CHAPTER TWELVE #3
After a few moments, he expects some violent retaliation because it’s a low thing to do and all the men he’s spat on in the past really did not take it well.
One of Kade’s earliest stab wounds is from this exact manoeuvre.
But no violence follows it. Lachlan doesn’t even close his eyes, doesn’t wipe it away.
He wears the spit, uncaring, undeterred, leans down, patient as ever, and says, ‘What did I teach you about pride, Jules?’
Something flutters inside. A stirring of delicate, skeletal wings, paper-thin like dead petals, but it’s a tickly sensation and Kade can’t help but squirm.
‘Why don’t you remind me,’ he utters, breathless, just needs a few seconds to gather his strength, ‘Daddy?’
It works.
Lachlan blinks, taken aback, hurt, angry.
Spitting in his face did nothing, but that word got him right below the belt.
Kade throws the full weight of his lower body upward to knock Lachlan off. He grapples the former bodyguard, viciously wrestles him down and punches his face over and over until it’s bloody, bruised, broken.
Lachlan puts up no fight at all, he lies there, taking it.
Kade can’t stop.
Pride goeth.
Your mind will always think it’s better than your body. Your body can’t feel pride, only your mind can. Disconnect the two. Pride goeth before destruction. Always remember that.
Pride goeth.
‘Kade.’
Pride.
Goeth.
He can’t stop hitting him.
A knuckle breaks.
His skin splits.
His lungs scream.
‘Kade!’
It’s not Lachlan, it’s Luca.
Luca pulls him off.
Drags him away.
Kade is breathing so hard it has voice in it, wildly feral noises spilling free like an animal deprived of the feast from his kill, only Lachlan isn’t dead and Kade isn’t an animal.
He drops to his knees.
Luca holds him tight, the pair far enough away that Kade can’t touch Lachlan anymore but close enough to see it clearly when Lachlan’s face begins to sew itself together, even while bleeding, and he stares up at the ceiling, breathing shallow while it happens.
One of his eyes requires more healing than the rest and Kade sees eye fibres latching to knit and pull and form.
Luca gags, doesn’t like eyes, but Kade is horribly fascinated.
After less than a minute, it’s done.
Lachlan rolls onto all fours and spits blood on the mat.
Then he gets up, walks to Kade. Luca’s arm tightens around his middle, but all Lachlan does is offer his hand. Kade allows himself to be pulled upright.
‘Feel better?’
No. ‘Yeah.’
‘Good.’
?
They clean up in the shower room.
Lachlan’s nose healed crooked, so after washing the blood from his face he has to stand in front of the mirror and break it back into place himself.
Kade wraps his hand afterwards. The damage is mostly superficial as long as he avoids hitting anything especially hard for the next few days.
It was reckless, stupid, but in the moment, he genuinely couldn’t stop himself.
Lachlan winces slightly as the cartilage of his nose clicks when pressed.
‘Ahh, fuck! That always hurts.’
He looks at Kade in the mirror, who shrugs. ‘You expect an apology?’
‘I’m not that stupid.’
‘You fight well,’ Kade grants. ‘Good blend.’
‘Yeah, you too. You’ve picked up a lot.’ Lachlan rinses the last of the blood away, then he pats himself dry with a small hand towel and faces Kade.
His hair came loose in the fight. His body has no marks on it beyond patches of red skin.
His face is splotchy, like he’s recovering from a teenage blush fit.
The eye Kade popped, newly healed, is still blood-red.
It’s maybe the only lasting injury he can see.
He asks, ‘If shit like this is possible, why doesn’t everyone do it?’
Lachlan shrugs, leaning against the counter, drying his wrists. ‘Fuck if I know. You want to run your tests now?’
‘They’re not my tests but yeah.’
‘You’re gonna be there?’
‘Why, you scared?’
‘Just no point if you’re not there.’
‘What if I leave and tell you to stay away?’
‘I don’t think you want me to do that.’
‘What if I order you to?’
‘Kade.’
‘Don’t say my name like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you know me.’
‘I know you, Kade. Skin and bones and that brilliant fucking mind.’
‘I’m more than bones, and I don’t know you.’
‘You’re the only reason I’m here.’
‘To try and make me remember a life that’s not my own.’
‘I know you felt something out there.’
‘Turned on from fighting you, maybe,’ Kade fronts, determined to swerve.
‘Nothing new there, sweetheart.’
Kade goes fuzzy around the edges, soft in a way he’s never felt before because softness is weakness and weakness gets you killed, that’s always been his… understanding of… fuck. He looks away, bites the inside of his cheek hard. The pain helps ground him. Nothing. It’s nothing.
Sweetheart.
It’s nothing.
Jaw tight, he gives Lachlan a flat stare and recovers fast. ‘Fuck you.’
Lachlan clears his throat. ‘Let’s do these tests, then.’
?
The tests take place in a medical room on the fourth floor.
Cole and Finn oversee the testing while armed guards stand watch on either side of Lachlan’s chair. Luca joins Kade near the back of the room and, while the tests get underway, the two of them speak quietly off to the side.
‘How are you doing?’
‘Great, you?’
‘Peachy keen, my love aside from the weirdo immortal over there.’
‘Shut it,’ Kade says with zero heat. ‘Word from the boss?’
‘Nothing. Are we gonna talk about your very sexy fight?’
‘Were his eyeball feelers sexy?’
‘Didn’t dent your tent, so you tell me,’ Luca snickers.