Page 2 of Genesis
“I know.”
My father may have delivered the death blow, but it was Cadoc who hadn’t saved him. Cadoc was supposed to protect him. Cadoc promised to keep him safe. Cadoc failed, and because of that failure, I lost every good part of me. The light had already winked out of my life.
Cadoc’s eyes never left mine, and they didn’t even blink when an explosion rocked the very cliff we stood on. Smoke and fire plumed into the air on the other side of Synner’s Lake, and the sound of people screaming only kindled the fire trying to defrost my heart.
“I fucking hate you. You ruined everything. He’d still be alive if it wasn’t for you.”
Cadoc just looked at me with pain in his eyes. I knew his heart was breaking the same as mine, but he could have stopped this. He could have saved him and he didn’t.
“His death is on you, Dire.” I clicked the safety back on and lowered it to my side. “And you’re going to carry it around for the rest of your miserable life.”
“No,” Cadoc wept. “Please. Kill me.”
“If you try to escape your agony by putting a bullet through your brain, I will stop you every fucking time. I will haunt youto keep you alive, and any bit of happiness you manage to find, I will take it from you.” I stepped up to him, disgusted by the nearness of his body. “I just became your fucking karma, Cadoc. Because of this,” I pointed at my twin’s dead and broken body, “you will live a life of regret until you hate yourself so fucking much that it’s impossible to go on. Then I’ll force you to continue just to keep the pain alive.” I grabbed his chin. “He got to live with you and you ruined it. What was I doing while Zan got to fall in love, Dire?”
Cadoc swallowed, knowing the answer.
“Yeah, I got mind-fucked and mentally tortured. Guess what I’m good at now?” My smile was sick, and it held nothing of happiness. “I own the rest of your pathetic life.” I shoved him to the ground, anger taking control again. My anger turned off my grief and forced me to act. “We’re burying him in the lake. He deserves to be put to rest somewhere he loved.” I kicked Cadoc. “Hurry up.”
Cadoc collapsed on the ground beside Zan, wishing he were dead. I didn’t care. I had nothing left to live for except ruining Cadoc Dire, and anything that would cut him deep was my new goal in life. I knelt beside my brother, my hand running down his cheek.
Identical in appearance, our souls so differently tainted. Zan carried hope and that deep kind of true love for Cadoc. I carried guilt and shame, hate for myself and hate for my life, and a darkness that consumed me. Anger. Anger was what I carried.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Zan, refusing to cry just yet. “I love you.” My throat thickened, remembering Zan’s last words.Protect my brother.He’d said it to Cadoc, and I hated that he got the last of Zan’s voice. He’d made me promise to take care of his boyfriend, and I agreed without meaning it, just to make him happy in his final moments.
I reached into his jacket pocket, finding a family photo from a year or two ago. My mother was in it, and I hated that. She’d dipped on us as toddlers, and this photo was the one and only time we’d seen her since. I put the photo in my pocket anyway and tried to ignore Cadoc sobbing on the ground behind me, not even having moved from where I kicked him.
“Say goodbye,” I told him. “Say it for Zan. You don’t deserve the right, but he does.” I stood up, keeping my heart cold.
Cadoc flinched when a bomb dropped nearby, but we both dove on top of Zan’s body when a plane was shot from the air above our heads.
“Fuck, we have to hurry!” I shouted over the sound of a plane wreck on the far side of the lake. I hated teaming up with him, but I needed to put Zan to rest. Ineededit.
Cadoc rolled my dad off the cliff without so much as a goodbye. His body hit every jagged outcropping on the way down, and he got stuck partway… in two pieces. He tried not to cry while we filled Zan’s pockets with rocks. Tears burned the back of my throat. He deserved a better send-off than this. He deserved a funeral and respect, but all we had time for was rocks and tears and hatred for each other.
“He has to make it to the water,” Cadoc said, sniffing his nose and wiping his eyes. “He has to.”
Agreed. If Zan’s body didn’t make it to the water, I’d climb down the cliffs myself to make sure he sank to the bottom. There would be no rest for him on the shoreline or the jagged cliffs, and I’d rather die trying to find him solace in the lake he loved than leave him on the edge with our dad.
I looked down the shoreline. “We’ll carry him there.” Should have done that before we loaded him full of rocks. “It juts out more.”
We carried him down the length of the cliff, Cadoc at his head and me at his feet. I hated him touching Zan, but I couldn’tcarry him myself. We both collapsed when we got into place, and Cadoc took the time to cry harder.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you so much. I’m sorry.” He wept, kissing Zan’s dead lips and brushing his hair back. “I’ll find you again someday. I love you, Zan.”
My goodbye wasn’t vocal. It was the agreement to protect his fuck-up of a boyfriend, even though I’d make his life hell, and it was a soul-deep connection that brushed against my mind. Zan comforted me in his death with nothing more than a calming feeling, but as soon as it disappeared, the anger and the pain came back.
I looked behind us. The gunfire had gotten closer, and we were running out of time. Cadoc looked at me, and wordlessly, we picked up Zan’s body. Cadoc kissed him one more time, and then we swung him.
“One.”
I love you, Zan.
“Two.”
I’ll avenge your death forever.
“Three.”
