His eyes glow in the dark. Not in the same manner as Griffin’s cat’s eyes. No. They glow from the electricity that lives under his skin.
“What is it?” I ask, not wanting to touch the bag.
“The heads of the three men who beat you up.”
I let out a controlled sigh. “Is that so?”
“I did warn them all not to hurt any young blonde men. In case one of them turned out to be you one day. They didn’t listen.”
“Charming.”
His head tilts dangerously to the side. This new Oliver, the one I haven’t seen for ten years, is harder to read. He’s not a broken teenager anymore. He’s a man and the leader of an underground city.
“See? You might hate me, but I’m still the only one who cares for you in this wretched world,” he says.
No, not anymore, I want to say.Griffin and Beet care for me better than you ever did.
But I keep my mouth shut. Better not antagonize the mutant who holds my life in his hands. I just have to hold on long enough for Griffin to get here. Because he’ll come… I know he will.
“Can I have some clothes?” I ask, changing the subject.
Oliver stays quiet for a moment. “No. I like you like this,” he says, his eyes roaming over my naked shoulders.
It takes all I have not to squirm.
I wonder briefly if he’s going to force himself on me. When we were younger, he never raped me in the literal sense of the word. It started small. With touches at night, caresses in the dark. Then proximity, even during the day. I liked it sometimes. Other times, I just couldn’t refuse him. I could never refuse him anything. We never went farther than a sloppy hand job. I was fourteen, and he was sixteen.
But he’s a man now, and I doubt that he’ll be satisfied with a few touches. And he has the means and the power to force himself on me.
I tense as he starts undressing. Is this it? Will I get raped?
He ignores my posture as I back up to the wall. I get glimpses of his muscular body in the moonlight. He’s one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. Only second to Griffin. Too bad that his appearance isn’t enough to make me forget the monster that lurks within. And it has nothing to do with his mutations or particularities. I once watched him electrocute a man until his eyes boiled in their sockets, just because he had disrespected him.
This time, Oliver just goes to bed for the night. I let myself relax.
A few hours later, when even the moon has disappeared behind the mountains, the door to Oliver’s quarters slides open slowly. So slowly, I first think that I’m imagining it. I would have missed it had I been asleep. But I’ve been busy thinking about all the outcomes of my new reality. I stay deathly motionless, not knowing whether the newcomer is a threat to me or not.
As it turns out, the newcomer is here to rescue me. Jude walks quietly to me, and I feel like kissing him. This man is certainly resourceful. It’s our first night in Bunkertown, and he’s already on the loose.
His hands are on me, checking for wounds or broken bones. I take a hold of his wrist and shake my head, telling him that I’m fine. I point to the chain at my foot. In the dark, I can’t see his face, but there’s no mistaking the tension in his actions. We need to find the key to the chain. It must be somewhere in this room.
Jude pulls out a kitchen knife from his belt. They gave him new clothes. He’s wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants. I’ll need to find clothes too. I can’t go on a mad escape butt naked.
Jude walks to the bed on quiet feet, blade raised. He’s going to kill Oliver in his sleep. We’ll have all the time in the world to ransack this room looking for the keys.
Good riddance, I think.One less monster in the world.
But as he climbs over the bed and the blade glints in the moonlight, I reach for him with my hand, even though I’m too far away to act. Some part of me recoils at the idea of killing Oliver. Yes, he’s a monster. But he’s the monster that we made of him. He was created in a lab, grown in a petri dish, then later raised to be one of humanity’s saviors. Only later to be thrown to thecaprice of the world, as he called it.
He’s the monster that lulled me to sleep when I was younger. He fought for me and loved me in the only way he knew how.
But if we don’t kill him now, he’ll come after us. He won’t rest until Jude is dead, and I’m enslaved by his side forever. I close my hand into a fist.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t be your salvation, I want to say.
Jude slashes down, aiming for Oliver’s throat. But before the blade can cut into flesh, Oliver’s hand shoots out and grabs Jude’s wrist.
“And who are you?” he asks in a dangerously low voice.
