29. Don’t Be Naïve
29
DON’T BE NA?VE
REMIEL
I free you, Remiel.
I free you, Remiel.
I free you, Remiel.
I don’t want to be fucking free!
I want to be owned. Alive under his protection and under his skin because our sicknesses seek one another. Why the hell did he free me? Our bargain isn’t met! There’s still one name on my list, and now that Krypt has cut me loose, I’m feeling closer to the family curse than ever.
Vile House was empty when I searched it this morning, everyone having already forgotten about me since Krypt left. Left… just gone. Without a word or any sort of hint at when he’ll be back. It’s been four days, and no one will talk to me. Not even my brother.
I have no home. No friend but Cain. No fucking clue what is going on or why he freed me. Where is he? Is he safe? Did I do something to push him away?
Of course I did. I’m the pathetic idiot who fell for his rapist. I should have known from the beginning he’d never see me as anything more than an object to own. He treated me like shit, took me against my will, drugged me, and violated me. Krypt has made his intentions clear from the beginning. I’m a piece of property and nothing more. It’s my own fault for deluding myself into thinking it could be something more.
He fled at the first sign of love. Feelings he’s learned to handle, but love?! What was I thinking? I can’t love him, yet I do. He can’t love me, and he doesn’t. I thought I’d be okay with that so long as he kept me as his. I could live my life as his voodoo doll because his attention is the best thing I’ve ever experienced. I relied on it, got comfortable under his gaze, and stupidly expected I’d have it for the rest of my life.
I never expected him to free me and disappear.
The Matter Cult is dead, and Gregory Malone is locked away, so I pace the length of the Sauder graves in solitude. No eyes on me, no stalkers at my back. I’m losing my mind to abandonment, but it’s worry making my heart skip beats. Selfish worry, because I don’t know what to do now that I’ve lost him. But worry for him, too.
I saw it in his eyes, something like love, or as close to it as he can get. I heard it in the way he asked me if I’d still pick him if he set me free. I saw it in the way his usually flowing calligraphy stuttered on his final calling card, freeing me against my will. In such a cowardly fucking way. A calling card?! Not even a face-to-face rejection? My god, he’s an asshole, and I miss him an unhealthy amount.
“Hi, hun.”
I’m too dead to be startled, but I blink at my mom as she walks over Dad’s grave like she doesn’t even see it. The fog is thick in the cemetery today, but she drags more along with her, shrouding her in something ominous. The bags under her eyes aren’t new, but they’re deeper now, darker purple. When I look into her eyes, they differ so greatly from Krypt’s thrashing monsters and rattling chains. Hers are empty, void of thoughts and vacant of emotion. Nothing expressive or emotive comes through when I look at her, and I wonder when she became such a shell.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, scrunching her face into something like concern.
I look closer. When I woke up in her house and had breakfast with her and my siblings, she was acting strange, but she wasn’t empty. She was still our mother, and she wanted a family meal together after all the time that had passed without one. I didn’t know about the microchip then, but it was inside her, doing something to her. She cut me months before that morning and held a knife to me again that day. What happened between then and now to change her so drastically?
“Thinking of joining them?” Mom asks, nodding at my brothers’ graves, still standing on my father’s.
I take a subconscious step back. She’s never outright asked me about suicide before. “Do you want me to?”
She laughs. It’s a sad, forced sound. “No, hun. But I think you should see the doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“Dr. Graves. He can fix you. He has what you want.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles down at Dad’s headstone. “I heard you fell in love with Keegan.”
Has what you want and Keegan in the same breath…
“What does he have that I want?”
“Dr. Graves found all sorts of things in his head. He’s got many secrets, but you were his best-kept one.” She smiles at me like we’re having a happy conversation instead of a dire one. “He calls you a hero.”
My body chills and my spine tingles. Dr. Graves has Krypt, and somehow, my mom knows about it. I don’t know if it’s intentional or if he’s in danger, but the warning signals within me, the ones gifted to me by Moros itself, are all blaring alarm bells.
“Dr. Graves is with Keegan?” I ask her.
She brushes dirt and dead leaves off the headstones, humming and nodding. “Oh, yes. It’s been a while since you were all at home. Would you like to come for dinner?”
The fuck is wrong with her? “Actually, can you take me to this doctor? Can you introduce me to Dr. Graves?”
Maybe I’m back to being suicidal. Suicidal with a purpose this time.
“Yes. After dinner.” She extends her hand to me, and it takes more mental preparedness than ever before to take it. “We’ll get your sister and brothers to come as well.” She snorts, covering her mouth. “Brother, excuse me.”
I don’t want my brother there. If Soren comes, he’ll talk me out of going to Dr. Graves. Free or not, I’m still Krypt’s fucking hero.
Soren didn’t show up for dinner. Probably because he’s still not talking to me ever since Krypt left me. But Selena is here, and she knows something about Mom. Because she’s strategically placed herself between us, and I notice because this is the first time my sister has been protective in this way.
She’s studying psychology to protect me, but she’s never been a physical barrier between me and our mom. What does she know, and how does she know it? Did Soren tell her about the chip?
Mom’s grip on her fork is white-knuckled, and the two of us are watching her warily. “I think I’ll redo your bedrooms now that none of you stay here.”
“I do,” Selena says.
“Do you?” Mom asks. “You’re never here anymore.”
I study my sister. She comes home every weekend, so where is she staying? Did she get a partner? Is she in a relationship? “Where do you stay?” I ask her.
“Here, mostly,” Selena says. “Rem, you wanna help me clean up?”
No. I need to remind Mom she’s taking me to see Dr. Graves. I shake my head, but Selena nudges me under the table and grabs my sore wrist to make me stand. When I wince, she drops it, but still pushes me into the kitchen.
“What’re you doing here?” Selena hisses at me once we’re behind the wall of the kitchen. “You can’t be here, Rem.”
I tilt my head at her like Krypt tilts his head at me. “Why not?”
“Because...” She presses her lips together before sighing. “Soren told me about the chip.”
She’s lying. “What else did he tell you?”
“Look,” she snaps at me. “It’s not like it’s a secret that you’re dating Kr-Keegan. It’s going around Moros like wildfire.”
“Who?” I grab her wrist this time. “What’d you almost call him?”
“Keegan.”
“You know.” I squeeze her wrist. “You know about him… them. How, Selena?”
“I don’t know shit,” she says, pulling her wrist free. “You need to leave.”
“And go where? I have no fucking house, Selena!”
“Because he burnt it down to keep you!” she whisper-shouts, shocking herself. “Fuck.”
I shake my head at her. Yet another person in my life feeding me lies. “You’re all the fucking same. Lie to Remi because he can’t handle it, right?” I turn my back.
“You can handle it!” She grabs my shoulder and spins me to face her. “It’s just forbidden to talk about.”
“So… you’re one of them, too?”
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t joking when I said I was going to initiate this year. I did. I’m… nobody. Only an initiate. Which means I know about you and him, but I don’t know anything else. I didn’t learn it until after you did. I didn’t know who he was when he had you on Initiation Night, okay? I didn’t know it was Keegan.” She sighs. “But trust me, Remi. You have to leave Mom alone. Krypt is… out there, trying to protect you.”
“Me?” Fat fucking chance. He freed me and left me to rot.
“He told me to watch out for you while he was gone, so that’s what I’m doing. Please leave. You can stay at Keegan’s house. Or Vile House. It’s your home now, too.”
My sister belongs to Vile House. She initiated. My brother is a Vile Boy. My… maybe-boyfriend is a Vile Boy. My mom is chipped and controlled. Krypt is missing. I have no home and no life other than him.
“I can’t leave. She’s going to take me to Dr. Graves. He has Krypt.”
Selena’s other hand lands on my shoulder. “Krypt is there willingly.”
My eyes water. “No. He’ll… they’ll brainwash him.”
Selena shakes her head at me, but she’s pushed aside a moment later. Soren takes her place, coming out of nowhere. He lifts my chin, looks me straight in the eye, and makes me a promise. “They’ll try, but he didn’t get his name for nothing, Remi. I promise you, we’re getting him back.”
Selena’s eyes widen. “What the fucking fuck?! You’re Vile, too?!” Selena gasps. “I thought you were in The Misfits?” Guess she doesn’t know everything then. Soren ignores her.
“He won’t be the same.” Tears fall down my cheeks.
“He’s a fucking master of mental control, Remi.”
No, he’s not. He gets overwhelmed by emotions. He can’t talk about anything. He doesn’t know how to express himself with anything but violence. He’s not a master of control.
Soren grins, probably knowing what I’m thinking. “Okay, let me rephrase. He’s a master at mental fortitude. Nothing gets in or out if he doesn’t want it to. Trust him, Remi.”
I look into my brother’s blue eyes and break just a little. “He freed me.”
Soren scoffs. “So you’d pick him willingly. Don’t be na?ve, Remi. You’ll never escape him, whether you want to or not. He did this to make you choose him. But even if you don’t pick him, you’re still his, so relax, okay?”
“Where is he?” I ask, trying not to think about that because it’s making me too hopeful that Soren is right. That Krypt still wants me to be his.
“Right where he’s supposed to be. Come on. We’re going to Vile House.” He looks at Selena. “All of us. Initiate.” He grins at her.
She grins back. “What about Mom?”
“Leave her,” Soren says with indifference. “We’ll deal with her later.”
When we walk out, Mom is sitting at the table like she’s awaiting her next order. I don’t think she realizes when we leave. If she’s this badly mind-controlled, what’s going to happen to Krypt?