“Enough to distract you from your sweet biker crush,” Zane said in a dull voice. A strand of wavy hair slid out from under the hood and down his chest.
Roach groaned and rubbed his face as pain echoed inside his ribcage. He didn’t know how to navigate this. They were doomed. They’d been doomed from the start because nothing beautiful could grow in his toxic soul.
Karla cleared her throat, glancing between them, but then stepped over a half-burned pipe to venture farther into what used to be the clubhouse. She had to grab the blackened doorway and pull herself up in order to step inside.
“Right. You need to talk me through your movements. Tell me the general thoughts you had on that night, and so on. We need to focus on any unusual events or sensations.”
Roach followed her, wincing when the coarse wall scratched his palm in an achingly familiar way. He’d expected to smell burnt wood inside, but when he faced the dusky interior full of debris and broken furniture, he was struck by how alien it was. How small the bar seemed without the usual decor.
“Do we have to go in there? What if the floor caves in?” Zane asked from outside, standing in the snow like the smartest horror movie character in human history.
“There’s no cellar under this part of the building,” Roach said.
Karla shut her eyes and mumbled as she touched exposed bits of blackened brick, but Roach walked on, stunned how little he cared for memories of his old life. It had been endless drowning with the occasional gasp for air. The old pool table had broken in half in the far corner, but it was the most complete furnishing in sight, so he pointed it out to Zane in an attempt to reconnect.
“I loved playing pool here, but the table was always fucking filthy. Dog liked to fuck girls on top of it, always pretending that it made them special. Until the next one, I guess.”
Zane, who wiped his hands on his jeans as soon as he followed them inside, kept close to the door, as if he didn’t quite believe Roach’s reassurance about the cellar. He stilled, a black silhouette against the background of the open door and the white swirls beyond it.
“I bet. So. Fucking. Special,” he said in a sharp tone before gravitating to the stage, which was somehow still standing, thanks to its metal structure. He stepped on it without thinking and ignored the cry it gave, as it sank in under his weight. He gave a shuddery exhale. Was he cold?
“I sang, and he stood by the door, watching. Then I wanted to get him alone, so he took me to the back rooms, and we spent some time there,” Zane said, his tone dropping with each passing second. It almost sounded as if he were talking and breathing in air at the same time.
But all Roach heard was that Zane said he’d wanted to get Roach alone. So Roach hadn’t been a measly beggar for scraps off the prince’s table, but a delicious, exotic dish.
Karla hummed, walking through the bar with tears in her eyes. Could she hear the screams of the men who had died here? She stepped over a door that had fallen to the floor. A black stain spread from under it, eating up the wall, as if she were a real witch and the darkness—her shadow. But maybe it belonged to Zane, who stood still, his shoulders hunched while he took in the damaged interior, angry that the building he’d wanted to destroy was still here.
When Karla turned into a corridor leading to the back rooms, Roach followed. “We had a fight, and… I left. We didn’t see each other again for two years.”
“He’s lying,” Zane said, appearing behind them out of nowhere, as if he were afraid to lose them from sight. His gaze felt like a stab. “Go on, Roach. Tell her what really happened.”
Roach shivered as a gust of cold wind blew in through a broken window. He hated this so much. He hated what he’d done even though at the time he’d been so angry, so bitter, and such a bastard. He’d killed people, for fuck’s sake, but what he’d done to Zane still somehow hurt most. Just because the past was buried, didn’t make it less real.
A man had died on the sofa that still stood in the MC’s private lounge—well, what was left of it anyway. He’d tried to cheat at cards, and Dad had broken his neck. The corpse had lain on the floor behind the chairs until it had started to smell. Only then had Roach been tasked with getting rid of it.
Choking, he passed through the cramped space, taking in what was left as he gravitated to the room where he’d gotten his first taste of Zane. It still had a door, and he leaned against it, wondering where the men had lost consciousness and died. Only bits of the building were complete char, so maybe they’d choked to death rather than burnt alive?