Page 13 of Rat

“What is?”

“No one asks what each other is in for. They ask about the time, the sentence, but never the crime, and yet we all find out anyway.”

“Maybe some people are ashamed, or they fear they’ll be targeted for their crimes.”

The bed shook, and Rory clutched on. He felt safer when Sebastian was below him, but when he stood naked as the day he was born in front of the bed, Rory’s heart started thumping.

“What did you do?” Sebastian asked.

“What?”

“There’s that word again.” Sebastian huffed. “Eight years, for what?”

“Drugs.”

“Drugs?”

“Smuggling, selling…”

“Using?”

Rory shook his head. “No, I didn’t use it. I knew what was in it.”

Sebastian laughed. “Yeah, I bet. You know what I’m in for, right?”

He leaned closer, and Rory shifted his head along the pillow to keep their distance.

“How would I know?”

Sebastian’s stare was so intense Rory was sure he saw his blue eyes shimmer, the same way animals’ eyes shone in low light. Then he took a step back and laughed.

“I told you sixteen years, remember? Why don’t you guess…”

“Murder,” Rory whispered.

“Who’s a clever boy. Murder. Do you know how I did it?”

Rory shook his head. “No.”

Sebastian chuckled, then lifted his arm. “The good thing about hands…they’re always onhand.”

He laughed and wriggled his fingers in the air. Rory didn’t laugh or smile. His stomach twisted in a knot. He knew how Sebastian Claw had murdered. He strangled with his right hand. Didn’t even need two, he had enough strength in one to snuff out Lester Yates.

Sebastian hung his arm at his side again. “He deserved it.”

“What did he do?”

Sebastian turned away and looked up at the small window. “Betrayed me. We were close, or at least I thought we were, but he ratted on me to the police. What would you have done?”

Rory bit his lip. “I would’ve asked him to explain the situation…tried to understand, found a way out—”

“That’s the thing. If he’d told me, it would’ve been different. We could’ve sorted it, I could’ve helped, but he didn’t. I gave him plenty of chances to tell me, but he never did. Even when I was strangling him, he looked at me with this confused expression,like he didn’t understand why. That made me even angrier, and I couldn’t stop.”

“Do…Do you—never mind.”

“No, ask me.”

Rory avoided Sebastian’s gaze when he asked, “Do you ever regret it?”

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