Page 51 of Chaos & Carnage

“I don’t understand. Why would you think that?”

“Because only someone who could stand in that church, not showing an ounce of fear while surrounded by Giovanni and his minions, would have the balls to piss off Dante and Cain, all for the sake of making others laugh.”

“But, why would you want to piss them off just to play a prank on them?” he asks me, confusion drawing his eyebrows together.

“Tell me, when you were in that skyscraper, what did you think of?” Luc’s expression immediately becomes closed off. “What kept you sane, reminded you of who you were, and stopped Santos and Giovanni from turning you into the soldier I know they tried to make you?”

Luc is silent for a long moment. So long that I begin to think he isn’t going to answer me. When he finally speaks, his voice is nothing more than a broken whisper. “Sawyer. I thought about Sawyer. About how she’d go to the ends of the earth to rescue me. I thought about the days we’d hide in the apartment and watch television or play games, or she’d pretend to be interested while I talked her ear off about comic books. I thought about Bones and the others, the shit they’d talk when we hung out, and how they always bickered over the slightest thing, or how a simple disagreement would end up in fists being thrown.”

“You thought about the moments and the people that brought you happiness.”

The entire time he talked, Luc stared at a blank point on the tabletop, but now he lifts his gaze to mine. “Yeah.”

Lifting one side of my lip, I say, “You can’t tell me that if you’d made Cain shit himself in front of the entire club, that wouldn’t have been something you replayed in your captivity.”

Looking both bewildered and amused, Luc snorts. “So, you’re saying you want to piss Cain and Dante off so that when you get kidnapped by your sister’s boyfriend’s father and his sidekick, and locked in a windowless room where you’re beaten daily before having a gun aimed at your face and told to kill some random guy or you’ll die instead, that you can laugh at the look of thunder on their faces.”

I’m careful to keep my reaction to myself as I unpack everything he just shared. I’m reasonably sure he hasn’t told Sawyeranyof that, and even though he flippantly tossed the words out, I know they cost him a lot to say. So, rather than prying his wounds open any further, I simply shrug. “Pretty much.”

“You’re very strange.”

I throw my head back and laugh.

When I look back at him, the laughter falls away, a seriousness falling over me. “Some people will tell you that feeling pain is a good thing because it reminds you you’re still alive. But I say fuck pain. Life is filled with enough pain as it is, never mind using it to ground yourself. Especially when more optimistic emotions can do just as good—if not better—of a job.

“Whenever the shit is being kicked out of you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, happy memories and thinking about those you love are what give you the strength to keep going. Love, laughter, happiness.Thoseare the emotions that center you when you’re on the verge of dying. They’re what remind you why death is worth defying. Pain might let you know you’re not dead, but it’s those moments with your family and friends—the small moments that seemed insignificant at the time—that will push you to live.

“When it was me tied to that chair, watching Giovanni murder my parents in front of me, his fists pounding my body, breaking bones and splitting flesh, I had far too few happy moments to cling to. My world was nothing but pain, and I can tell you, that pain might have told me I was alive, but it sure as hell didn’t offer me a reason to keep living.

“So, yeah, I say make those happy memories while you can. Play pranks, joke around, and push those around you to their limits and beyond, because you never know when you might need to recall those memories of being with the people you love and care about in order to remind yourself why you can’t allow yourself to give up.”

A long silence follows my declaration, only broken by the waitress bringing us our food. Luc ends up picking at his meal, and I only eat mine to give me something to do.

After several awkward minutes of silence, Luc lowers his fork and looks up at me. “But what about afterward?” I frown, unsure what he means. “How do you keep telling yourself not to give upafteryou’ve already survived?”

“I’m not sure I can offer much advice with that. All you can do is take it one day at a time. I still struggle some days,” I confess. “There’d be times when it felt like the walls were closing in around me. I’d be back in that room, watching—” My throat tightens, and my jaw clenches as I push away those memories… My dad begging to spare our lives, my mother’s cries, my screams.

“What helped you get through it?”

“Your sister,” I tell him honestly, smiling softly as those traumatic memories are replaced by crystal blue eyes, flaming red hair, and the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. “I don’t know if you know this, but I met with your sister once a month for years. She didn’t know who I was, of course, but I knew her. She’d give me information in exchange for money. I didn’t give a shit about the information, I just wanted to help her—to help you both—and to have an excuse to see her.” I chuckle, remembering the feisty woman who’d breeze into that bar, not giving two shits what I thought about her, wanting to be done with me as quickly as possible. “She hated me, hated our meetings. She had no idea—still doesn’t—that some months, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of seeing her face again. Even though I knew she’d scowl the entire time and was most likely cursing me out in her head.”

“She was what centered you.”

I nod. “She was. She is.”

Luc seems to think over everything I’ve said before lifting his fork. “Alright,” he says before digging into his now cold pancakes.

“Alright, what?” I question when he doesn’t elaborate.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to try and kill you in your sleep for the time being.”

It takes a second for his words to register, and a boom of laughter escapes me when they do. “Thank you… I think.”

The conversation is easy after that. Luc fills me in on what life with the Rejects is like. When he peppers me with questions about being an Antonelli, I’m honest with him. He might only be fifteen, but he’s seen his fair share of fucked up shit. Besides, he’s been living with the Rejects, so I’m sure he’s heard enough stories. I genuinely meant it when I said I wanted to get to know him. I offered to talk to him for Sawyer, but more than that, I wanted to get to know the kid who matters more to Sawyer than anything else. More importantly, I want him to likeme.

“So,” Luc begins, having slurped the last of his milkshake. “What ideas do you have for messing with Cain?”

Mischief dances in his eyes, even if it is cased in shadows, and I smirk. Yeah, I think Luc and I will get on perfectly.

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