CHAPTER 53
Riven
Animal I Have Become - Three Days Grace
The water has long since cooled down, but neither of us moves.
I have to admit—but never out loud—that it's nice that this bastard carried me and washed my hair.
The steam is almost gone.
My index finger traces the muscle in his leg as it twitches beneath my touch.
“Why are you like this, Evren?”
He lifts his head out of my hair. “The fuck do you mean?”
“I mean…” I shift, untangle myself, and turn to face him, making the water slosh around us. “What the hell happened to you for you to be so fucked up in the head?”
His eyes narrow, his jaw clenches.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
He sighs and rubs his face hard before running a wet hand through his hair, slicking it back.
His cheekbone implant reflects his bathroom light.
“The truth?”
I nod and cross my arms over my chest.
“I've always been like this.” He shrugs. “Always moving, always fighting to the death.”
My eyes widen, and I frown.
I don't quite get what he means by always fighting.
Since what age?
“What?”
“You heard me.” His voice drops to a low tone, making my skin crawl. “The first person I murdered was over a fucking piece of bread and water. I was six, he was ten.”
I scramble back instinctively before realizing what I'm doing, shocked by the revelation.
“Wh-what? Six?” I ask incredulously
It's mind-bogglingly young, I can't wrap my head around it.
What the fuck is wrong with him? I knew he was violent and a psychopath from day one, but six years old?
It's disturbing on another level.
“Don't be surprised,” he says with a chilling smile. “You know what I am. But if you want the story, I'll tell you—not because I owe you anything, but because you asked.”
My body tenses, there's a mix of danger and safety in the air.
I can’t even process how deeply, unsettling he is.
“So, I'm a Below, right? Born and raised in that hell.” he continues as he stands up and steps out into the room.
He takes a towel and secures it at his hips with a knot.
The sight of the water trickling over his body, across his tattoos, and disappearing beneath the towel hanging low on his hips makes my mouth go dry, and my legs shift together.
But this isn't the fucking time.
He rests his hips against the bathroom counter and plants a palm on either side of him.
“My parents loved me, but my father drank day and night, came home, and beat the shit out of me.” He rolls his eyes like it's normal. “Not because he wanted to, but because, one, I never obeyed, and two, because down there, baby girl, you either survive or you die.”
I push myself up and step out too, grab a towel and wrap it tightly around myself.
Evren suddenly appears behind me, his hands settling on my waist, and before I can react, he lifts me and sets me on the counter, stepping between my legs.
I let out a soft yelp as the cold counter touches my bare skin.
He looks at me, places his hands on either side of my hips, caging me in as he leans closer.
His lower body pulls back slightly while his face lowers until it's level with mine.
“How could you know anyway?” He leans in even closer. I can feel his breath on my face. “You're an Upper, a rich girl. You never went without food or water, despite your family.”
My eyes narrow. I tense, but I make no move to push him back.
Because he's right.
I never had to worry about food or water, not even once, even if my parents hated me and raised me out of obligation to protect their social image.
“So, the ten-year-old bastard…” He pauses. “Basically, I found a piece of bread and a giant bottle of water. A fucking miracle down there.”
He pauses again.
“And I was about to bring it back home when that fucker came and beat me up. I fought like hell, I was almost unconscious even if I was used to getting beaten up, but if I wanted to drink clean water, if I wanted my parents to, I needed to act, or I was simply dead.”
He reaches out and plucks a damp strand of hair plastered to the corner of my mouth.
The gesture is too casual for that kind of story.
“So, I looked around, saw a steel pipe, grabbed it, pushed myself up and smashed his face until it was nothing but a pancake against the ground.”
I grimace.
I can picture it, and I want to vomit. My stomach flips, and my hands fly to my mouth.
This is sick.
This is completely beyond anything I can comprehend.
“Did you like it?” I mutter, the words muffled behind my hands.
“The first time? No, I threw up right on his body.” He shakes his head dismissively. “But the more I beat people up and survived, the more I liked it.”
My heart stops and my eyes widen.
“I'm not pretending to be normal. I am who I am. I learned how to survive, and it fucks your mind up.” He brushes my bottom lip with his thumb. “You learned to survive your world in your own way. I had to survive mine, simple as that. And strange for you maybe? I don't regret any of my actions.”
He straightens up, steps back, turns his back on me, and walks toward the bathroom door.
He pauses at the threshold and looks at me over his shoulder.
I follow him with my eyes until they settle on his back.
Evren’s back has a large gothic cybersigilism tattoo spread across his shoulder blades and traces the line of his spine in a sharp, symmetrical design.
It resembles fractured wings, corrupted circuitry, or a ritualistic cybernetic mark etched into flesh.
Thin, aggressive strokes branch outward and downward, balancing symmetry with controlled irregularity.
Instead of ending at his shoulders, the design flows seamlessly into the tattoos covering his upper arms.
“If you don't like it, if it's too much to swallow…” He grins. “Run, little troublemaker.”
With that, he leaves the bathroom, leaving me alone with the weight of his revelation.
With that chilling, terrifying grin.
I stay there for—I don't even know how long.
I'm processing his past, comparing it to mine. Not as a competition, but because of how enormous the gap is between our worlds.
I was born rich. I definitely wasn't loved by my parents or spoiled, but they fed me.
Evren's parents raised him to survive. The Lower Layers were advanced—not as much as the Upper Layers but from what he said, if you didn't have any credits, you survived by any means necessary.
A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of how creepy, how dangerous, how awful his life was.
I jump off the counter once I feel more composed and step out.
Evren is slumped on the couch, his legs spread, a Nitro can in one hand as he sips from it while staring at the Smart Panel on the wall.
I walk quietly behind the couch, right behind him, the pads of my feet leaving damp footprints.
He doesn't even glare at me.
I open my mouth to speak, but for once, I have nothing to say.
What do you even tell a murderer who just revealed his past to you? Someone who became a murderer because he had to but also enjoys it?
I'm fucked, he is fucked.
Completely fucked.
“Still here?” He let his head falls back on the back of the couch to be able to meet my eyes “So, the monster it is?”
“You’re fucking insane, you’re a psychopath, you are a monster,” I sigh completely resigned “But I rather be near the monster who knows he is than one pretending he isn't.”
I see his eyes starting to glow. My hand moves before my mind can catch up, and I slam my palm over his eyes, covering them.
“But,” I snarl, “it doesn't mean I like you. I don't—at all. I genuinely think you're deranged, but you told me to use you as a tool for my brother, so I'll use the monster.”
His free hand lifts and slips between my fingers, just enough to part them so one eye can look at me.
“Is that a proposal?”
My face flushes bright red, and I slap my hand back over his eyes.
“No!” I shout and squeal at the same time. I don't even know how that's possible. “Are you an idiot?!”
He laughs, a low sound as dark as his soul probably.
It’s not the manic laugh he has when he is amused.
“Yes.” He pauses “I'm your monster then.”