Page 21 of The Reckoning
“Jesus Christ,” Drew breathes, his face going pale. “For how long?”
“Years.” Arson’s voice remains steady, but I can see the tension in his shoulders and the way his jaw tightens. “From the time I was fourteen until I escaped.”
I think about when they told me he was dead. I’d been sixteen. He’d already been tortured for two years. While I was grieving a brother I thought I’d lost, mourning the future we’d never have, he was trapped in some sterile hell, being torn apart and put back together like a broken toy.
“What did they do to you?” The question slips out before I can stop it, raw and desperate.
Arson’s eyes snap to mine, and for a moment, I see past all the rage and calculation to the broken boy underneath. “Everything you can imagine,” he says quietly. “And so many things you can’t.”
The words are a lead weight pressing down on my chest. I’ve spent years thinking I understood pain—the pressure of being the perfect son, the isolation of carrying Richard’s expectations, the guilt of surviving when my brother didn’t. The difference was that my suffering was nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to what they did to him in the name of science, of progress, or whatever sick justification they used.
“The scars,” I realize suddenly, remembering the marks I’d caught a glimpse of on his arms and neck. “That’s where they came from.”
“Some of them.” His smile is hollow. “Others are from the times I tried to fight back. Or when the experiments didn’t go as planned.”
Experiments.My skin crawls. What kind of experiments? What had they done to a teenage boy that left him so fundamentally changed, so completely remade into something dangerous and calculating?
“They made me believe you were dead,” I say, my voice harder now. “There was a funeral, a headstone, and grief counselors. It was all so real, so convincing. And when it wasn’t enough…”
“You never questioned it?” Arson’s voice sharpens, the momentary vulnerability disappearing behind familiar walls of anger. “Never wondered why they wouldn’t let you see the body? Why everything was so conveniently wrapped up?”
“I was sixteen—” I don’t mention the beatings when I mentioned Arson’s name or the shoves, slaps, and silence until I fell in line.
“So was I.” His eyes flash with danger. “While you were playing the grieving brother at my fake funeral, I was screaming for someone to help me.”
Why is he acting like I wanted him dead? I feel my own anger rising to match his. “It’s not like I wanted you dead. Like I was happy you were gone.”
“Weren’t you?” The question stops me cold. “Wasn’t it easier? No more competition, no more having to share attention. Just you, the golden child, getting exactly what you always wanted. All the fucking attention.”
“Fuck you.” The words come out low and vicious. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How so?” Arson steps closer, the space between us crackling with old resentment and fresh pain. “Tell me you didn’t enjoybeing the only son. Tell me you didn’t relish having their full attention, their complete focus.”
I clench my hand into a fist involuntarily, the desire to drive it into his fucking face. To wipe that knowing smirk off his mouth and show him exactly how wrong he is. Thankfully before I can move, before either of us can cross that final line and draw blood Drew’s voice cuts through the tension.
“Enough.” He steps between us, his hands raised. “This doesn’t matter right now. None of it matters. Lilian is passed out in there, and you two are standing here having a dick-measuring contest about who suffered more trauma.”
He’s right.Whatever’s between Arson and me, whatever wounds we’ve inflicted or endured, none of it matters compared to keeping Lilian safe.
Arson takes a step back, his jaw still tight with anger, but his eyes clearing. “You’re right. Now isn’t the time to hash this out.”
“No, it’s not.” I force my own rage down, burying it beneath the more immediate concern. “She needs us. Both of us. They don’t get to hurt her.”
For a moment, we just stare at each other—two broken halves of what used to be whole, held together now only by shared purpose.
The thought of Lilian in one of those sterile rooms, hooked up to machines, subjected to God knows what kind of procedures—it makes something violent and primitive roar to life in my chest.
“Over my dead body,” I breathe.
“Funny.” Arson’s smile is sharp enough to cut. “That’s exactly what I said.”
They want to hurt her, and there’s no way in fucking hell we’re going to allow that to happen.
“So what’s the plan?” Drew asks, apparently realizing this conversation has shifted into dangerous territory.
“I maintain the cover,” Arson says. “Keep playing Aries, convince Richard that everything’s normal. Buy us time to figure out what my backers are really planning. What Patricia and Richard want with Lilian so badly right now.”
“We need a backup plan. What if he sees through it?”
