Page 131 of Cain
But the other …
The other used to have my back. He used to be the one person I thought would never fucking lie to me. And now I can’t stand to look at him.
“You don’t trust them?” He interrupts my thoughts.
“I don’t trust anyone.” I sit on my chair, sink in it, and light up a smoke.
“Let me guess.” He takes a seat on the chair across my desk. “You blackmail them?”
I drag my smoke. “Let’s say they’re lucky they have families. The ones that didn’t are dead.”
He takes a sharp intake of breath. “Ouch. That sounds sadistic. Poor Eleanor.”
I chuckle, unable to hold it back.
I ash my smoke. “I want to see them fucking suffer like I did; every goddamn day, they stood there and watched me fall to fucking pieces without saying a word.”
His smile falters.
“Jesus,” he mutters, glancing away. “You ever talk to someone about all that? Like … professionally?”
“Actually, I tried once. The poor bastard quit after two sessions.”
He chuckles.
I stub out the smoke. “Some shit isn’t meant to be talked through. It’s meant to be answered.”
“They really fucked you up, huh?” he asks, rubbing his clean-shaven chin.
I hum, agreeing with him, my gaze drifting elsewhere.
“Then why do you trust me now? Why am I not dead already?”
I drag. “Shouldn’t I?”
He chuckles, revealing his bright smile. He’s grown so much. The last time I saw him, he was still a teenage boy, his eyes filled with innocence. Now he’s different. He’s mature. Corrupted, I’d dare to say.
“Where have you been all this time?” I ask, exhaling the smoke.
“Do you really care?” He crosses his big arms, a judgmental look on hisface.
“Don’t make me regret asking.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, dragging his brown eyes away from mine like they’re carrying the weight of every sin he’s ever committed.
“I didn’t have a good life,” he says, his voice low and brittle. “I was homeless and broke. After I nearly died, someone found me and saved me.”
“In what exchange?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away. His hands tremble in his lap, knuckles white.
“How do you know there was an exchange?”
“Because nothing in this world is given. Nothing’s free. If they saved you, they must have taken something.”
He looks at me then, his eyes hollow. The cocky smirk, the smart-ass spark, is gone.
“What did they take?”
