seventeen
“Did you kill someone?”- Callisto
Friday Afternoon…
“I think I hear Leo's bike.” My ears perk up at the noise. It’s definitely Leo's bike, and I would be lying if I said I haven’t been on high alert listening for it over the past few hours.
Nico and I have spent the day talking. I didn’t realize how little I actually knew about the man that has served as my personal assistant for months. Guilt sits heavy on my chest. I had considered Nico a friend, yet I never bothered to ask him about his past.
“I definitely hear something.” Nico looks in the direction of the back door.
A few minutes later, Leo walks in. I let out a surprised gasp at his appearance.
He is covered in what could only be blood.
Dark red and drying on his skin and clothes.
I quickly scan Leo's body, looking for any potential injuries, but he seems unharmed.
I don't think he’s hurt. He’s not limping or leaning on anything but worry still knots my gut.
“What happened? Are you okay? Is someone hurt? Why aren’t you in the hospital?”
I fire off the questions rapidly, my brain trying to process the image in front of me.
Daron stands behind Leo, but unlike Leo, Daron’s clothes remain spotless.
However, his eyes look tired, as if he has had a long day.
His mouth is open as he looks at Leo, seemingly unsure of how to answer me.
The two men exchange glances before Leo sighs.
“We’re fine,” is all he says, and my brows crease together in confusion.
If it isn’t their blood, then whose blood is it?
I look at Leo again, scrutinizing his appearance this time, the worry evaporating, turning into something else entirely.
When the realization hits me, it sends the room spinning, my stomach churning with it. I’m going to be sick.
“Did you kill someone?” I swallow the bile that’s rising in my throat.
I don’t even need confirmation because I know it’s true.
That’s the only plausible explanation if the blood didn’t come from any of Leo's group.
There is too much of it. Someone has to be dead.
Leo killed someone, and now he stands in front of me, like he was last night.
I know that Leo has killed before, but this makes it feel all too real.
Forgiving him for his past is one thing, but pretending the present isn’t real is entirely different.
“Nico, I think it’s time we get going. C’mon,” Daron interrupts, his voice hesitant, as if his parents are arguing in front of him.
I don't take my eyes off of Leo, as Nico slips past me.
His warm hand envelopes my shoulder for a few short seconds, then the door clicks shut, leaving me alone with Leo once again.
“Did you kill someone?” I ask again, my tone firm and unwavering.
Leo's body language doesn’t change at all.
He doesn't stiffen at the question. He doesn't gasp and deny the accusation.
He doesn't physically respond in any way that I am expecting.
Nothing. He looks up at me with wide steel blue eyes, blinking every few minutes.
A wave of disgust rolls through every cell of my body. Disgust with myself for ever thinking that Leo was anything other than a cold-hearted criminal. How could I pity him when he killed someone in cold blood then came home with it still drying on his clothes and skin?
“Not now, Callisto. I’m tired, and I have somewhere to be,” Leo finally responds, his voice wavering as if drained, like a car running out of gas slowly. Leo doesn’t say anything else, turns to walk up the stairs.
For a split second, I almost let him go.
It would be easier. I could let him go and not demand an explanation.
I don't need one, after all. It won’t change the fact that Leo murdered someone.
Taking a life is wrong, no matter what. Letting him go upstairs and never speaking to him again would be smart, but my heart pulls toward Leo as he leaves.
“Wait. You can’t just walk away from this conversation, Leo. You have to answer my question.” I follow along behind Leo, the smell of iron filling my nostrils churning my stomach once again.
“Yes, I can. I don’t owe you anything.” Leo opens the door to his room and walks in. I pause for a split second, having never been in his room. Entering feels like a violation of his privacy, an absurd thought when Leo stole my entire life the day, he kidnapped me.
I take a deep breath and follow him into the room. Leo turns toward me, eyes squinted, as he props the back pack he was carrying against the night stand. “Can you please leave so I can get cleaned up? I have somewhere to be.”
“No, I’m not leaving until I get answers,” I insist, finally taking my eyes off Leo allowing them to wander around the room I have been so curious about since I arrived at the house.
It’s clean, like the rest of the house, with the same Beachwood theme.
The bed is draped with a white and blue duvet, and looks soft to the touch, warm on cold nights.
Beside the bed is a built-in bookshelf, lined with books on psychology and leadership.
I am a bit shocked by the titles, having read a few myself.
“Fine. I don’t care,” Leo concedes with a defeated sigh, and I almost feel sorry for him. He’s had an extremely long day, given his appearance.
He has dark circles around his blood shot eyes, as if he spent the day rubbing them or maybe even crying.
His hair is a tangled mess, his already dark clothes covered in blood, whatever jacket he was wearing long gone.
He looks beaten, and curiosity pulls at my brain as I wonder what had occurred today.
Leo isn’t always pleasant, but his mood feels off to me.
The energy he is radiating feels cold and distant, which is weird because Leo normally fills the room with light.
I can’t bear to look at him because my fingers itch to grab him and hug him, to comfort him in some way. I can’t, though. I want to hold on to my disgust and anger because whoever he hurt deserves that, don’t they? I should feel remorse and sadness for a life lost today, but I don't.
When I turn again, I find that Leo has disappeared.
I look around, seeing what can only be a bathroom, so I walk in there, finding Leo at the sink, his eyes cast down.
He hasn’t answered my previous question, so maybe he didn’t kill anyone.
He could have saved someone, and I am jumping to conclusions.
“Whose blood is on your hands, Leo?” I ask, but he doesn't look up right away. My heart constricts. My stomach falls.
“Why does it matter, Callisto?” Leo answers my question with one of his own. My mouth opens and closes a few times, trying to decide if it has any words or not.
I should be furious. I should turn around and walk away.
But I can't move. My eyes track the subtle, violent tremor in his hands, and the way he completely avoids his own reflection in the mirror.
There is a haunted, stormy hollow in his gray eyes, like the ghosts of whatever happened today are dancing right in his pupils
“I just…” I pause but my thought falls apart half way through. Leo turns the water off, and the silence somehow makes my chaotic mind even louder.
“You don’t actually want to know, Callisto. You just want something clean to justify your world view.” Leo’s back is to me, and he pulls his shirt over his head, revealing bulging muscle stretched over what seems to be permanently pale skin.
When he turns, he reveals more tattoos and scars.
My eyes follow the script across his collarbones, reading the Gaelic phrase.
The lion’s head pendant rests in the hollow of his collarbone, the diamond in one of its eyes winking at me in the low light.
Art. Leo's half naked body is art, and I don't know what to do with this information.
I shake my head, focusing my thoughts on the current conversation. “I need to know, Lee. Please. Whose blood is that? Did you kill someone?”
“Why do you need to know? So, you can tell me how horrible of a person I am? So, you can belittle me for the life I lead?” Leo hurls the shirt in the large tub, followed by his pants.
“I-” I start, but am cut off by Leo, who has turned toward me again, his eyes drilling into mine.
“Or maybe you want to lecture me on morals and explain why you are the epitome of moral standards while I could never be anything but a terrible person that deserves all of the horrible things done to me? Hmm? Is that it? Is that what you want?”
Leo’s expression is accusing, as he grips tightly onto the rim of the sink.
It’s a slap to the face. Rage rushes to fill the shock.
Why do I always let him do this? He hurt someone, so I shouldn’t feel sorry for him.
“Yes. Exactly because if you killed someone, it’s wrong. It’s disgusting. How can you live with yourself? No wonder you can’t even look yourself in the eye. You know you were wrong. You took a life, Leo. Probably just hours ago,
then you come home covered in blood and try to make me feel like-- like sh…”
I pause, not believing the word that almost left my mouth. I blame Leo for this.
I continue, “Like crap for being upset about it. For asking you whose blood it is because I’m sure they deserved more than you gave them. A name. A face. They had a family. They have people that will miss them, yet you took that away from them and why? Because you were told to.”
My breathing has picked up, each breath coming heavy and hard, after my rant, but it feels good.
“Fuck you, Callisto. You don’t know shit about the man that I killed today,” Leo spits, shoving his hands under a stream of water so hot that steam rises from the basin. He doesn't even wince as the skin turns raw under the heat.
“I know everything looks black and white from the top of that high fucking horse you’re always on. If you would come off it, then maybe, just maybe, you would see the world for what it is. If you’d care to look closer,
you will see that most of what you consider black and white is actually a shade of gray that you refuse to acknowledge the existence of.”
“There is good and evil, Leo. Killing someone is evil, no matter how you try to paint it.”
I cross my arms, forcing my posture to remain rigid even as my insides churn.
Red-tinted water circles the drain. A life wiped from the earth in less time than it takes him to scrub the remnants of it off his knuckles.