Page 49 of Like Fathers, Like Son
“Like a sedative?”
He shrugged a shoulder lightly.
“No idea, but dad said it’d help and it did. You slept, and you were so peaceful and calm in your sleep. I hope the clothes are okay. I thought they might make you feel a bit more secure.”
His words triggered a ripple of ice water down my spine, because he’d dressed me, meaning I’d been naked when I was apparently ‘hysterical’. He’d mentioned his dad too. I was starting to realise that the drug had messed up my brain enough that I’d thought I dreamed all the horrors, but I hadn’t at all. They really had happened.
“Did you know it’d make me wonder if all the things you did to me were just some horrible nightmare? Was that part of your game to torture me?”
Blaze was still staring at the coffee in his mug, swirling it lightly in almost hypnotic circles. His t-shirt had a band name on it. A favourite of mine actually;Five Finger Death Punch. Was that some ploy of his, to make me think we had things in common? Some new brain fuck of his, like this pretence that he wasn’t a monster at all?
29
Blaze
Iwastrying,butshe was already starting to wind me up again. Rage was always pretty close to the surface for me, especially since what had happened, and since she’d been the cause of all of it, she was the right target for it.
Dad had said to try and be kind, and gain her trust, and it had been easy when she’d first woken up and seemed so sweetly confused. Now though, she was starting to push me just enough that I was feeling less charitable again. I bit back a snappy comment, and that’s when she spoke again.
“Nice t-shirt, by the way.”
I glanced down at it and figured she was being an asshole, because she probably listened to girly music or something. Why had I never cared enough to check out her music taste when I was delving into her life online? Because it hadn’t mattered for my purposes.
“Are you being funny with me?”
Her brow creased as she looked up from the t-shirt.
“No, I love their music. I particularly loved their cover ofBad Company. I thought you ‘knew everything about me’.”
Huh. Maybe I should have made more of an effort to look at stuff like that. Did it matter in the long run though?
“Yeah, that was a good one. Uh… that’s your kind of music?”
She smiled, and I was reminded of that beauty that had drawn me to her even as a child. It was a bit shaky, but it was there.
“I love music that means something. Music that has an intensity about it, and gets deep into your soul. Rock and metal do that for me more than anything else.”
I was thrown by her words, because it was almost as if she’d wandered around in my fucking head and pulled those words free. Or she’d somehow hackedmylife, just like I’d hacked hers. It unnerved me enough that I was lost for what to say next.
“Uh… Yeah… I get that. I didn’t know that about you, but I guess we don’t really know each other that well. We barely had a chance as kids, right?”
Anneka sipped her coffee, almost shrinking into herself a little, like whatever she was thinking was too horrific to say out loud.
“Anneka? We should talk, right? After all of this, I feel like there’s stuff that needs to be said.”
She wouldn’t fucking look at me, and her voice was so soft when she spoke that I had to lean closer to hear her.
“You hate me. I just wish I knew why you’d hate me so much that you’d do all this.”
And that was the whole point of this fucking chat, right? That familiar rage was building in my gut again, peaking every fucking time she admitted that it hadn’t mattered enough to her to fucking remember.
“Yeah. I’m gonna fucking tell you, since you seem so blissfully unaware of what you did,” I hissed at her, earning a panicked gasp as her head lifted and her eyes met mine. She looked terrified again, and I knew I shouldn’t, but I fucking liked that look on her so much.
“You’re as bad as that fucker you dated. Boon was a prick, and even though he remembered what you guys did, he just didn’t give a fuck.”
Anneka chewed her lip, staying silent but I knew that the mention of that asshole had surprised her. Was she really so fucking unaware of what she’d started all those years ago?
“He’s… he killed himself this year,” she finally whispered, like maybe she thought that somehow made up for his actions. Did she think his own guilt over his asshole behaviour sent him into oblivion? Was she really so fucking stupid?
