Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

“I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

“You’re sorry?” Laughing, he gets up to make himself another coffee. “I don’t give a shit about your remorse. What’s one more grudge to all the others I already have? I won’t ever forgive you for hurting her. She will though. She’ll probably forget about it too. But I won’t.”

“Then why are you helping me?”

Taking his cup from the coffee machine, he shoves his fist into the pocket of his navy suit trousers. A conflicted, guilty-as-sin look crosses his face before he has a sip from the steaming cup. “Because, as scary as it is, I can’t say that I wouldn’t do the same thing if I were in your shoes. I remember what it felt like when she walked away from me. How badly I needed to go after her, and I couldn’t. The worry. The ache.” Sucking what feels like all the air from the room, he screws his eyes shut, and when he opens them again, they’re fucking blazing. “The hate. I hated her for leaving me, so much so that I had no idea what would happen when I saw her again. That’s the thing about allowing yourself to love someone that much—you’re allowing yourself to hate them too. Love and hate…sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Quiet reigns over us, fizzing in the air. It fills the room with static and a current that gives me no other choice than to feel everything he just said. He’s right—a part of me does hate my runaway wife. No matter how much I try to tamp it down and deny it, I’m angry at her for leaving me.

I despise her for walking away when I needed her to stay.

“The thing is, I hurt Cassie. I should’ve told her the truth the moment I realised I couldn’t let her go. But you, you’ve done nothing wrong, Christopher. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“You were right. We shouldn’t have gone to that fucking party…none of this would’ve happened.”

There’s a moment where he screws his face, like he’s trying to make sense of his thoughts or maybe trying churn them a little so they’re easier for me to digest.

“If it hadn’t been on that night, it would’ve been on another. We underestimated them. Got too wrapped up in being good people, rather than doing what needed to be done. Your mother’s right—being the bigger and better person only gets you fucked. I’m done getting fucked. I’m over making threats and stopping myself from following through for the sake of the greater good. It’s bullshit. There is no greater good. Not worth losing Cassie over, anyway.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

Leo smirks at that. He’s been herding and baiting me to this point. “We become bigger, badder, better monsters. Someone’s got to rule the roost; why can’t it be us?”

“Because we’re not like them. We have rules. Do you really want all that on your shoulders? Don’t we have enough?”

“No, we don’t. Nothing will ever be enough to make up for everything we’ve lost.” He looks down at my phone on the table. “That’s all you’re going to have of your daughter. A photo. That’s it.”

I bite down hard on my tongue as my hands clench around the glass edge of the table. Twisting, my stomach aches as my chest tightens. “Stop.”

“Arabella never even got to hold her.”

“Stop.”

“She never even had a name.”

“Shut the fuck up!” My chair tips as I jump up, my hands so tight around the edge of the table that it feels like it might snap in my grasp.

“Is anything ever going to be enough to make that feeling go away? To make up for all the time you’ll never get with Florence…or was it Ophelia? Will there ever be enough blood to make up for all the memories you’ll never have?”

Standing from his seat slowly, he rounds the table, perching himself right under my glare. He just fucking stares me out like I’m not going crazy. Like I’m fucking dandy. Like my life hasn’t imploded and left me so fucking lost, I have no idea which way to fucking turn.

“Why does being the good guy matter? All the shit we’ve done, Christopher…we’re fucking condemned anyway. If we’re going to hell, why should we care about how we get there?”

My heart pounds so hard and fast that it punctuates the echoes of his words. Hate and revenge trump the vestiges of my conscience.

He’s fucking right. My wife and my daughter deserve better. They deserve more from me. I vowed to love her fiercely. Relentlessly. I never promised her perfection; I vowed protection…to cherish her. To fight for her.

“Well?” he asks, pushing himself off the table as loud knocks come from the front door.

Air pumps so hard in my lungs that it feels like acid burning through my chest. My thoughts strangle any of the light left inside me as my wife’s screams resound inside my head, wringing shudder after shudder through my body until I feel like if I don’t give in to my desire for blood…for death…violence, I might lose what’s left of me.

“Who’re we culling?” I ask as he returns with Freddie and Casper in tow. Toby whines loudly from the door again.

A laugh bursts from Freddie.

“I thought he was pussying out?” Slapping Leo on the back, he walks around him to the kitchen, like he’s right at home, and does his usual thing of inspecting his surroundings.

“Someone shut him the fuck up. He’s been doing my head in the entire drive here.”