Page 11 of Genesis
After four days,I still hadn’t found Cadoc. I took the dirt bike Sully left by the tree and scoured as much of the grey area as I could. I almost got eaten by a cannibalistic fucker who’d literally whittled his teeth into points, got caught by an outlaw gang that made me surrender all my guns in order to leave, except the one I’d hidden, and almost crashed the bike fifteen times. When it ran out of fuel, I just kept walking. I hadn’t expected the craziness to come out so soon into this new world, but it shocked me to see how quickly we reverted to our baser selves once society no longer governed us. I wondered what my base instincts would turn me into.
Drawn back to the lake. Always the fucking lake.
I knew he’d be down there because it was the only place I hadn’t checked. I hesitated because… would he be alive or dead? Maybe somewhere in the middle. Half dead and trying to kill himself faster.
Cadoc wasn’t the self-destructive type. When I met him, before Zan ever met him, he’d been at a low point in life. I didn’t know the details of it at the time, but I could tell. Like seeks like,and my turmoil had reached out to his, and I’d found myself drawn to him. Our encounter was quick and uneventful, but for a few minutes, it felt like I met someone who could understand me. Even then, he hadn’t seemed the type to self-destruct, but this was different. There was no hope left, and everything he’d once loved, he’d lost. Cadoc Dire had nothing left but the physical reminder of the man he’d loved and lost. Me. I was a living nightmare, and that pleased me as much as it filled me with guilt.
It should have been me. I should be the one rotting at the bottom of Synner’s Lake. Not Zan. Never Zan. I’d made the choice long ago to take everything my father could dole out so that my brother at least had a fighting chance at happiness, and he’d found it with Cadoc. I didn’t regret that.
After searching the cliffs, the dock, and the shore we’d lost Amelia on, I walked through dirt roads of small cottages, reliving memory lane as I went. These memories were happy, and they killed me. They were part of a past that had long since perished.
When I got to the front door of the cottage my dad and his brother had owned, I stood there afraid. He was in there. I knew it. I could tell by the tracks leading up to the house and the haphazard way the front door had been opened. The lock busted.
Alive or dead? Time to find out.
I drew my last gun, unsure what sort of state I’d find him in if he was alive. The front door creaked on old hinges and the floorboards groaned under my weighted steps. The lullaby of a nightmare coming on.
“Cadoc?” I called into emptiness. Stale air and fresh cigarette smoke greeted me like an old friend, but the door at the end of the hall taunted me.Please don’t be through that door. Do not make me go to the basement.“Dire?”
Nothing.
I checked the kitchen and the bathroom. The first bedroom and the small den. Next to the basement door was the door to the bedroom I shared with Zan, but in the past few years, it’d been more his and Cadoc’s while I got locked in the basement or wept on the back deck, trying to sort out which reality I lived in. I hesitated again, my hand on the bedroom doorknob, and my gun raised.
“Dire?”
The door wasn’t latched, so I nudged it open and stood statue-still as it glided on its own. The bedroom was dark and the curtains were drawn, but daylight snuck in between the gaps. It didn’t show me much. The bed was empty and made, and the floor showed me nothing but muddy boot prints. I took another step, my heart pounding, my mind confused about which way I wanted this to go.
If he was dead, I’d never have to worry about him again.
If he was alive, it wouldn’t be too late to keep my promise to Zan.
I glanced around and took another step… and stopped.
Dead.
The little bits of my heart crumbled to dust.
Cadoc was half naked, sprawled out on the floor with his back hunched up against the wall. His mouth was open and his eyelids were half shut, but there was nothing in the way of movement. A bottle of black nail polish sat open beside him, half spilled onto the light wooden floors. His nails had been painted, but so had the whole tips of his fingers. His hair was disgusting and his stubble was overgrown, and tied around his upper arm was the cord from the blinds. A syringe stuck out of his skin.
Overdose.
My eyes travelled further down, passing the black boxer briefs he wore and noticing a ton of blood between his legs, mostly his upper and inner thighs. Fresh cuts added to his oldscars, weeping blood as if it were his pain. Most of it had dried, but some still looked shiny. I was barely too late. Like he’d be just a minute too late to save Zan.
Cadoc hated drugs. But he loved to cut. The pain was just too much this time.
My eyes watered and so did my mouth, the saliva pooling at my attempt to choke back a sob. I hated him. Fucking hated him. Why did it hurt so much? I knelt beside him and removed the needle from his arm, brushing my fingers over the dried blood surrounding the little pinprick.
“You fucking cunt,” I whispered. “You made me break my promise.” I slid the curtains to the side to let in daylight, and then I used his t-shirt to wipe away the blood on his inner thighs. Six new cuts; three on each leg. “You fucking asshole!” I screamed at him. “You fucked me! You deserved to live in this pain, and you fucked me out of my vengeance! You made me break my promise!”
Anger. It came at me.
“Fuck you, Cadoc! Fuck you for leaving me here to suffer alone!” I shoved his chest and smacked his pec. “Fuck you for being selfish. Of course you’d leave me. Everyone fucking leaves me. No one ever picks me.”
I slumped down against the wall, sitting beside him with his hand in mine. Tears burned my eyes, and they burned hotter because I didn’t understand them. Why was I crying for the man who ruined my life and took Zan from me?
“Why’d you do it, Cadoc? Why’d you encourage him to kill Dad? You should have done it yourself. You had the stomach for it and he didn’t, so why?Why?In what world did it make sense to you? Hell, I could have done it for you. I would have. Anything to protect Zan.” I pinched all his fingers, looking at his terrible paint job.
When I flipped his hand over, a small plastic bag slipped from between his arm and side. It clinked around and spilled open on my lap—new hypodermic needles, still in the packaging, and lots of little bottles full of liquid. I read one. Morphine.
