Page 56 of Sick Bargain

Remiel looks at me, alarmed and relieved. My heart thumps out a hard beat, confused by his reaction.

“K-Keegan,” he says, acting the part and hiding my identity.

But when I look at Cain, I give myself away. “Leave.”

Cain’s eyes widen in understanding and Remiel’s face drops.

“Remi?” Cain asks.

“I’m fine. Just go.”

Cain grabs his coffee and walks toward me and the front door, but before he can walk by, I stop him with a look. “Just so we’re clear,I’mthe one who protects him. Not you.”

Cain’s the daredevil type, so he levels me with what he thinks is a threatening look and opens his stupid mouth. “And just soyou’reclear, he’s my best friend and you won’t take him from me.”

“You sure?” I ask, flicking a Zippo open. “Be easy for me to make you disappear.”

“Keegan!” Remiel warns.

But Cain is smiling. I don’t know what it means. “You ever going to properly introduce me to your friend in the blue mask?” he asks, proving that he now knows who I am.

“From what I hear, you’ve already been properly introduced.” I tilt my head at the door. “Go. Now.”

Cain rolls his fucking eyes at me, and the only thing staying my hand is the pleading look on Remiel’s face. When he leaves, I lock the door behind him and stand here, unsure how to proceed. I’ve never been good at talking, so I don’t really want to do that, but Remiel looks expectant. He has so many questions about last night, and I don’t really have answers, but he… he cares about me. For fuck knows what reason he cares, and maybe that makes him deserving of some sort of explanation.

“Are… are you okay?” he asks me.

Really? That’s his first question. Clearly, I’m okay. I’m standing here, alive and fine, but maybe he means something else. My head isn’t okay. My heart isn’t okay. Because I found out I have one and that it knows how to feel shit. Hard. I don’t like it, and I resent Remiel for waking it up.

If anything, I’m mourning the loss of the sex last night. It was supposed to be about fear and power, but he ruined it by doing exactly what I wanted him to do but never thought he would actually do. I came because of a rush of emotion, not a powerdynamic that put me above him. It’s all fucked up and warped, and I don’t know how to level it out.

But being near him now, it’s not sex I’m craving. It’s him. His attention and his anger. I don’t deserve more than that, but I want it anyway. I want him to understand me and become as sick as I am, to understand that maybe we’re matched because we’re both so broken. His brokenness led him to me, and my brokenness helped empower him. We’re matched in pain, but both undeserving of each other.

I don’t deserve his understanding.

He doesn’t deserve to suffer my monsters.

He’s better than I am, and I’ve never cared about something like that before, but…

“Are you hungry?” he asks when I don’t answer. “I haven’t eaten all day. I could… um, take you for dinner?” He rubs his palms together and avoids looking at me.

Dinner? I don’t date. I don’t want to date. I want to skip the dating phase and go straight to ownership and possession. He’s either mine or he’s dead. There is no in-between.

“Krypt?” He slowly walks up to me. When his hand lifts to touch me, I look at it, and he pulls it away.

I grab his wrist and dig my fingers into the scar there, reminding me how important it is to stop Axel Graves. “Don’t treat me like a boyfriend, Remiel.”

He frowns at me. “You got me breakfast at Vile House and then brought me dinner another night. Why can’t I do the same?” He rips his wrist free and pulls the front of his shirt down to show me my name there. “You already fucking branded me and made me yours, so… let me be yours. Let me play pretend.” There’s a new edge to him, something mad and darker than I like, and it has me alert. Many men in the Sauder family have gone mad, and that’s inevitably what led them to suicide, so I have a new eye on Remiel. He’s a risk right now. Tohimself. Because this mania is new; it has shifted into something destructive rather than productive.

I don’t agree or nod or give any affirmation, but I don’t disagree either, so Remiel opens the door and holds it for me. I step through it and wait on the sidewalk while he locks up. Death Row is busy with evening foot traffic and closing shops. It’s already getting dark since it’s autumn, and the power lines are all weighed down by blackbirds and crows that appear as shadows in the fading light. The air is thick and misty, cool but not windy, and I feel comfortable in the blanket of fog that lines Death Row.

When he puts his keys in his pocket, I watch him instead of everyone else on the street. No one talks to me as Keegan anyway, so it’s easy enough to ignore them, but it makes my teeth hurt when people greet Remiel. My blood burns hotter with every person who looks at us together with questions in their eyes. He’s Remiel Sauder, the poor son of a family of suicidal men who owns their favourite shop and knows them all by the music they play. I’m Keegan Hallows, the crazed son who killed his parents and can’t hold eye contact.

We walk down Death Row together. Remiel leads, but I’m at his back like a stuck shadow, unwilling to let him get far from me. He doesn’t seem bothered by any of it. Not me at his back or the people who look at us.

He walks past the Midnight Diner and pulls open the door to Cauldron, a soup and sandwich place. Its dark brick interior and black and woodsy furnishings appease my hatred for bright things, but it isn’t busy, and that settles me a little more. I slide into the booth opposite him, unsure how to feel about any of this. I’ve never shared a meal with someone other than the ten at Vile House or Ghost and my brother at a restaurant. My parents didn’t even invite me to family meals growing up, instead forcingme to eat in my room with Killian, who eventually refused everything I wasn’t allowed in some show of solidarity.

The deep and slow violin comes from a musician playing in a dark corner, but she’s far enough away that I’m not agitated.

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