2. Two
Two
Toni
Today was the first day in a very long time that didn’t start and end with me puking my guts up.
Sure, I was still locked in a cage of my father’s making for a little while longer.
And sure, that cage had windows that looked out from the penthouse of his building over West Barrett.
It also had a sickeningly pink bed with frilly pillows that made me want to vomit all over again, and a door that occasionally opened.
But that didn’t change the fact that it was still a cage.
Or make it any easier to ignore the fact that I was locked in from the outside, and only my father, Francis, or their fucking henchman, Mikhael, had a key.
The four walls of this room–also a disgusting shade of pink–had been my prison since last August. My father no longer used me in all the sick ways he used to, but he still got off on control.
He chose my clothes, what and when I ate, and the occasions when I was allowed to leave.
The only thing he didn’t seem to have any interest in controlling, at least not completely, was my brother.
Less than a week after Francis forced me to leave Agonde, I woke in the middle of the night to the feeling of hot breath on the back of my neck and my own brother whispering his sick fucking desires against my hair.
Ever since, sleep had been hard to come by and fractured when it had.
Because, like clockwork, most nights, Francis would unlock the door, creep inside, and proceed to use me however he saw fit.
Just like he did so long ago, not long after that summer he spent with our father.
He came back different. My twin, the playmate of my youth, was replaced with something, someone much more broken.
I just swapped one sick fuck for another.
The only way I knew our father still had him leashed, at least a little, was that he never took it as far as he could have, as far as he whispered he wanted to.
That, and the fact that there were some nights he never showed up.
I had no idea why. My only guess was that our father sent him somewhere, gave him some task that I’m sure was just as sick as what he did to me.
Those were the nights I lived for, dreamt of, every single day, during each ungodly hour I was forced to be in their presence at all those damn press conferences.
In those early months, behind every smile was a prayer that the night that followed would be one where I was left in peace.
Those rare nights, and my new classes at West Barrett U, were the only things that kept me from going completely insane.
That was, until him. My best friend. My hero. My Xavier. He found his way to me. And though it didn’t change my circumstances all that much, he gave me a lifeline. A way to reach him outside the bars of my cage, metaphorically at least.
Jack Walker just gave me another one. His job offer. I have no idea why my father agreed to it, but it was a way out of these four pink walls, out of my brother’s lecherous stare and back to the place I loved more than anything.