“Forget this? I will never forget this. I want to have this over with, so I can move on, so I’m not permanently tied to a guy, who caused all this pain! I wish I’d never met you. Those burns on my back that made me wish to scratch my skin off? And those scars?” He unbuckled one of his leather bracelets and showed the lines permanently etched into flesh.”They’re your fault!”
Roach tried to hold his hand, but when Zane avoided the touch, he grabbed the wrist instead, trying to ignore that he was the cause of the scarred skin. Zane wasn’t being reasonable, just spiteful like he could sometimes be, but the kind of tenderness they’d shared the previous evening, before all hell had broken loose, told him they did have a chance.
“You’re not thinking clearly. We have moved past this. You’ve taken revenge. On them, and on me many times over. But we’ve got this connection now. You can’t turn your back on it just because we argued yesterday. Would it be so bad to stay bound to each other? If you break this, if you go to the witch, what if it turns out you don’t love me once we’re free?” He choked up, terrified of stating the reason for his anxiety so clearly, but he couldn’t be a coward. That was what got him here in the first place.
Zane’s exhale sounded like a whine. He blinked and clenched his jaws so hard the muscle at the side of his cheek twitched. “Love you? You’ve got to be fucking joking. I don’t love you, I never loved you, and I never will,” he roared, gradually raising his voice. The denial was like a strike to the chest, and when Zane pulled his hand away, Roach let him, empty inside.
But Zane wasn’t done yet. “Who could ever love a useless sack of trash like you? You’ll drink your way to an early grave, and you stink of tobacco all the time. I’m not at all surprised whoever was fucking you before me decided to jump ship. If I could wipe my memory of you, I would!”
Roach glanced at Karla, but she’d stepped away, pretending she wasn’t there to hear his humiliation. Why had he even woken up today? He should have stayed in bed and started the day with a drink. He yearned for nothing more than a whole flask of bourbon to kill the pain.
And yet, despite all the suffering he’d caused Zane, he was far too greedy to let go.
“Well, you can’t. And I’m not going to the fucking witch. You’re tied to me whether you like it or not! This fuckup over here is your future!” Roach spat, fighting the itch to either cry or punch.
Zane shook his head, his eyes two blades with no mercy. “I don’t need you anymore,” he said and spun around, marching out of sight while Roach balled his hands into fists, empty on the inside.
Karla was still there, silent as if she wanted to become invisible in the colorful cape, and he only wished she wouldn’t speak. That she wouldn’t try to comfort him.
He didn’t deserve it.
His legs were made of lead as he stalked out of the building to follow the man who’d rejected him so cruelly. He deserved that too. His father had always been right. He was good for nothing, and like the cockroach he was, he survived on the corpses of others.
“Zane!” he yelled when he went outside to face the blinding gray of the sky. “You can’t walk home in this weather!”
But the familiar silhouette headed toward the trailer park where Mad Madge lived, to be free of the curse, and there was nothing Roach could do about it.
Karla rushed past him. Her rainbow coat couldn’t brighten up Roach’s life, because he’d failed Zane and deserved to die, yet couldn’t let go.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled before disappearing in her SUV.
Roach’s heartbeat was slowing down as if he were freezing already. He turned his back on the world and walked back into the shell of a building where he’d spent so many miserable years. He’d really thought he could put the terrors of the Hyenas behind him, but they would haunt him forever. There was no way out of this forsaken place. Now that he knew what happened here, he’d see Zane’s torture every time he closed his eyes. The torture that made him harbor so much hate for Roach even two years on.
Wandering around the derelict building, Roach took sips from his flask, but the burn of liquor wasn’t enough to drop a curtain on images that kept spinning through his mind, reminding him what he’d done to the man he’d grown to care for so much. How could Zane ever forgive him? Those hopes were a joke.