Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
YORICK
Present
“Yorick, why did you kill Lou?” Morpheus asks, acting like he’s just as shocked about the whole thing as I am. “Was this your plan? Did you intend to stab me with this knife and kill her and my brother?”
“W-What? No! She’s not… we have to help her,” I protest as I try to reach for her, but Morpheus holds me back.
“It’s too late now,” he says, hands tightening on me.
Panic rushes through me when I realize how fucked I am. “I’m not an idiot,” I whisper. “This was all a setup. You set this all up.” I try to push away from him, but all I can manage is to turn to face him. “Why did you do this? All of this?”
All of his kindness. All of his soft words.
It was all fake.
Of course it was. Because that’s all that’s ever left for someone like me.
“Yorick, I would be careful. You just killed my brother’s wife of a thousand years… right now, I’m the only one who can save you,” Morpheus says as he presses the poisoned blade against my chest, digging it in until I can feel the tip piercing my flesh.
“Why would I even bother having you save me, just to be treated like shit again and again? There’s no fucking use for someone like me.”
Morpheus laughs and it’s such a cruel sound out of a man who mere hours ago promised that he could give me everything I wanted. I knew it was all lies, but part of me hoped it could be true.
“Do not test me,” he warns while he presses the tip in farther, pearls of blood running down my throat. “I will not kill you, but I will make you wish you were dead if you do.”
I’m abruptly yanked back and pressed against the wall before Atticus steps protectively in front of me. “No, you won’t.”
Morpheus laughs. “Look at yourself, Atticus. You can’t even save yourself. You’re not going to be saving anyone.”
Atticus’s grip tightens on me, keeping me behind him. “If you wanted us dead, you’d have already killed us. What is it that you want from us?” he asks.
A grin splits Morpheus’s face, and my hand reaches out to the bloody shirt in front of me. My fingers wrap around it, holding on to it desperately as I wonder how many times Atticus has saved me now.
Because no matter how many times I run away, fate draws us back together.
“So, you finally understand, Atticus,” Morpheus says.
“I love how much you care about Yorick. You did a good job making me question whether you still had any feelings left for him until I saw the way you reacted when I sat next to my sweet little Yorick in that town hall. It was always so hard to get a rise out of you, no matter how many people I killed. But I saw the way your body tensed when I touched what you think belongs to you.”
I think back to the town hall where Atticus hadn’t even bothered to turn around. How could Morpheus possibly believe that Atticus was concerned about me in that moment?
“You should have been more careful with this one. He was so easy to manipulate. How can you even care for such a foolish and weak man, Atticus? You’re going to throw it all away for him?”
“Just tell me what you fucking want to let him go.”
“Niles is going to tear the world apart looking for who killed his beloved. Sadly, I’m the only one with a recording showing that our dear Yorick did it.”
Atticus’s entire body is rigid. “What. Do. You. Want?”
“I want you to kill a man named Wick Anthony. I really can’t bother to do it myself, so you’re going to kill him for me. That’ll be simple enough.”
“If it was simple, you’d have done it yourself.”
Morpheus laughs. “Good luck. You’ll need it if Niles gets wind of who did this,” he says before disappearing.
My hand falls from Atticus’s shirt as he pulls away and looks down at Lou’s body.
“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I’d finally broken away from that asshole. I’d gotten away and now…”
Guilt eats through me at how foolish I’ve been. All of this is my fault. I’m smarter than this. I knew none of it was right. I knew that the care and attention Morpheus was giving me wasn’t something I deserved to have.
Atticus rushes into the bathroom and returns with a bottle of bleach. He pours it over her fingers, and I realize he’s trying to get rid of any hint of my blood that might be on her so that Niles can’t trace it back to me.
“I didn’t mean to kill her. Something was wrong with her. She wouldn’t stop attacking me,” I whisper.
Atticus says nothing as he speedily works and eventually just tosses what’s left of the bleach on her before grabbing my wrist.
“Let’s go.”
“Why should we do what he says?” I ask.
“He’ll kill you otherwise.”
“That’s fine if it keeps him from pulling you into this.”
Atticus jerks my wrist, tugging me into the hallway and out through the back door. He pulls me over to his car before damn near throwing me at it. “Why the fuck are you dragging your feet? Do you want to get caught?”
He opens the car door and pushes me into the passenger seat before climbing into the driver’s seat. The car takes off while I sit in stunned silence. Even as he leaves the city, I can’t find any words to help.
About twenty minutes of silence is all I can take before I open the car door and just jump out. My landing is shit and I hit the ground on my hands and knees, then get up and begin walking off into the trees, unable to stop myself from just… going.
I can hear the car squealing to a stop before Atticus is in front of me.
“What the fuck was that?” he demands.
I look up at him and stagger to a stop. “Funny, isn’t it? How much of a fucking fool I am. I just… I knew everything was wrong, and yet I wanted someone to care about me so much that I started to believe his words.”
He snaps, “I fucking care about you!”
I shake my head. “You wanted me to kill him, knowing that he’d kill me well before the poison set in! You don’t care about me enough to even want to keep me alive!”
“I never once wanted you to go off alone. I was well prepared to protect you the moment you stabbed him. And on top of that, I didn’t think you’d actually fucking do it! You’ve never done a single thing I’ve asked in nearly five hundred years; why the fuck would you start now?”
It hits me how right he is. I generally have never willingly done what he’s asked, so why did I choose to this time? I’m smarter than that. I know better than that… so why?
“Why is it that people only ever care about me when they want to use me? I’m only good for anyone if I have a use,” I say sadly.
Atticus reaches out and grabs my wrist. “I came for you the second I realized you left. I hunted all fucking night and I showed up. When I went to follow you to your room, Morpheus stopped me. He dragged me outside and fought me, leaving me too weak to try again. But the instant the sun went down, I came right back for you. I might not fucking dote on you, but I have saved your ass again and again. How many other people have I ever done that for? Do you think I’d let anyone else repeatedly steal from me?
You have been a menace since the day I met you, and still, every single time you come back into my life, I pull you right back in even though we both know I shouldn’t. ”
I bite my lip as I turn my head from him, hearing his words but struggling to accept them.
“Then why do you act like you don’t like me?
Why the fuck do I feel so lonely all the time?
” I sigh and close my eyes. “I’m being selfish and foolish.
And look at me fixating on something like this when I just fucking… was forced to kill someone.”
Atticus pulls me forward until I kind of smash against his chest. Then he gives me the most awkward hug of my life; it’s stiff and slightly painful, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to show people I care about them.”
I wrap my arms around him and bury my face against his shoulder. “I fucked up.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“How?”
“We’ve lived this long dealing with him. It’ll be okay.”
My fingers dig into the back of his shirt. “I know I told you that I didn’t want to go with you, but anytime he touched me or kissed me, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
He grabs my face so quickly that I’m not expecting it, and I whine when I’m ripped away from my hug I so desperately wanted. He squishes my cheeks as his eyes narrow. “He kissed you? Did he fuck you too?”
“You’re so angry! It’s not like you’re over here confessing your undying love to me.” I smack his hands away. “I want my hug back.”
“Well, I’m done hugging you if you’re off mauling that asshole,” he says, looking furious. Why the fuck is he so pissed about this? He’s spent hundreds of years trying to get rid of me!
“Why are you so mad?”
“I’m not just mad, I’m livid,” he growls.
“You’re the one who told me to stab him!”
“Like I said, I didn’t think you’d actually run off and do it alone!
Why the fuck would I think you’d go? You never go!
You’ve never done anything I’ve asked! You actually make a point to do the opposite!
I tell you to jump, and you turn around, steal all my shit, and fuck off for another year or two and only come back when that money’s run out! ”
I wrap my arms around him and cling tightly, not wanting him to pull away from me again. “I… I don’t know why I did what I did! I was feeling sad and thought if I did this, you guys would be like, ‘Wow, Yorick is amazing. I want to be best friends with him.’”
“Why are you basing your worth on something so fucking reckless? You wanted us to say that over your dead body?”
“Fuck if I know, Atticus!”
He shakes me a little and I’m confused why until he demands, “Did you fuck him?”
“We’re still on this? I thought we moved past this.”
“Did you or did you not?”
I pause when realization hits me, filling me with elation. “Are you jealous?” I breathe out.
“Fuck this. Fuck all of this,” he growls as he tries to peel me off.
“NO! Please, I’m sorry. I did not sleep with him. Of course I didn’t since I already couldn’t stop thinking about you every time he kissed me. Does this mean I love you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
I lift an eyebrow at the vicious man. Who is he to decide?