Chapter 34 #2
My fingers brushed against something rough and uneven hidden beneath his hairline, just behind his ear. I paused, tracing what felt like a horrible scar that ran along his scalp. It was long and uneven, feeling almost like a fault line running across his scalp.
Cipher went still beneath my touch, his breathing suddenly shallow. The change was instantaneous, like a switch had been flipped. One moment he was warm and present, the next...
His hand shot up, fingers wrapping around my wrist. He pulled my hand away from his head, his expression shuttering before my eyes. And there it was, the wall, just as I’d feared. I reached out with my free hand, placing my palm against his cheek, forcing him to look at me. “What’s the scar from?”
“It’s nothing.” His voice was cold, clinical. The voice of Cipher the Villain, not the man who’d just asked me to stay.
I nodded slowly, sliding out of his grasp and out of the bed. I grabbed my jeans from the chair, pulling them on while my heart cracked in my chest.
“You want a connection without any of the actual vulnerability,” I said quietly, buttoning my pants. “You want me to stay, but you won’t let me in.”
“I have no vulnerabilities,” he replied, his voice flat.
“Everyone has vulnerabilities, Cipher. Even you. The difference is whether you trust someone enough to show them.”
I’d been about to leave, to walk away with what little dignity I had left, when his voice stopped me.
“What’s the cuff for, Annie?”
My entire body went rigid. My hand automatically reached for my wrist, fingers curling protectively around the metal band.
“That’s none of your business,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
He sat up in bed, the sheet bunching around his waist. His eyes never left my face, studying me with that calculating gaze I’d come to both dread and crave.
“You want me to let you in without trusting me enough with your own vulnerabilities.”
I stared at him, caught between fury and a strange, recklessness. If he wanted to play this game, then maybe we could as long as we had rules.
“You know what?” I said, a dangerous calm settling over me.
“You’re right. We both have vulnerabilities.
So let’s stop dancing around them. How about this, we trade uncomfortable questions.
An answer for an answer. No secrets, no deflections.
” I tilted my chin up. “I’m willing to do it if you are.
Or are you too afraid to play by someone else’s rules for once, Mr. No Vulnerabilities? ”
His eyes narrowed. “Deal. Ask your question.”
“How did you get that scar?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked as he stared at me. For a moment, I thought he might refuse to answer, might call the whole thing off.
“I was eight years old. The doctors thought I was having seizures.” His fingers drifted unconsciously to his hairline. “I wasn’t. I was just thinking. Working through problems in my head. But I would go so deep into my thoughts that I’d become unresponsive.”
My anger faltered, replaced by a creeping unease.
“They convinced my parents I needed an experimental procedure.” His voice remained emotionless, detached, as if he were reciting someone else’s medical history. “They drilled into my skull, they said it was to better map my brain activity.”
I felt sick. “Cipher—”
“I woke up during the procedure. The anesthesia wasn’t sufficient. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. I was paralyzed, but completely aware. I felt everything. They realized I was conscious when my heart rate spiked.”
“You were just a child,” I whispered, my earlier anger forgotten.
“Yes.” Something flickered in his eyes, a momentary crack in his perfect mask. “I was.”
Oh god, I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up so badly. I stared at him, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole. Here I was demanding honesty, forcing him to relive childhood trauma just to prove a point. The game felt cruel and pointless.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, taking a step toward him. “We don’t have to do this. I shouldn’t have—“
“What’s your cuff for?”
His question was delivered in that same detached voice as he slid out of bed. I watched, frozen, as he began pulling on clothes, but his eyes never left my face.
“I...” The words died in my throat.
“You wanted honesty,” he reminded me. “An answer for an answer. No secrets.”
I’d never told anyone, not even Dawn. Only Havoc and a handful of high-ranking officials knew what my cuff really did.
I stared down at it. The weight of it had become so familiar I barely noticed it anymore. Until moments like this, when its purpose crashed down on me.
“Someone tried to hurt me.” I had no idea how to explain what I’d done. “They did hurt me,” I amended. “When they did it, their power leeched into me. The cuff contains the power. It makes sure I can’t hurt people.”
I’d never said it aloud before, had barely even allowed myself to think about it. I wiped angrily at the tears that had started to fall, hating myself for showing this weakness, hating him for his detachment. What had I expected? Some grand revelation? Some moment of connection?
“Your turn,” he finally said, his voice still flat and emotionless.
I stared at him, feeling hollowed out and my mind went blank. What could I possibly ask that would matter now?
“Why did you save me?”
His brow furrowed slightly. “When?”
“On the roof,” I clarified. “When I fell.”
“You’re valuable,” he answered without hesitation, his voice clipped.
Of course. I was a resource. An asset. Nothing more.
I nodded slowly, feeling something inside me shrivel and die. What had I expected him to say? That he cared? That he couldn’t bear the thought of me being hurt?
I’d been a stranger, and I was such an idiot.
Cipher fired another question. “How can you find Trueborn Supers?”
This was dangerous territory. Too close to the truth about Havoc, too close to revealing another power I’d absorbed. “I have an extra sense,” I said, choosing each word carefully. “I can feel them.”
Cipher’s lips curved into a smile that never reached his eyes.
“What do I get if you lie, Annie?” His voice was soft, almost gentle, which somehow made it more terrifying.
“I didn’t lie.”
He took a step closer, closing the distance between us. “Then what do I get if you don’t tell me the whole truth?” I felt like he was peeling back layers of my skin with just his gaze, exposing everything I wanted to keep hidden.
“I can sense them,” I repeated, standing my ground even as I was panicking inside. “I can feel when a Super is nearby. I can tell the difference between Trueborn and Serum made.” It wasn’t everything, but it was more than I should have revealed.
“What do I get if you don’t tell the full truth?” Cipher repeated.
I stood frozen, caught between fight and flight. The game had shifted. What had begun as a fucked up mutual exchange of truths had transformed into an interrogation.
“What do you want?” I finally managed.
“Another question.”
I didn’t respond, just clenched my jaw tight. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t what we’d agreed to. But I’d been the one to suggest this stupid game in the first place, hadn’t I?
“Why did you become Havoc’s ward?” he asked.
“My parents are dead,” I said flatly. Not a lie. Not even close to the whole truth.
Cipher’s eyes narrowed fractionally. He knew I was holding back. Of course he did.
“What happened to—”
“No.” I cut him off. “That’s enough. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have suggested—“
“I just clarified what happens when you don’t give me the whole truth, Annie. You owe me another question.” He took a step toward me. “How did your parents die?”
Memories flashed behind my eyes. Blood on white tiles, screams. My hands began to tremble, rage and grief twisting together into something toxic.
“They were murdered,” I spat, my voice shaking. “By a rogue Trueborn. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stop the trembling that had overtaken my body. I waited for him to press further, to demand more details, to pick apart my pain.
Instead, Cipher raised a single eyebrow. “Your turn.”
I stared at him, momentarily stunned by his response. No follow-up questions. No demands for specifics. Just that maddeningly calm expression and those two simple words. Your turn.
I hated him in that moment. Hated how he stood there so calmly while I was falling apart.
Hated how he treated my painful answers like data points to be collected and analyzed.
Well, fuck him. I wanted to hurt him back.
I wanted to crack that perfect, impenetrable facade and see him bleed, if only a little.
“Why did you send me away? After Baron Ash. After we...”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. The memory rushed back. Being pressed against the wall, the copper scent of Ash’s blood smudged across my skin, the hollow, humiliating ache in my chest when he had dismissed me. I braced myself for the answer.
Cipher let out a harsh breath. He dropped his gaze to his hands. The same hands that had been painted in Ash’s blood.
“Because I was losing my mind, Annie. You saw exactly what I am in that room. I tore a man apart with my bare hands and enjoyed it. I expected you to look at me with disgust. It would have been the smart thing to do. It would have kept things simple.”
He came closer, stopping just short of touching me.
“But you didn’t run like you should have.
You accepted the ugliest, most violent part of me.
” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Do you have any idea what that does to a man who has spent his entire life expecting to be a monster in everyone’s eyes?
” He reached out then. His knuckles lightly brushing my jaw.
“I would have never let you go back to your safe life,” he said, his thumb trailing my throat.
“I would have consumed everything you are.”