If his brother was bothered by the discovery Sila had recently killed a couple of people, Bay couldn’t tell.
“You won’t be needed,” Sila agreed.
“Good, because I have my own shit to deal with.”
“I’ve got everything under control.”
“Drugging teachers,” Rin glared at Bay, “andstudents is under control now, is it? I take it back. I’m starting to understand what my brother finds attractive about you and I really wish I hadn’t. The last thing I need is more chaos in my life. I’m hanging up. Finish this conversation on your own.” Without waiting even a second, he did exactly that. Then he pointed a finger at Bay. “If anything happens to my brother while he’s helping you with whatever the fuck he’s helping you with, I’ll catch you on your way home from campus and drown you in Cerulean Lake.”
Bay opened his mouth to reply, but Rin didn’t wait for him either, twisting on his heels and practically storming out of the room.
He replayed their entire conversation over in his head, but it was a spontaneous cluster fuck of odd interactions and hidden double meanings. At least he’d unearthed another interesting difference between the twins that could maybe come in handy one day.
Sila was calculative and unsympathetic, like a glacier in the middle of a still ocean.
Rin was the opposite. He had a conscience, but he was hotheaded and impulsive.
As someone who’d extensively studied criminology, Bay was admittedly fascinated by the two of them and their differences. He also knew to take the fact that they’d both now threatened his life, openly, without hesitation, to be the very real threat that it was.
In that moment, Bay decided to try and avoid interactions with Rin as much as possible. He’d take the devil he knew—the one whoknewhow to make him scream and pant—any day.
Dropping from a bridge was one thing.
Drowning?
Big no.
Which, he cocked his head, must mean he was no longer as open to dying as he’d once been, right?
Chapter 19:
Bay stirred awake, coming to bit by bit, the darkness of his bedroom greeting him. For a long moment, it took his brain time to catch up and process there was something off, his gaze stuck on the luminescent lines cast from the street light outside on the wall. The clock on his end table read that it was only three in the morning. He should still be asleep.
It was the odd heat radiating from behind him that finally slipped through the fog and a second later an arm reached around his middle, tugging him flush against a solid body.
He let out a startled sound and tried to pull himself away but the person at his back held firm, clicking their tongue chidingly at him. Bay had gone to bed alone and he’d been sure to lock the front door, so there was no reason anyone should be lying under the covers with him.
“It’s me,” Sila’s voice cut through the panic like a swift blade, his words kept low and unhurried, as though Bay’s fear didn’t matter to him in the slightest. He was simply annoyed about all the struggling.
“Sila?” He deflated, head dropping back down to the pillow as he exhaled in relief. “Where have you been?”
Bay’s bed was small, a mere twin sized mattress with squeaky springs and a lumpy surface. There were some nights he barely fit on the thing alone, which explained why Sila was pressed in so close, his knees bumping against the backs of Bay’s. He’d gotten beneath the gray comforter as well and Bay jumped when the tips of Sila’s fingers traced the waistband of his boxer briefs.
“Shouldn’t you be more curious about why I’m here?” Sila said. “Didn’t you ask me in the alley if I was going to kill you? Maybe I’m here to do that now.”
“You won’t,” Bay replied, shivering when those fingers continued to lazily trace over the edge of the band, back and forth, so that he barely brushed against the exposed flesh of Bay’s lower stomach. He’d gone to sleep in nothing but an old Vail t-shirt and his underwear, but even with so few clothes on, he couldn’t tell by feel what Sila was wearing.
The idea of him waking Bay already fully naked…He licked his lips.
“So certain?” Sila asked.
“Yeah.” Bay lifted his ass, bumping back against the hard bulge that’d been nudging him since he’d woken. “I’d say my odds are good here.”
Sila hummed. “What if my intention is to fuck you then kill you?”
It very well could be.
“This is a shitty neighborhood. Even if you screamed for help as loud as you can, I doubt anyone would call the cops. I could strangle you,” Sila’s other hand tugged lightly at the leather chord still secured around Bay’s throat, “and leave you here. No one would come looking. When your body is eventually discovered, it’ll be because the mailman complains about the smell.”
