Page 83 of Greed
“Griff,” she said, emotion burning in her eyes. It looked like pity and Griffin hated it. She stepped closer. “You didn’thurtme, hurt me. I mean, you hurt my feelings, but before that you were completely the opposite. You saved my life and… what do you mean, I threw your process into chaos?”
“Being in the same room as you, and breathing the same air, affects me. Touching you… sends my insides into chaos.”
“Um. In a good way?”
“It took me a while to see, but yes. In a very good way.”
Still confused, she rubbed her temples, eyes far too round for Griffin’s liking. He shoved open the door to his apartment, using his weight to push the fallen hoarded items out of the door’s trajectory.
When she followed inside, and the light came on, she stood still, staring at his collected junk. Piles and piles of teetering towers and spilled items filled his living room. Beyond, the kitchen was clean and bare, and through a far door he could see into his tidy bedroom. At least he’d had the presence of mind to keep those areas neat.
“I don’t understand. What am I looking at, Griffin?”
He swallowed. “Before I met you, my internal equilibrium would shift into the light if I went out and fought crime. It was a selfless act, you see, but the downside is that it ate away at my sanity. I learned many years ago that an unbalanced person with my combat skills would could be deadly.”
“Deadly.” She said the word as though testing it for taste.
“Yes.” Okay. Here goes. It’s now or never. She’s either going to run for the hills, or… Griffin took a deep breath.Time to spill my secrets. “Once, when I was on a mission with the SAS, I failed at being human.” Saying it out loud, the memories crashed back. He was back in that sandy camp in Afghanistan, laying on the hill cresting the enemy camp, surveilling the area with his comrade, James. James ribbed Griffin for the entire year block of his time with the unit. The soldier had it in for Griffin since they went through the selection course. James made snide sideways comments about Griffin’s sensitivity tendencies. He was an asshole, but James didn’t deserve to die.
To this day, Griffin believed he’d only gotten through the course because of his training in meditation thanks to hisShifumaster in Kung Fu. Outwardly, it had seemed like he was calm and collected, but inside he’d been boiling.
He’d gotten through it because he’d had no choice, but it hadn’t been easy. Each of James’s insults built in pressure until that day on the hill. Griffin was fussing about, making sure they had all their equipment just right. Checking his sniper rifle, checking the wind, checking his uniform, his backup equipment.
Fucking weirdo, you checked that five times.
Because he was concerned it wouldn’t be enough.
His crew mate had picked at him the entire night. Griffin was nervous. He didn’t belong. He worried his one rifle wouldn’t be enough. He was out of balance. He knew it. All he could think while sitting up on that hill, watching the enemy, was that the man next to him had a better gun. A newer one that was more reliable, and more likely to shoot true. The greedy urge to take the weapon had bordered on obsessive. So when his friend opened his mouth to give him shit for the fifth time in a row, Griffin reached across and snapped his neck. Just like that. Then he’d calmly switched rifles.
His sudden movement had notified the enemy, and before he knew it, they were upon him. Griffin couldn’t remember what happened after that. He’d blacked out completely. When he came too, he was covered in blood and gore and surrounded by dead bodies—both enemy and friendly.
Stand down. Stand down.
He could still hear his team shouting in his ears. But that wasn’t where the horror ended. His own team had questioned him… interrogated him. Tortured him. He still had the scars to prove it. They wanted to know if Griffin worked for the enemy.Did you kill our own?In the end, nobody could explain what happened. There was no proof. Nothing but the blood on Griffin’s hands. They put his blacking out to some kind of post traumatic stress, but he knew the truth. He was unbalanced.
Griffin tugged at his collar as he relayed the story to her, watching her grow increasingly wary with every word. “When I got back, I swore I’d never lose control again—that I’d keep my sin balanced, no matter what. I created a protocol to ensure that every time I did a dead of generosity, I’d commit an act of greed of equal weighting. As you can see, I stole to fulfill the greed portion of the protocol. It worked for a while, but then… well, this is the result.” He waved his hand at his mess. “I’ve told no one about this. Not even my family.”
“You’ve been carrying this burden alone for years?”
“It is a burden no one else should share.”
She stared at him for a moment, then lifted her brows and looked to the kitchen. “Do you have any alcohol in there?”
It was such a sudden change of pace that he jerked. “Um. Maybe something really old Tony left. Some vodka, I think. I don’t really drink.”
“Great.” She strode past him and began opening cupboards methodically until she found the glasses. “A little help here, Griff? Where’s the vodka?”
“Third cupboard on the bottom.”
She poured two big glasses and handed him one. “Drink it.”
He tipped the glass to look inside and flinched. The fumes burned his nostrils.
“I gave you a drink. Drink it,” she ordered, hands on hips. “It will help calm your nerves.”
So he shot it back and let it burn the back of his throat, forcing himself to hold the spasm down. When it was done, he found she’d done the same, except where his muscles were locking with tension, hers were melting and relaxing.
“Okay. I feel better now.” She shook her hands at her side. “Hang on. One more.”
