Page 236 of Like Grim Death: Part One
He’s staring at me, hands by his sides, that stupid fucking zip-up jacket unzipped with nothing beneath. Low slung sweatpants, I can see his tattoos disappear into them. All blue Chucks, a helpless expression on his face with his brows lifted and mouth slightly parted. The fairy lights strung up under the covered patio illuminate the scar on his cheekbone. The red circle around his throat.
“You get that don’t you?” I let my eyes roam over his chest, but I don’t see it. “Are you branded? From anyone? Anything?”
He looks down, cupping the back of his neck with his hand. I clench my teeth, and I’m pretty sure I know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“Your uncle—”
“Stop calling him that.”
He drops his hand and shakes his head, but he still doesn’t look up. “Boaz.” He clears his throat. “He wants me to have your… tattoo.”
Not a fucking chance. And I thought this shit ended at Halloween. So, is it Elijah lying to me, or Mikhail lying to him? “Why?”
“I’m here.” He shrugs, looking up at me, helpless and lost and I hate him for it. “I’m living with you and—”
“That’s not going to last.”
“I could help with Rain and—”
“Don’t speak my son’s name to me.” I don’t care if he was guarding him before Liber. I don’t fucking care.
“Did anyone ever fuck you so hard against your will, you couldn’t feelanything,Lucifer?” He says my name like he’s done it dozens of times. I wonder what Mikhail told him about me. Did he speak of me as a prodigal son, or nephew, as it were? Or did he speak of me with the same venom my father used to hit me with? “I can’t…” He smacks the side of his head, and I don’t even blink.
I’ve seen this before. Self-destruction. We’re intimately acquainted.
“I can’t get it out of my fucking head.” His voice breaks and he hits himself again because he’s not supposed to feel it. Anything. And certainly not this. Grief. “And all this space and free time, it’s just…” He makes a strangled sound, then buries his head in his hands. His shoulders move, shaking, but he doesn’t make another sound.
I grab the lighter from my pocket and run my thumb over the dented ridge. Over and over again. Sparking up. Going out.
I watch Sevryn cry. I think about my son inside Liber. My wife. All the ways I have to be on guard for them. Constantly. It’s the entire reason we’re here, because I disobeyed one single fucking order, and someone will retaliate.
Then I step toward this boy who was made into a man before he should’ve been. He doesn’t look up.
“What do you know about Natalie and about Atlas?” I ask him slowly, refusing to give him comfort. To fall into his pitiful trap.
He buries his face in his hands and shakes his head, a sob leaving his lips, muffled by his fingers. “I don’t know anything. I don’t—”
I shove him against the wall of the gazebo, my hand on his chest as he drops his own to his side, eyes wide and wet.
I lean down, getting in his fucking face. “You told my wife there’s no escape for Rain. You told her he’s a pawn.You are too, aren’t you?”
His lips press together but it’s not anger. It’s only to stop them from trembling as he sniffles. “N-no. I don’t know anything—”
I lift my hand and smack it against his temple, his head hitting the cement wall. He winces, his face going pale, the red line tattooed around his throat so stark, but he doesn’t say a word. I grab his hair in my fingers, pressing him against the wall. Then I lift the lighter, flicking it on right beside his eye. I see his pupil constrict and I notice his irises look strange. More blue than gray, but the lighter goes out and I focus on his brain instead of his appearance.
“Are you reporting back to Mikhail?” I whisper, my voice soft. I’ve checked his room, his belongings. He doesn’t have a phone, but there are always ways.
“No,” he whispers. “I’m just doing what I’m told.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
I tangle my fingers tighter in his hair, jerking his head back as I stare down at him. “You fuck with my family, and remember what I said about the lake?”
He nods frantically and I’m overcome with a desire to get inside. To see my kid, my wife. I drop my hold on him and step back.
An anguished sob leaves his lips. “How do you sleep? With what they did to you? How you grew up?How do you sleep?”
I walk past him without another glance. He doesn’t know what I’ve gone through, exactly, but he knows enough about the 6 and RC to understand it was hell too.
