seven -Brynn-
seven
-Brynn-
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, like if I look at it long enough, the pieces of the puzzle will finally fall into place.
He can’t be right, can he?
Ares killed Elias—I know he did. There was the sword wound. The timing. All clues lead straight to Kharon and to Ares.
Maybe Elias used a fake identity, as I did. That’s certainly what must’ve happened. There’s a high chance of that. Ares probably was his killer, he just doesn’t know it.
Though there’s that shadow of doubt. That what if Ares really didn’t kill him, that hope planted in my heart, hiding in every corner of my soul from the moment I understood Ares—the man.
It’s too late to follow him now. I already heard the door closing behind him as he made it back into the house, and I’m too tired or maybe too proud to go after him.
What if?... What the fuck if?
I stare at the ceiling for another half-hour, trying to rethink everything that happened. I mean, even if Ares didn’t kill him, his game did.
Why the fuck didn’t Elias just go after someone else, or choose a different kind of investigation? Not something as dangerous as this.
It’s been two hours now, and I still can’t sleep. From the way my heart is racing, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep. Not until I find out the truth. I’ve got nothing else to lose anyway. I’ve already lost myself.
It’s only a matter of abandoning my ego and admitting that there’s a chance I was wrong. Could I be wrong? Fuck, I’ve never wanted so badly to be wrong in my entire life.
I get out of bed and make it across the hallway. The effort even greater than before, the limping even more obvious, and it’s not just because of my leg. My entire body is sore. The right kind of sore. The intoxicating kind.
Ignoring the shards of glass that still cover the stairs, I make it up and check the door that leads to his house. Of course, it's locked. But that doesn’t stop me from knocking again. Harder this time. Louder. I’m not gonna leave until he answers. Until I get my answers.
I need to know what really happened. I need to know I haven’t been chasing a false lead for almost a year... Or maybe in a way, I wish I had.
I knock again and again. And a-fucking-gain. He’ll probably have to kill me to stop me, because I can’t live with this uncertainty any longer.
“Ares, open up. I know you’re there.” I call out, my forehead leaning against the door.
There’s no answer. I knew there wouldn’t be. But I also know I’m not giving up. “Ares, we need to talk….” The same silence settles after the sound of my own voice.
I go on and on until I find myself saying something I never thought I was capable of.
“Ares… please.” I don’t remember ever asking anyone for anything.
I don’t mean demanding. I really mean asking.
Sure, I’m polite enough to answer yes, please when someone asks me if I want my order to go, or if I want my ice cream in a cup, or on a cone, but I don’t remember ever saying please.
Not when I was passed from foster family to foster family. Not even in my days at the asylum.
Yet I’m doing it with him, because I feel a weight pressing on my shoulders that’s going to kill me if I don’t find out the truth. That gets me to say it again. “Please,” a word that’s never belonged in my vocabulary.
Somehow, I think Ares knows it, because it turns out to be the magic word that opens the damn door.
I straighten my stance when I come face-to-face with him. I wanna be brave, but right now he looks so imposing, his sharp eyes lack any emotion, maybe even shadowed by a trace of disgust. That only makes me feel even smaller, maybe even more broken than I truly am.
He steps aside and makes room for me to enter the hallway, then starts walking toward the living room without even glancing back.
I follow him at a much slower pace, but I can’t fight the feeling that I’m a puppy he just let out of their cage. I was so sick of being down there and watching the same walls for all those weeks that even this damn hallway feels like freedom.
He takes a seat on the couch as soon as he enters the living room. I follow, but choose to set a little physical distance. I take the armchair, even if he didn’t invite me to sit. I can’t stand for too long anyway.
Ares grabs a laptop that was sitting on the coffee table, his jaw tight with anger, his temples pulsing, muscles twitching like the devil inside is crawling beneath his skin, raging to be set free. Raging to consume me.
“Start talking,” he grunts, opening the laptop, like he’s giving me an ultimatum.
It’s not the best time to have an attitude, and I’m not even sure what I should tell him.
Still, I have to start somewhere. “Elias was… investigating your game,” I say, much more sheepishly than I intended, watching Ares arch an eyebrow.
“A cop?” he asks, looking at me like I have just crossed to the other side of the fence.
“No, not a cop. He was a journalist… aspiring to be one at least.”
The same scowl is still there, printed on his face, maybe just slightly more relaxed around the edges. Probably from the relief of knowing I’m not working with the police.
“You said you didn’t kill any Elias’, but I suspect he had an alias. He probably didn’t enter the game with his own name.” My fingers tap nervously on the leather arm of the chair, I don’t want to seem this invested, but I can’t stop myself from being an emotional wreck.
“He had inside help… like you did,” his tone grows even more dangerous. Somehow, I know we’re gonna get to the part where he asks me to give up whoever helped me get in. Though, I’ll never do that. I’d never jeopardize 404 and take the easy way out.
“I guess he did,” I cut him short, knowing this isn’t something that will be swept under the rug. He’ll want information about who helped me, sooner or later.
His nostrils flare like he’s holding back from blowing through the roof but quickly regains focus on the current subject. “Show me a picture of him.” Ares turns the laptop toward me so I can look Elias up online.
Thing is, there’s nothing about him online. No social media accounts, no profiles on dating apps or whatever else. Not since we escaped the asylum. I was always arguing with Elias about this. I mean, he was aiming to become famous, but he couldn’t really show his face.
He had decided when the time came, he’d probably use the magic touch of an aesthetician.
It’s the era of transformation, and a few milliliters of filler can change a person completely.
Besides, after two years out of the asylum, he was almost a different person.
He wasn’t the skinny-ass looking nerd, who ran away with me that day.
He was hitting the gym, gaining weight, but mostly gaining manly features that defined the strong lines of his face.
Add a new hairstyle and he was definitely on the right track.
Though still no social media presence, yet. We couldn’t risk it. Not so soon.
This makes Ares’s request to find his picture online pretty much impossible.
But I do have a picture of him. “Can I have my phone?” I ask, pushing the laptop back. “He doesn’t have anything online.”
Ares shoots me another glare, more confused and angrier this time, but disappears down the hallway for a few seconds, then returns with my phone.
There’s an eerie silence as he returns, like his steps foreshadow something final. A verdict to whatever the entire last year has been about.
Still, before I get a chance to brace myself, Ares turns the phone screen to face me.
The picture I took with Elias at the carnival stares back at me.
I haven’t looked at it in months. An entirely different me and his vibrant blue eyes that are now replaced by my last memory of him. Cold. Lifeless. Haunting.
I fight back a few tears, biting the inside of my cheeks, so I won’t show so much weakness. I never used to show weakness in front of anyone, and still Ares has already seen the most fragile parts of me.
I raise my eyes to look up at him, trying to understand how he knew about this.
I still can’t figure out how he found this exact picture.
But before I can ask, he gives me the answer.
“This is the only picture you had of anyone else in your phone. I put two and two together.” He pauses, fully aware that he’s torturing me by holding back.
I swallow the knot in my throat, my teeth clench, my hands grip the armchair harder, so I won’t start shaking. “Did you…” I stop, unable to even say the words.
I thought I’d feel rage, anger, but right now, I’m just afraid of what his answer might be.
As if to make things worse, he takes his damn time giving me one. He just looks at me, showing no emotion, no line marking his face like he’s made of stone.
Chills trail down my spine, my lips trembling as I ask again, “Did you?”
His eyes suddenly grow darker, like he wasn’t expecting me to break the dead silence between us. At least not so soon.
“Does it even matter now?” he answers me with a question.
I hate being answered with a question, but this one awakens me.
I’m lost either way. Yes, it does matter, but I guess now I should secretly pray he’s the one who killed Elias.
That would give me a path, a resolution…
a reason. Because if he didn’t, there’s nothing else.
I don’t mean my revenge. I mean, what’s between us. And I’d be the one who ruined it.
I can hear my heart beating; haunting, dooming like I’m living out my final hours.
His gaze still doesn’t betray any hint of what happened. To prolong my agony, he pours himself a glass of whiskey without even asking me if I want one. I’ve wronged him. I don’t deserve him being polite, I know that much.
He takes a sip, knowing I’m boiling on the inside. Then he sets his glass on the table, the sound of glass on glass scraping against my eardrums. In reality, it can’t be that loud, but I’m too on edge for my own good.
“You should go back to your room,” Ares says, his cold voice almost otherworldly.