Page 17 of Genesis
The grin on Cadoc’s face really did reveal cracked blood between his teeth. “Get your shit, Enge. Let’s torch this bitch.”
Flames were pretty.They licked and lapped at the air—tongues searching for taste. I almost craved the glide of their caress over my skin. They ate everything in their path, reducing something so physical into nothing but wisps of grey ash and thick smoke. My memories evaporated in that smoke, and the pain from the life I’d lived dimmed each time a beam crumbled to nothing.
Cadoc became unhinged. We saved our packs, the guns, Zan’s glasses, and some food, and Cadoc saved the drugs, and now he was laughing like his tether to sanity had snapped. The cottage burned up, and Cadoc unravelled. He tossed his smoke butts at the fire as if they were single-handedly keeping the place burning. If he needed to feel wholly responsible for the destruction of our childhood, he could have at it. He got too close a few times, his skin sizzling like the raindrops were. It was just sprinkling, but it was a nice cool balm as we burned on the inside.
I ran my thumb over the family photo in my pocket, wishing I could burn my parents’ faces off the image but too afraid to ruin the photo.
“You weren’t in there, Zan. You’re out here.” I turned my back on the fire to face the lake. “And here.” I pressed my hand to the general vicinity my heart used to sit in.
Cadoc laughed like an asshole behind me. I left him to it, needing to feel close to my brother. My other half. I stripped down to nothing, while Cadoc’s cackles set the ambiance, and waded into Synner’s Lake. I had no grave to visit when it came to my sister, but at least I could drown myself in Zan’s depthless grave.
The water was cool, but I needed it to ground me. Cadoc’s laughter muted when I dipped under the surface, eyes open to see if Zan’s body wanted to float by me. I’d never see him again. Never get to protect him and sacrifice for him, and that, more than anything, confused me. Did my life have a purposeanymore? If I wasn’t giving something up for Zan, what was I doing with myself?
I merged through the surface of the water but waited another few moments to inhale. Cadoc was still laughing, and the crackle and snap of the fire fit in nicely with his insanity. Looking up, I tried to find the moon through the thick clouds, but it hid from me just like Zan’s body did. I peered through the darkness, trying to track my fingers skimming the surface of the lake, wondering if I could feel Zan in the water’s caress.
I wasn’t spiritual or in tune with anything energetic. I felt nothing. Just relieved that the cottage was gone and Cadoc was losing his mind. Served him right. Served both of us right. Maybe sanity was no longer in the cards for either of us.
A naked body soared over my head, and a split-second later, a cannonball splashed me in the face. I didn’t blink, letting Zan fill my eyes to drip down my cheeks with the tears. Maybe it was rain. I didn’t know how to tell the difference anymore.
“Now what?” Cadoc asked, shaking his blond hair out.
“Wanna burn your parents’ place down?” I asked, staring at his teeth. They were cleaner now, glowing orange from the reflection of our burning memories.
“Fuck yeah,” he said. “I wanna burn the whole fucking world down and die in the fire.”
He could use my body as fodder.
I sank to the bottom, pressing my ass to the slimy sand. Water weeds floated all around me, and I let myself believe they were Zan’s fingers, encouraging me to keep going. My brain signals were all fucked up from drugs, so Cadoc clasped my hair in his hand and yanked me to the surface. I coughed right in his face. He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“You die, I’ll fucking fuck your corpse.”
Great threat. I almost wanted it.
“This our decision to live, Dire?” I peered at him through the darkness.
“We can try it.”
Guess that was good enough for me.
CHAPTER 8
TIME TO BE SELFLESS
CADOC
I’d turnedinto a serial killer. My style.
Bullet to maim them. Wide eyes to watch me while I taunted them. A gaping mouth to come in. A cigarette to watch them bleed out. Then Zade burned them. Sometimes they were still alive.
I’d become attracted to insanity. Chased that shit on the regular. Craved a bit of depravity, and wasn’t afraid to sink into it. Lord fucking help the next person who drew my romantic attention. They better be a madman because I’d kill anything less.
“Why aren’t you lighting him the fuck up?” I asked Zade with an unlit cigarette between my lips, my cock still softened in my cargo pants, and the thrill of the kill buzzed in my blood.
He pointed ahead. There was a cluster of houses all around us, and we currently stood in the driveway of one of them. “Someone is out there.” His voice had turned ghostly the past few days; we’d been wandering the grey area for weeks. “Someone is following us.”
Well, they could fucking come at us. I gave zero fucks about death, and after all this time, it might be fun to actually fight someone for the right to live. I knew we didn’t deserve it,but we’d take it anyway because we’d become greedy fucks who took what we wanted in this newly depraved world. We became the worst part of the world.
I looked around, listening and watching for a sign. Peering through the darkness, I saw nothing and heard even less. Zade had been doing more drugs lately, so he often saw shit that wasn’t there, but I believed him. Someone was watching us. Zan, probably. Judging our lifestyle choices and condemning us all the way from Synner’s Lake. Even if the people Zade saw were his own demons, he still felt watched, so I’d take his words in the literal sense and help him fight whatever came at us.
