“Which is why now you pick at your food.”
“I guess so.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t diminish what was done to you just because it could have been worse.”
“She never said she was proud of me or that I’d done a good job,” Rabbit said, only partially realizing that had bothered him all this time. “When she paid attention to me, it was to ensure I was working hard and on the right path. If for any reason she thought I’d deviated from it, she reacted without mercy. I wasn’t allowed to have friends, couldn’t partake in any other activities. I went to school and I played the beiska. That’s it.”
“You’re an adult now,” Baikal told him. “You don’t have to let her control you. You can leave.”
“I have a secret bank account she doesn’t know about,” he confessed. “But it only has enough in it to last me a couple of months on my own. Since most of the professional gigs were set up by her, she pocketed any of the funds I made.”
“So she’s financially controlling you on top of everything else,” he growled. “You don’t need her money. I have enough.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
Rabbit frowned.
“There’s more to it. You aren’t worried about disappointing your only parent, or afraid of ending up on the streets homeless. But you are scared of something. What else has she done that has you so frightened of her?”
It was too late to go back…
“She found out that Oli and I were friends. Instead of forcing me to practice for eight hours after school, we’d sometimes go for a walk, or to the movies. We’d talk. All stuff she deemed a waste of time. You saw what happened next. It was conveniently recorded and left for you to find.”
“The guy she had beaten up,” Baikal caught on, “that was Oli. It looked like she’d stomped on his hand.”
“Broke a couple of his fingers,” he confirmed. “They looked bad. Like, possible career ending type bad.”
“Did it? End his career?”
“I don’t know.”
Baikal searched his expression. “Do you want me to find him for you?”
He assumed Rabbit didn’t know because after that event, Oli had heeded his mother’s warning and vanished without a word. But that wasn’t true. Even with all of his connections, Baikal wouldn’t be able to locate Oli. There were some things even the Brumal Prince couldn’t do.
“Real monsters don’t know they’re monsters because from their perspective their choices are just,” Rabbit said quietly. “Isn’t it interesting, how someone can convince themselves they’re doing the right thing even when they’re so obviously hurting another person? That’s what I like about you, Baikal. You’ve never bothered pretending. You didn’t approach me with a lie. I knew who and what you are right from the start, because you wanted me to. You wanted me to see you.”
“I’m keeping you forever,” Baikal replied. “That’s far too long a timeframe to pull off a lie like that. I had to come to you as I am. I had to make you fall for the monster.”
“You aren’t a monster,” he cupped the side of his face. “You’re a devil. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“There is to me. It’s all kinds of fucked up and twisted, but on some level, I know you’ve pulled back for me. You’ve curbed your need for violence and control. You’ve been horrible and a part of me still hates you a little for it, for making me feel things despite all of that, for making me question my sanity, but…”
“But?” Baikal prompted.
“My mother was the one person in existence who was supposed to care about my feelings and she never did. She didn’t bend for me, not once. That night, she didn’t even give me the curtsy of speaking with me about things first. She waited until I was in the middle of playing on stage, in front of a packed audience, and then she went and got Oli and led him out of the auditorium. But not before she made eye contact with me, just to be certain I understood what was happening. That I understood there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
“Did you know she was going to take things that far?”
“Of course not. Up until then, I’d only ever seen her be cruel to me. When I found out I almost threw up.”
“Rabbit,” Baikal said, “tell me honestly. Were you two really just friends?”
“Yes.”
