“Your brother was running from Haroon. He knew too much—seems like being nosy runs in the family. If Haroon caught wind he wasn’t really dead, he’d use you as bait to sniff him out, and your brother is kind of a dick. He wouldn’t put his neck on the chopping block, even for you.”
“I can keep a secret.”
“Maybe now,” Flix replied. “But not then. If you found out, you would have gone straight to Haroon and tried to either negotiate or kill him first. Neither of those things would have worked, and the next funeral I’d be attending would have been yours. Russ made it seem like he cared enough about you to read me into the situation, hoping I’d do my best to keep you safe. That meant playing along.”
“Without Russ, there’d be no reason for you to come to my house or see me,” Aneski caught on. “You realize now though that was all crap, right? Russ never cared about anyone but himself. He used you to form a believable alibi and then left you in the dust, same as he did me.”
“Russ promised he’d reach out to you and explain everything as soon as it was safe enough for him to. He said he was going to collect evidence and come for Haroon once he had enough to deal with him.”
“Why didn’t you do that yourself? You’re a Devil of Vitality, even back then, you would have had enough sway with the police to do something.”
“Russ refused to tell me what he had on him.” Flix had tried to get him to more than once, but it’d been impossible. “He’s stubborn. You know that better than anyone.” Lookingback on it now, if he was given a second chance, Flix would have done everything in his power to drag the information out of him, even torture the guy. But they’d been friends, and Flix had been more naïve at nineteen than he was now.
And then his powers had developed, and he’d needed to leave the city in a rush. He’d spent an entire summer overseas learning how to control his abilities enough to keep it hidden. By the time he’d come back, it didn’t make sense to reach out to Aneski again and put him at risk.
“I planned on steering clear of you long enough for Russ to get his shit together and come back and explain. After that, I figured we could…I don’t know. I don’t know what I hoped for. My point is, I pushed you away because I thought it was temporary. Then, after a year had passed and there was no word from him, it was too late for me to undo what I’d done. I’d already shunned you, Ani. Without Russ there, or without any physical proof to back up my claims, there was no way you would have believed me.”
“That’s why you didn’t say anything? That’s it?”
“Look,” Flix tried to get them back on track. “Haroon is dead now, it should be safe for Russ. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from him—”
“Russ didn’t wait for Haroon to die before reaching out to me.”
He paused, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Aneski sighed and leaned back against the wall, tipping his head up toward the darkening sky. It looked like it was going to rain soon. “Turns out, my brother wanted you to keep your part of the promise but not his own. As far as I can tell, the first letter he sent me was less than a month after his supposed death. The only reason I can’t be certain is there’s always the chance Gannon misplaced one.”
“Gannon?” Flix was so confused. “What does this have to do with your clingy friend?”
“He’s not clingy.”
“He’s madly in love with you, and you’re just blind, but that’s beside the point.” And none of Flix’s business. “Why did Gannon have letters addressed to you?”
“He said he was protecting me.” Aneski gave him a scornful look when Flix’s expression darkened at that. “Don’t be a hypocrite, be’tessi. That’s the same excuse you’re giving me now, is it not? You’re both claiming you hurt me for my own good. Maybe you’re actually a better match. What do you think? Should I give you his number? Or,” he motioned to Flix’s hand, “you planning on running into him at my funeral instead? Going to stop my heart?”
“Absolutely no part of you should be this calm,” Flix stated, at a loss for words otherwise. “Do you think I won’t?”
“I know you better than that,” Ani said, giving him a small smile. “You don’t make idle threats. If you want to kill me, you will. Our past won’t stop you from doing it.”
“Then why—”
“Because it’s not like it’ll be the first time you’ve broken my heart.”
Flix hated how he felt right now. Hated how torn he was. Out of all of the people on the entire planet who had to discover his secret, why did it have to be this one?
Although…
“You mentioned you were suicidal before.” It was difficult thinking about it, but he made himself. “What about now?”
“I told you,” Ani replied. “I don’t have a death wish. I didn’t come here to die.”
Which meant he came here with a plan.
“Let’s hear it then.” Flix pointedly summoned more electricity so it popped and crackled threateningly. “The reason why I should let you walk out of here alive.”
“Help me find my brother,” he said. “Don’t you want to make him pay for his part in all of this, too? I know I do.”
“What?” He didn’t know what he’d expected, but that most certainly hadn’t been on the list.
