends a sparkling smile my way. “See, the last time we spoke, you laid out this brilliant fucking plan—” he waves a hand “—like you always do, and I was legit salivating to hear how it all played out.”
He stops and pulls open the top drawer of my desk. I let him—I have nothing to hide from my brothers. If we still felt the need to keep secrets after the shit we went through then we’d be more fucked in the head than any psychology handbook could explain.
“You didn’t call. You said you’d call.” Cass looks up and lifts out the half-finished blunt I’d stowed away last night. “Feels like I got stood up.”
“She got her lashes. I gave her a way out, she didn’t take it. What more do you want to know?”
Cassius sinks down on my bed and lights the joint.
Gritting my teeth, I lurch forward and snatch it from his lips before the flame can touch the paper. “This hall gets foot traffic in an hour. The smell won’t be gone by then.”
“You know what doesn’t get traffic?” Cassius leans back on my bed, propping himself up on his elbows. “My fucking dick. Not once since we’ve been here. I have needs, Boss. There’s only so much wanking one dick can?—”
He cuts off when I slam my drawer shut, the joint tossed back inside. “Stop acting like a fucking kid,” I snap.
“Yeah?” He sits forward in a rush. “You know I don’t have this mental fucking switch I can just turn off like you fuckers.” He rests back on his elbows again. “You know that.”
I study him for a second, and then lean to the side to turn the digital alarm clock to face me. “Fine,” I say through a sigh. “Move over.”
I hesitate, and then check the clock again. Then I lean over and snag the joint from my drawer, lighting it in one go. If I keep my door closed a little longer and open the window, most of the smell should have dissipated before the staff start moving around.
“So she walks into Miriam’s office?—”
“Will you tell that bedtime story to me every night?” Cass says, beaming up at me with a goofy grin. About halfway through the retelling he settled down onto my bed, head resting on his hands.
“Sure,” I say through a chuckle. “But now you have to get out of here.” My eyes move to the digital alarm clock. “Because this really is the worst time for us to have to try and explain shit.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He pushes up onto his elbows, but then he pauses. “Hey, Zach?”
I pause, rendered frozen by the hesitation in his voice. “What?”
“If you were fucked in the head, do you think you’d know it right away?”
My hackles rise, but I do my best to keep my expression disinterested. “Like, if you went insane?”
“Yeah, sure. Like that. Do you think you’d know?”
I bring up my leg, but I put it down when I realize I was going to start rubbing my ankle. “It depends. If you’re schizo, then probably not. Because it’s so real to you, and you’d commonly start to disassociate.”
“So your friends wouldn’t pick up on it either?” he adds.
We’ve all learned a few things about the human mind. While I find it fascinating enough to possibly get my Masters in it one day, the Brotherhood approach it like other guys might football. Something we’re all familiar with, and it passes the time.
“Depends on the level of the delusions you suffer. Bipolar, that’s a different story. Relationships are the first to suffer, because you’re not exactly antisocial. Borderline?—”
“I almost fucked her.”
My head dips forward before I can straighten my neck. “Her…Trinity?” My eyebrows shoot up to my fucking hairline.
After I specifically fucking forbade him from?—
“It was before you said anything. She just got here.” Cassius scrapes his nails over his buzz cut. “Before we knew she was…important.”
I force myself to take a deep breath. “But you didn’t, right?”
He stays quiet.
“Right ?”
“I almost did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then we’re fine.”
I didn’t say he was fine. He wasn’t.
None of us were.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Yeah, but, fuuuck. I almost …”
My skin goes numb. I wasn’t listening right. I thought he was feeling guilty about my command not to sleep with Trinity before we’d figured out if she were a threat or not…but that wasn’t it, was it?
“Cass.”
“Yeah, I fucking know.” He sits up in a rush. “Jesus.” He scratches at his scalp with his nails.
I put a hand on his knee. “That doesn’t mean you’re…”
What the fuck am I supposed to say? He almost raped her, and I’m supposed to tell him everything’s okay? I might sound like I know shit, but I don’t have a fucking clue if this means he’s a cunt hair away from becoming a serial rapist or if he’s as frustrated as the rest of us.
Would anyone know?
Is the brain truly that predictable?
Now that we have the vague approximations of blueprints from deviants like Gacy and Bundy, can human nature honestly be read like a fucking deck of cards?
“Let’s…we’re just taking this one step at a time, all right?”
That was our motto back then when we were holed up in that cold, rat-infested basement.
One day at a time.
Dawn was our alarm clock. The Universe’s equivalent of a reset button. When dawn crept in through those gap-toothed boards and ran a slow scan down the dusty floor where they kept us…it was a new day.
A day filled with possibilities.
And always, a day filled with horror.