Page 161 of You Only Love Twice
But I... hoped.
Silas scratched the back of his head. "Then why the ruttin' hell are you here?"
"Partly to warn you: Malloryn intends to destroy Ghost's operation. I'm going to light the match for him and watch it all burn. Stay out of the way. And then there is another part, the part of me that wants to know the truth. About Russia."
There.
The sudden stillness in Silas's smile. The twitch of his fingers toward his hip, where he kept his pistol. It all played out over Silas's face.Do I go for the pistol? Or do I try and play this out?
Obsidian couldn't say he was completely surprised, but it still hurt. Suspicion flavored most of his daily thoughts; he'd hoped, just this once, he'd be proved wrong. He'd told Gemma he trusted two people in this world, and now that figure was halved.
The only one you can trust is Gemma.
She was the light leading him out of his darkness.
"Russia?" Silas's next footfall came a little warily, but he managed to arch a brow. "Seems best to leave all that dead and buried, if you ask me, mate."
"I wasn't asking."
"Fuck me." Silas scrubbed at his mouth. "What d'you want to know? Why now?"
Obsidian began to tug the tips of his leather gloves from his fingers. "I'm starting to recall certain memories. Enough to make me wonder about them. For instance, I've always been able to remember the night Gemma allegedly set fire to my bedroom after drugging me. But, she claims she didn't do it, and I have no recollection of her involvement."
"Of course she'd—"
"I wasn't finished." He dropped the glove, flexing his fingers, and Silas watched the move like a hawk. "I trust her, Silas. But moreover, I trust the fact she had noreasonto burn me alive. It wasn't Gemma, which means it was someone else. So I started thinking maybe it was Malloryn. I'd seduced his spy and turned her attention from his cause. He would have wanted to remove me, but from what Gemma has told me he didn'tknowI was working for Balfour until the day after the fire.
"Which leaves me with one other suspect. Someone who might have wanted to see Gemma and me parted, no matter what they had to do. Someone who'd made it quite clear he didn't like the attention I paid her. You said it yourself. Ghost doesn't want anyone standing between our loyalty to him. He's a jealous mistress."
"Don't."
"Brotherhood before blood," Obsidian quoted. "Brotherhood beforeallelse. Ghost's been meticulous in ensuring our loyalties were never split. He's always demanded our hearts, our souls, and if we started to stray, then he made sure he reeled us back in. Ghost doesn't care for us. He never has. But he demands our loyalty and adoration, and he uses the ties we had—the thought of creating a family when we all lost ours—as a means to chain us to his cause.
"What we have is a mockery. A perversion of family." Especially when he could see the way the Company of Rogues operated. They'd fight for each other. Die for each other. Even Malloryn. "Which brings me to a line of questioning that makes me wonder... I went from a man madly in love with Hollis to someone who was willing to lose all his memories of her and put a bullet in her chest. That's a significant turnaround even I fail to truly believe. I can't fully remember her, but I know how I felt."
I know how I feel.
And it was the first time the Wraith made an appearance.
"You thought she'd tried to burn you alive," Silas said hoarsely.
Obsidian stared through him, seeing the flames again. "I wouldn't have killed her. Not for that." A laugh escaped him. "Ican'tkill her. The second I saw her, I knew she was mine, but I didn't realize some dark piece of me claimed her years ago." Silas came into focus again. "I remember snatches of information about the Chameleon Project. I wouldn't have volunteered for that, no matter how much I thought I wanted to forget her. None of this makes sense to me. So tell the damned truth.Please.You owe me that, if nothing else."
"The truth ain't always what you want it to be."
"Do you think I'm afraid of the truth?" He took a menacing step forward, his voice softening. "I always thought you saved me from being burned alive that night. But how did you know there was a fire in my room? The fire started near the bed, and while the bed was ablaze, the rest of the room was only just starting to burn. You had to be close by. Awake. Listening, perhaps. Unless, of course, you set the fire."
All the remaining blood fled Silas's face.
He shook his head, his mouth working, and Obsidian's heart felt like a lump of coal in his chest as suspicion bloomed into understanding.
"I trusted you," he breathed. "I thought you risked your life to save mine. It's the one thing that's kept me going all these years, while he turns my fucking brain to mush. Brotherhood. It meant somethingto me. Why?"
"Because I overheard the pair of you talking one night about runnin' away together. I thought she'd gotten to you. I thought she'd twisted your head, and I told Ghost and.... I screwed up. I botched it. You should have seen the look in his eyes.
"He told me what to do to win you back to our cause, and so I did. I drugged you. Set the fire. Rescued you. It was supposed to be enough but you wouldn't listen. You were worried she'd been in there when that side of the palace went up. You would have burst back in to rescue her, and that was when he took you down with hemlock and sent for Richter. If you wouldn't remain with us of your own accord, then he would ensure you remained out of his."
Silas squeezed his eyes shut in horror. "I didn'tknowwhat she meant to you 'til it was too late. You were still screamin' for her when they put that fuckin' thing in your head, but when you woke up you were empty. Gave me the shivers just to look at you.
