I do not think this is a dream.
I don’t believe I will become immortal, I only know I enjoy hurting him.
He is nothing to me. Not a child. Not a little boy. He is not even human. I would do worse, if I could. Sometimes I think Stein knows this, and holds me on a leash. Sometimes I think I will snap it and strangle him. Our friendship is strained. He does not care for me and I dohardly tolerate him. It all comes back to Gates. It always has.
Stein believes his word to be gospel.
I believe in pain.
It is only the boy I enjoy toying with. Nothing of his private anatomy, no. Even I have limits, and the women I fondle under anesthesia do enough for me. They always look so utterly stupid when they wake up, never questioning, only tripping over themselves to leave.
I am getting distracted.
It happens often, these days.
Maybe in my confusion I will finish the boy before I should.
But in the meantime, it is good that Stein makes me slow down, if only so I can savor this. There are very few people in this community I can practice on. It is the price of living richly on Ritual Drive, even if only one person is aware I call this place home.
When someone disappears here, everyone knows.
With the boy, he stays precisely where he is and is forced to cover his wounds, not the other way around. Besides, Stein creates them. Him. I only defile the defiled.
For Stein, it is a religious practice.
For me, it is life.
Chapter 22
Sullen
His bones are beneath my fingers. So breakable, it wouldn’t take much.
I don’t say anything. I don’t make demands. I don’t think, given his position, I need to.
“I didn’t know,” Sanford Rule wheezes in the darkened corridor of Haunt Muren. “We spoke about this. You know I didn’t know. You knew there was a possibility. But I didn’t know anyone would ambush us.”
Yes, we spoke. Sure, he promised me answers and retribution and weaponry and assistance but I never believed him anyway as we sat at odds in that hotel room yesterday. As he created a grand plan to construct Stein’s demise. More silence filled the hours than actionable goals, but I expected as much.
Who could kill their own son, aside from Stein Rule himself? Then again, how could Sanford be any different?
How could I?
A future with Karia, a family with the broken princess, it is not meant for me. I will become just like them. The animals, the taxidermy, I am no different. I would be my own child’s worst nightmare.
I hate them for this.
“How would I know, Sullen?” Sanford gasps, the withered bones of his face seeming to bend and flex beneath my grip as I keep him shoved against the wall, my body crushing his. “I haven’t left my home in decades.”
But that’s another thing. I stare down into the amber of his eyes. His arms are by his sides, as if he will not fight back. Even if he did, it would not matter much. Only half an hour ago, I stabbed one of my father’s lesser guards nearly one hundred times. I could do the same to him, even if my shoulders ache a little from it. “And whynot?”
“Do you think you were the only experiment to godhood? Do you think your father didn’t create a backup plan?” The sharp vulnerability in Sanford’s voice doesn’t move me, but it does give me pause.
I don’t speak as I look at him, one hand pressed to his sluggish heart, the other over half his face.
I would like to tear him to pieces.
I would like to shred him bit by bit, cracking his ribcage, sawing off his femur. Anything to get this twisted, disgusting rage out of my system.
