“There’s enough room in the backyard to bury their bodies after I’m forced to slit their throats, of course, but then you would be sad, wouldn’t you?” Flix snapped his fingers. “Wait, didn’t you mention perspective before? I guess you could always look at it in a positive light instead. With them buried six feet under, they’d never get to leave you, isn’t that true?”
Aneski couldn’t stop the horrified expression from taking over. He slumped down onto his haunches, and Flix allowed it, letting the chain slip through his grasp.
“Do you know what it takes to become a member of Baikal’s Satellite?” Flix asked. “What it takes to become a member of the Brumal? We’re not like the Shepards; we don’t accept anyone off the streets who wants to brag to their friends and wear our logo across their chests to feel like badasses. The public gave us the nickname Devils of Vitality because they said we’re pretty nightmares. I suppose just calling us that would have sounded odd?”
He had no clue where Flix was going with this, but he could tell it wasn’t anywhere good.
“We met when you were sixteen, right?” He reached for the glass half filled with water and took a sip.
No, not glass, Ani realized when he took a closer look. Plastic.
Could he not even be trusted with aglassanymore?!
“By the time I turned sixteen,” Flix continued, “I’d already murdered three people. Two of them were for the Brumal. The third…Technically, he was an accident, but does it really matter? Still counts. Sometimes, I’d come over to your apartment for dinner with blood still under my fingernails.”
There were occasions when Flix would stroll through the door and head straight for the bathroom. Was that why? Aneski hadn’t really thought much of it at the time, but now…
“I’m the kind of person who can keep this,” Flix shifted his hand and sparks flew between his curved fingers, “from my boss, who also happens to be one of my closest friends. That’s who I am, Ani.” He stared at the bursts of electric blue and white. “A pretty nightmare.”
“Flix…” He shook his head slightly. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I tried really hard to keep you from seeing this side of me,” Flix said. “But you just kept pushing. Why now? Why couldn’t you just let it all go? We had three years of—”
“We had three years ofnothing,” he growled. “You refused to even glance in my direction if we happened to be walking on the same street.”
“So you decided to join the Shepards and become their leader? Real smart.”
“The Shepards might be enemies with the Brumal, but that’s not what it was about.”
“What did you initially set out to do, Ani? Have you forgotten?”
No, but he’d definitely deviated from the path. He dropped his gaze. “I just wanted to find out what happened to my brother.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.” He grimaced. “No. I wanted to make you acknowledge me again. I wanted you to see—”
“You flounder and fail at being a leader of a gang?” Flix proposed.
“I didn’t fail,” he argued. “The Shepards are stronger now than ever before. I did that.”
He nodded, though the move was condescending at best. “Too bad for them you’ll no longer be around to supervise their great strength.”
“I told you I’d quit,” he grasped onto that like a lifeline, even though it was as frail as a piece of string and he knew it. “I will. I can do it right now if you want, just hand me my multi-slate and I’ll call—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
He was being serious. This wasn’t just a vailed trick meant to freak Aneski out before Flix announced it was all a joke.
Hemeantit.
“You really intend to keep me here.” Aneski jostled the chain again. “Like this? Flix, that’s insane. I have a life! I havefriends who’ll come looking, no matter what I tell them over the phone. I have professors who’ll wonder why I didn’t at least pick up my work from campus, and the Shepards? Unless I do an official exchange of power, they’ll never believe I just up and left them without a word.”
“No?”
“No!” he yelled, momentarily losing his cool. “BecauseIdon’t abandon people!”
“Was that a dig, baby?” Flix didn’t seem all that upset by it. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. So long as you’re stuck here, in my home, I’ll always return for you. Isn’t that what you wanted? To be my Onus? To be mine?”
