Page 38 of Fragile Facade
“Yes, right now.” His voice comes from behind the counter. I try to look up, the rope biting into my neck harder, and when I see where it leads, my stomach flips. Either in anticipation or fear, probably a combination of both. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.”
I keep my fingers between the rope and my skin, creating as much space as I can while my body is hoisted up, the rope slung over a thick beam. Up and up, my head damn near hitting the beam on the high ceiling of the shop as I’m pulled up to hang. My toes barely touch the front counter, but it’s enough to allow my throat to stay open to breathe a little. Behind me, Riot secures the rope to something, and I look around, wondering what I can reach to cut myself down before he does something disgusting to me.
There’s a knife in my jacket…
“I need the ninety seconds,” I rasp.
The music still plays, but my busy mind from the street is gone, lost to the vibrancy of something I craved—a brush with death. Riot delivers right when I need him to. He plucks nightmares straight from my head, turning them into a warped reality he controls. I don’t like the power that gives him, but I can’t write it all off as unwanted. Killian Hallows is the only man I know who speaks the same depraved language as me.
“Were you gonna play this?” he asks, walking around the counter and picking up the violin I dropped. His finger plucks the strings, agitating my nerves with the dissonant sound. Riot can play the piano almost as well as Krypt, but he hates music because he can’t hide himself in it like I can. When he plays, everything he tries to hide bleeds out, and he refuses to show that weakness to anyone but himself. Fuck, he probably won’t even show it to himself because in his twisted mind, he’s perfect.
My toes dig into the counter, lifting myself as high as I can to get some relief on my throat. With a good grip on the rope, I suck in air and smile at him. Some switch flips in my mind, and instead of simply smiling at him to goad him, I start laughing, my madness showing. I don’t know what it is about Death that I find so fucking funny, but every time I come close to dancing with her, such elation consumes me that joy spills from between my lips.
Because he’s twisted, Riot laughs with me, his grey eyes bright with a lack of morality. “There you are, sweetheart. Batshit and hanging, just how I like you.” He plucks another string, but it doesn’t annoy me so much this time. “Came here to be sad, but instead I turned you mad.”
Nah, he’s wrong. I came here to lose myself to insanity because I’m a masochistic prick when I want to be. Pain, even the emotional kind brought on by sad memories, feels good. Good because it’s so strong. It’s an onslaught of emotions I can’t hide from, and when everything in my life feels so pathetic becauseI’mthe most powerful thing, I love losing myself to my weaknesses. My feelings, fears, and insecurities. I don’t want the world to see them, but I want to buckle under their pressure, let them taunt me hard enough to drive me crazy, and then see how far they’ll push me towards my deathly dance partner.
Except lately, Riot has been the thing pushing me to dance, not my own downfalls.
“Still want to play?” he asks, holding the instrument out to me. “I can hold it for you and you can use one hand for the bow.”
“You don’t wanna hear what kind of music I’d play right now.” I choke when my Adam’s apple presses against the rope, coughing while staring down at him.
“Of course I do,” he says. “But I already know. You aren’t hard to read.”
“No? What am I feeling then?”
He sets the violin on the floor and hops up to join me. He turns my body until I’m sideways on the counter and he’s right in front of me, eye to eye. “Weak. Weak and crazy about it.”
He’s not wrong…
“Delusional because you still think death is the thing you’re chasing.” His grin makes his eyes brighter, and the stubble along his jaw darkens, turning him into a living nightmare. With his hands on my hips, he sways me, spinning us like we’re dancing to a tune that’s austere to me but congenial to him. When he looks into my eyes, I stare, refusing to acknowledge his sweet, shy smile that doesn’t at all match the calamitous situation. I’m choking, literally hanging from the ceiling, and he’s slow-dancing with me like this is a wedding.
“What am I chasing?”
“That’s not the right question.” He looks down my body and back up again. “It’s more about what’s chasing you.”
I scoff. Then cough. “You? You chasing me?”
“Always.” He nods. “But what else? You think you’re knocking on Death’s door, right? Ready to laugh in her face and slam her fingers in it, but she’s not even playing with you, Ghost. This is a one-man game. You pretending to chase her, her rolling her eyes because you never try hard enough to catch her. You think she takes you seriously when you’re clinging to life so hard?” He spins me, catching me in an embrace I loathe.
What fucking part of me is clinging to life harder than I’m chasing death? I want to live, but I don’t want to livejustto be alive. I want to defy the concepts of life and trick the only sure thing that comes from being born. A monotonous life isn’t for me. Not even a thrilling one in Vile House. It’s not enough. I need more. More ways to be superior, ultimate, unlike anyone else because I’m Soren fucking Sauder, the man who has yet to succumb to a curse that’s taken almost every male in my family. A living ghost. Dead while alive. I want to be alive in death, too.
“You aren’t chasing shit,” Riot tells me. “You’re running from something.”
I scoff again, my head getting light as I partially hang.
“Monotony. Being average. Fear.”
“What fucking fear?” I kick out at him, ending our dance.
I regret it a second later when he grabs my leg, making me hang for real now that my toes won’t touch the countertop.
“That no one will remember you. When the Ghost of Moros is dead, no one’s going to know who he was. He was just that ghost. Not Soren.”
I splutter, kicking. I want to turn away. Breathing is only second to hiding my face from him because he’s right. I’m just that ghost. No one fucking knows who I am. Soren will be remembered as a temporary part of The Misfits. Not the leader. Not anyone of significance. No one but some guy who was part of some gang for some undisclosed period of time. I’m fucking important! But nobody knows.
Riot laughs, grabbing my other leg as my face turns red. He wraps them around his waist and lifts me up enough to suck in air. His nostrils flare at the redness of my face.
