Page 67 of King of Liars

“Let us in! If you hurt him, you’re both dead!” Hole shouted, followed by the sound of one of them—Hole, I imagined—thrusting himself against the door.

King howled again, then chuckled. He continued until it escalated into a laugh. “They’re coming to save me, but they’re just like you, aren’t they? Just waiting to fucking tear me apart. Two, you know what you are. You know what you did to me.”

“Stop it. Just stop it!” Aiden said, moving right before King and leaning into him.

King sucked in before spitting, the wad landing on Aiden’s forehead. “This is what you did to my kingdom! You fucking ruined everything! You think you’re better than the rest, but you’re not. You’d do the same thing as the rest. All of you will.”

Anotherthudcame from the door. The frame snapped, and Hole and One hurried inside.

Aiden raised his hands.

“He’s hurting himself!” I called out.

“No, you’re hurting me,” King said. “You’re fucking killing me!” He continued twisting in the sling. He shouted, unprovoked, as though waging some war in his own mind.

Hole and One moved closer, but it was evident by their expressions that they were as shocked as Aiden and I were to witness King in the middle of some psychotic episode.

He rattled his cuffs some more before turning to me, as though possessed by some demon. “Tell me now, Two. Tell me how much you fucking love this monster…this bastard who let you see the monster in you. Or tell me how much you hate me. Destroy me.”

Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t take pride seeing my King in pain—so much pain—knowing now what he battled with, the wounds he couldn’t heal on his own.

“I care about you so much. I only ever wanted to be someone who could please you. That was all I was trying to do. And I know I did you wrong to do it, but you have to believe I only wanted to help you, Sy…Nick.”

He stopped fighting for a moment, the silence so noticeable because of how turbulent everything had been moments before. But it was only a flash before he returned to his wild state, rearing his head back and calling out, thrashing about in the sling.

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” He screamed again, moving like he was trying to cover his ears. “Nick is dead.Theykilled him.Youall killed him.”

Aiden hurried to me, resting his arm on my shoulder. “We need to go. We have to leave him.”

“Not yet.” I could see the concern in Aiden’s expression. Surely he knew how hard it was for me to watch King enduring such pain.

Hole came closer to the sling, searching around before he found the key to the cuffs on a hook on one of the poles.

“Don’t fucking touch him while he’s like this,” I told Hole, who backed down as I stepped toward King.

I waited patiently as he threw his fit, as if the child—the Nick within him—battled all the troubles he’d taken on at a time when he shouldn’t have needed to fight.

“Fuck you,” he finally whispered to me, his energy waning.

“We can’t help you right now,” I told him. “We can’t help you until you want help, but when that day comes, and I believe it will, find us.”

He gazed into my eyes for only a moment before turning away. “I don’t need help,” he muttered. “I just need to be alone with my demons.”

I felt a hand against my back and turned to see Aiden at my side, giving me the support I needed in that moment.

“Goodbye, Sy,” I fought out.

He was quiet, perfectly still.

I nodded to Malcolm and Kerry, and then Aiden and I headed through the stairwell doorway.

Walking out the front door was as hard as it had been the day I’d been exiled, and as soon as we made it through, I collapsed against it, tears streaming down my face. “I want to go back.”

“We can’t,” Aiden said.

“I know that, but it doesn’t change that I wish I could. He’s just a kid inside. Hurt and afraid, needing us to be there for him.”

“But you were right about us not being able to help him right now.”

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