Chapter 15 RUNO
RUNO
I probably should have waited until a different day to enact this next big plan of mine, especially with my wounds still healing but for some reason, in my head, it had to be tonight.
The chill of the evening swept across my skin as I shoved a large freezer down the empty street, glad that that stupid curfew was still in effect.
No one to see me or pay me any mind. My arms burned, my breath coming in sharp gasps, but I kept going, maneuvering the damn thing toward my father’s house. Everything was fine.
Well, except for the fact that my head was a mess.
Finn: Why the hell did you steal one of Aeron’s freezers? You planning a fucking buffet?
Killian: Whatever it is, it’s stupid. You’re killing us with this.
Dark: What’s in it, Runo? Another body for Dad to clean up?
Daemon: Focus, idiot. This better be worth it.
I grunted, my shoulder slamming against the freezer to keep it moving. “Be glad I only stole one of the smaller ones. Fuck, this shit is heavy.”
They shut up so I could focus, my body screaming for relief as I wrestled it through the back way. It avoided the gates but that meant I introduced the fucking thing to weeds, wet grass, and gravel. I could feel blood seeping into my shirt but I couldn’t very well stop now.
By the time I got it to the basement door, shoving the freezer inside with a final push, I was completely spent. I flopped onto the ground, every inch of me in pain, the cold floor a small mercy against my burning skin.
Killian: Whatever your plan is, does it involve dying? Because we’re about to do that if you don’t take a fucking rest.
“We can rest in a bit. I had to amend the plan.”
Finn: Are you planning on cooking a feast or something? You could’ve taken something from the fridge. Is this payback for Aeron?
“Would you all shut up? I need to pass out.”
The stairwell light clicked on, a harsh glow cutting through the dark, and Dad’s voice echoed from the top. “Hello?”
Right, of course. The one man who was nosier than everyone else in my life. He would have heard me stumbling in and immediately thought to call into the darkness like the guy who always gets killed first in the movies. Hell, at least he didn’t start coming down the steps.
I grumbled some kind of curse and then shuffled to my feet, my body protesting as I stumbled toward the stairs to keep him from coming down. “Yeah?”
Dad stood at the top, his face drawn tight, his eyes widening as he took me in. “You look awful. Come up here.”
I did as he said, dragging myself into the kitchen and slumping into a chair at the table.
Dad followed in silence, hesitating only a moment before he started the inevitable freakout.
“How did you get so sliced up? Niles had no defensive wounds. Did… did someone do this to you? The Skinner? I saw the body, and it was…”
Dad abruptly cut himself off as he rushed toward the sink for warm water and washcloths. He returned and settled in a seat beside me before stripping me of my shirt. He let out a horrid gasp before starting on a small gash on my shoulder.
“It’s fine, I liked it.” Dad frowned as he continued and I just had to sigh. “What? It’s a sex thing.”
The fucker didn’t even laugh as he continued dabbing at the blood along my body. I realized that some of it probably wasn’t even mine since I hadn’t showered after putting a stake through Brent’s heart. He let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “Why did you come back here?”
I waited until he was satisfied from cleaning off the blood before reaching to drag my shirt back in.
He frowned the entire time and I didn’t realize until I felt the cold cling of blood seeping through my shirt and onto my skin.
That shit is uncomfortable. “Tyrone was being a little bitch and ruined dinner at Merchant’s house.
” Remembering to say the names everyone else knew was becoming more difficult.
I had almost slipped up with Tyrone when talking about Slash.
His eyes widened as he leaned back in his chair. “What?”
I snorted, the memory of Tyrone’s smug grin in Samael’s kitchen stoking my anger, his hazel eyes cutting through us like he already had us in cuffs.
“Your new bitch came over, asked for me, and then talked down to Merchant and everyone else. It was a bit much, so I came back here to get some sleep.”
Dad wrung out the cloth in the water and then placed it on the table. “But you look awful. Did he do something to you?”
I snorted again. “No, I told you it was a sex thing, and he didn’t do it.
I just need a warm shower and a bath. Fuck, I didn’t even get dinner.
” Well, I had but the one slice of pizza was doing fuck all to curtail my hunger of puzzling a goddamn chest freezer a few miles. I do not recommend that shit as cardio.
Dad stood to dump the water out before washing his hands and grabbing a few things from the fridge. “I can at least do that, and then we’re going to have a conversation. You are not going to use me like you did before. You can leave Primrose, or I’m going to have to turn you in. I won’t…”
My sudden laugh cut him off. “Dad, I’m going to use you however I damn well please, and you’re not going to do a damn thing about it because you can’t. Your fingerprints are all over these things, and I can twist the story however I need to.”
His face paled as he twisted to look at me, eyes glistening like he was seeing me for the first time. “Why are you doing this? What’s the point?”
Finn: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look that fragile.
Killian: He deserves whatever is coming to him. Wait, this is the plan, right? Please tell me fucking with Dad is the plan.
Dark: I’m all in for a little pain.
Daemon: As long as someone is getting fucked.
It was the first time we had all entirely been on the same page. I should have been terrified because that meant my alters were slowly melting into each other but I was more focused on the fact that everyone was excited Dad was going down.
I cleared my throat and set my elbow on the table before resting my chin on my inner palm.
“Do you remember all those years growing up that you paraded us around as the perfect family? How about the years after Mom got sick, and you used her diagnosis to gain sympathy? How about after that, when you fucking ignored her and stuck her in a hospital? She cried for you, wouldn’t eat, thinking you’d show up.
Hell, she died because you never once came to see her. She held out for so fucking long.”
Dad’s voice cracked, his hands clenching the loaf of bread and cheese he had pulled out. “And what, this is your way of getting back at me?”
He had said those words so many times before to me, asking me when it would be the end.
However, I had only been fucking around with him.
I hadn’t really had a plan. I hadn’t had the resources or the reach I did now.
“No, this is my way of saying fuck you to the system you built as I put you in the hell that you built for my mother.”