Page 7 of Genesis
Groaning, I pushed myself to sit up. My bladder was full, and I no longer had any dignity left, so I just… pissed myself. The moon was my only judge. While I pissed myself, my eyes found Zan, alive and well, down by the water’s edge. Sitting withhis elbows on his knees in ankle-deep water, looking out at the glowing orange reflection on the rippling surface.
Beautiful. Fuck, he was beautiful.
His shoulders rose up and down, breathing slowly. Calmly. His dark hair reflected the light, and his shirt was off to show blood dripping down his left shoulder blade. Bruises all over him. Pale skin. Anger in the way he held himself.
Oh.
Not Zan.
I wobbled as I stood, piss dripping down my legs. “I need to wash it,” I said to him, pulling him to stand. “I need to wash it.” I dragged him into the water.
Zade didn’t have the strength to fight me, so we waded into his dead twin’s grave to wash the sand and blood from our wounds. My fingers shook when they touched him, and Zade shivered with his eyes closed when I took another second to pretend. He stood obediently, letting me scrub the filth from his perfect body.
“It went straight through.” I barely recognized my voice. There was an entrance and exit wound, but Zade wasn’t showing any pain.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
His body went limp in the water, so I leaned him against me to finish cleaning him off. Another second in a false reality. His back to my chest. My lips so close to his neck. His body so perfect against mine.Hisessence all around us in the dark water.
“On the dock.” I pushed him over to it and left him there to sit on the edge. I grabbed our packs from the beach and brought them over, pulling out the first aid kit.
Zade said nothing while I cleaned and patched him up. Not even when I added a few stitches. He didn’t even flinch. He was as broken as I was. Usually, his anger kept him going, but I think he was too tired to be angry. When I was done, I sat down besidehim, feeling numb to the world and too exhausted to think about anything.
“There’re no explosions right now,” Zade said in a monotone voice. “No guns.”
Silence. Just the lapping of the lake against the dock and our hearts trying to beat in our chests. I unwrapped a brand new pack of cigarettes, the plastic saving them from Zan’s clutches, and lit one.
Water dripped down my face, but I didn’t know if it was from the lake or my eyes, so I didn’t bother batting it away. I just smoked and looked at the moon, trying not to lean into Zade beside me. By the time either of us spoke again, the moon had moved to the other side of the lake and gotten a lot smaller.
“I need to do yours now,” he said, pushing on my chest until my back hit the dock. I didn’t have the energy to stop him. I kept smoking while he fished a bullet from my side, and I lit another one when he pulled some sutures through the hole. At this point, I might have just kept smoking if he reached through my ribcage and tore my heart free. It did me no good now, anyway.
More time passed, the moon kept moving, and Zade sort of fell next to me. He was breathing and I was smoking, and the moon was changing colour.
“I can’t move,” he said, right before the sound of trickling through the dock started. “I can’t… I’m...” He cried.
I didn’t comment. I didn’t care. I’d already pissed myself, so who was I to judge? Zan was dead and rotting at the bottom of the lake. Amelia was dead, her body was missing, and who knew what some sick fuck was doing to it. We were the remnants left over. Ghostly skeletons of our former selves just pissing our pants because there was no will to live left within us.
“Kill me,” he begged.
“Kill me first,” I begged back.
Neither of us moved, and I knew that my life would continue to shatter tomorrow and his anger would come back. When I closed my eyes, I pretended for one more second.
CHAPTER 4
HE’S ALL I’VE GOT LEFT
ZADE
He laythere bleeding and broken, and I stood over him with another gun aimed at his face. Trembling from rage and shame, I squeezed the trigger just a little bit, testing to see if I’d feel regret over it.
I threw up instead.
“Get the fuck up, Dire!” I yelled at him, unable to kill him now that I’d promised my brother I’d take care of him. “Get up!” I kicked him right where the bullet had entered the side of his body.
I couldn’t be here anymore. I needed to get the fuck away from this goddamn lake. Movement. I needed movement to stop my mind from dipping into the depraved thoughts of what they were doing to my sister’s body. Thirteen. She was fucking thirteen. But I knew…
“Get the fuck up, Cadoc!” I kicked him so hard he rolled off the dock and sank into the lake.
