Page 58 of The Shadows Beyond
“Are you joking? It was awful,” he snarled at Julien, blood turning to lava as it pulsed angrily through his body. “You’re such a prick. Did you stop to consider for one moment how shit it would be for me to sit through you deliberately winding him up? You didn’t even tell them I was staying here for some fucked-up reason.”
Cinn unleashed an angry, strangled scream, slamming his fist against the wood beside Julien’s head, lest he smash his stupid pretty face in.
Julien wasn’t smiling anymore. Rather, his face had gone very blank, and any shred of colour drained from it.
“And this is all after I forced myself on a bloody aeroplane to be here to help you.”
A flinch.
“Which I didn’t mind doing, because I’d do anything for my friends. But if this is how you treat yours—”
“It’s not.” Julien’s voice was so quiet, he barely heard it.
A pause.
“Well?” Cinn spat. “Aren’t you going to say anything else?”
Without warning, Julien pushed the door handle down, throwing his weight backwards to open it, sending them both stumbling through the doorway.
thirteen
Cinn
Cinn fell into Julien, who caught him with strong, steady arms. He spun him around so that his body blocked Cinn’s exit, then clicked the door shut for good measure.
Right then. If he wanted it like that.
Cinn lunged for him, gripping Julien’s shirt with two hands, before pushing him against the nearest wall, hard. If it took more than words to make his message clear to Julien, so be it. “I’ve had more than enough of this fucked-up game you’ve decided to play with me, Julien.”
He expected Julien to push him back, or taunt him at least. What he got instead was a bewildering blend of expressions flashing across Julien’s face. Panic, alarm… fear?
Cinn loosened his grip slightly and shuffled backwards.
“I’m trying to apologise.” Julien’s tone was a calm breeze compared to the tempest Cinn was riding. “If you’ll give me the chance.” He placed a hand on Cinn’s chest, lightly pressing against it. “Will you let me? Please?”
The pleading, slightly haunted look on his face had Cinn’s hands releasing him. Julien slipped away from the wall, opened his drink cabinet, and pulled out a half-full bottle of golden whiskey. Throwing the stopper to one side, he took several deep gulps before offering it to Cinn.
He should have probably refused, but being sober seemed rather unappealing presently.
Julien moved to the sofa in the middle of the room. Leaving a great deal of space between them, Cinn perched on the other side of it. After burning his throat with several deep swallows of the whiskey, he said, “Start talking then.”
“My friends are incredibly precious to me. So the fact that I’ve hurt you has upset me. I feel awful, genuinely.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cinn said, laying the sarcasm on thick. However, searching Julien’s eyes for any sign of manipulation, Cinn found none. It wasn’t possible he was seeing Julien in his most candid form right now, right?
“You’ve coped so well with everything that’s been thrown at you so far. I guess I didn’t think that you’d find that dinner so stressful. I didn’t think at all.” Cinn opened his mouth. “I know, I know, I was stupid. I was a prick.” Julien reached across for the whiskey, twirling the bottle before taking a swig. “I’ve been dreading this weekend for weeks. The only thing that kept me from spiralling was the knowledge that you were staying here with me. It made me almost… look forward to it.” Then he muttered quietly, as if to himself, “But then I fucked it up.”
Some of Cinn’s anger began to dissipate, chipped away at not by Julien’s words, but by the way he looked right now: sombre, morose, but most importantly, remorseful.
“I wouldn’t have minded being a buffer if you’d better prepared me. And hadn’t used me as a surprise. Why were you dreading it so much, anyway?”
“My father is truly insufferable. You’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. He cares very little about me. About anyone but himself really, and his business. And the power he holds with the consortium. He didn’t care when my mother died, and barely seemed to care about Béatrice’s death. Now all he cares about is what I can do for him.”
He drank two more large gulps of whiskey before Cinn could grab it off him. “Do you know the first thing he suggested to the consortiumonce the Lumimeld hit production? That it could be sold to governments to wipe the memories of prisoners of war, after they’d been interrogated.”
“Fuck,” was all Cinn could say.
“I don’t know why I was surprised. He was so…cruelduring our childhood.” Julien’s voice dropped to a whisper, and he broke eye contact to look at the floor. “Especially towards our mother.” He rubbed at the shoulder Cinn slammed into his wall moments earlier.
