“I still can’t believe you’ve never been to a McDonald’s before. Actually, I can. Fucking OI.” He looks suddenly seditious, like he wants to storm the gates of OI and tear down their power structure with his bare hands.
A flush of embarrassment rushes to the surface, my cheeks heating without my permission. It’s stupid to feel self-conscious about not having done something as mundane as going to a fast-food restaurant, but. It’s just another way in which OI has made me fundamentally different than most other people.
"I think the more important thing to focus on here," I say in an attempt to distract Leo from thinking about what a freak I am, "is how awful you are for dragging me to this clown cafeteria of horrors."
Leo mouths the words “clown cafeteria” to himself. He doesn't look like he knows what to do with them.
"Drink your Sprite, partner."
Leo gestures at the drink sitting beside my left elbow, untouched. There's a reason for that.
I sniff in the most disdainful way possible. It's been a few minutes since I busted out any truly scornful behaviours, but Leo seems to like them. Because he’s a weirdo and a half.
"I haven’t drunk lemonade since I was a small child," I say, eyeing the paper cup and plastic straw warily.
"And you're not going to now," Leo says. "Sprite isn't lemonade. It's fizzy chemicals. Go on. Drink the fizzy chemicals I bought you.” He smirks a little, clearly teasing. “It'd be rude not to, and you know it."
Leo is enjoying all of this far too much. He’s not stopped smiling really since we got here.
I pick up the paper cup slowly, like it's a bomb, and bring the plastic straw to my lips. I keep my eyes on Leo as I take a sip. Leo watches me with open fascination, waiting for my verdict. I give it to him.
"That," I say, putting the drink down on the table in front of me, "was terrible."
Leo arches his eyebrows at me, expectantly. I pick the cup back up and take another sip just to make him happy. And it does make him happy. Because, as I said, he is sostrange.
I keep taking small sips of the fizzy chemicals as Leo eats his horrible, limp chips. We don't talk for a while, and it's okay. We don't always need to talk. In fact, I'm quite happy to just sit here and look at him and not say a single bloody word—
"So," Leo says, "I talked to Rohan about what happened to his mother."
Damn him.
Also.
I spoke to Rohan about happened to his mother.What am I supposed to take from that statement?
I fiddle with my cup, twisting the straw and tapping the bottom of it against the table. I'm stalling like a champion, and it's utterly pointless.
“Had a nice chat with Stone Jr. about his murdered mother, did you?” I ask, not bothering to hide the scathing undertone. “Sounds fun. Why wasn’t I invited? Should’ve been. I’m the one who did the murdering.”
Leo doesn’t react like I want him to. Instead of getting flustered or defensive or even outright glaring at me in disgust, he just pulls this unacceptable sympathetic face at me. I immediately want to smack it off. Of the many things I might need in my life, Leo’s sympathy is not one of them, especially when it pertains to this.
I’m not the victim here. It’s Rohan’s mum who’s dead. It’s Rohan who lost his mum. More accurately, she was taken away. Byme. And his father, but that’s irrelevant, isn’t it? In the end, I did the job. It was my mission, and I completed it like I had so many others like it before.
“Can’t tell you how to feel about it, Jack,” Leo says calmly, like he’s trying to soothe my frayed nerves. “I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to think I’m going behind your back, at all.” He pauses for a moment, letting that sink in, before he adds, “He’s not planning revenge or anything, just so you know.”
I snort, my hackles rising in response, each muscle in my body seeming to tighten one by one as a bucketful of cement-like tension seeps in. I let go of the paper cup so I won’t crush it by accident.
“Well, maybe he should be.” My jaw clenches painfully.
Leo nods sympathetically, like he understands all the things I haven’t said. Like maybe, Rohan has every right to hate me, to want me dead, to actually find some bottle and go ahead with his chosen form of vengeance. I probably deserve it. And wouldn’t it be the perfect end to my life if I was finished off by the son of Ian Stone? The man who stole me from my home, from my parents, and destroyed me, took my future and burned it right in front of my eyes, who made me kill my own brother.
Dan. Dan. My brother. Brother, brother, brother.Guilt is for real people. Dan. He’s. He’s dead, and I can’t. I. I need. I.Please,I want my.
Ian Stone took almost everything from me. All I have left is my life. It would only be fitting if his son snatched that away too.
Then I’d be like my brother, free of this, this constant bullshit. Having to pretend there’s anything worth fighting for, worth putting up with this fucked-up world for. Dan was more than my brother. He was my reason. He was.
And now he’s gone. Dead on the floor. Throat slashed open. Black, black, black blood pooling out of him to trickle onto the grey floor like so many before him. His blood got on my hands, sprayed on my face, still runs through my veins. His blood is my blood. We are Liquid Onyx survivors. We are family, tied together twice by the people who made us and then the people whoremade us.
