Sixteen … Seventeen … Eighteen … The counting helped to keep him sane. He didn’t know how many times he had started back at one, but it kept his mind occupied when he couldn’t sleep in the darkness.
A crack of light finally showed under the door, giving him a little glimmer of brightness. Thinking his father had come into the room, he thought he was finally free.
It wasn’t until a piece of candy was slid under the door that he realized he was far from saved.
Angel just stared at the candy with a tear streaming down his face.
“Are you holding up in there, Angel?” Dominic’s worried voice came through from the other side when he didn’t take it.
Wiping away the tear, he took the gift. “I’m okay,” he managed to get out of his dry throat.
“Suck on it for as long as you can; it’ll help.”
He unwrapped the hard piece of red, glossy candy; the cherry flavor exploded in his mouth and his dry throat started to produce saliva.
The shadow under the door showed his brother was still there.
“How’s Matthias?”
Silence grew until Dominic finally answered, “He’s better.”
That answer gave him a shiver up his spine. Not until he was set free would he know if his twin came out all right on the other side.
“You’re different than him.” Dominic’s voice was almost ominous, like it didn’t belong to a teenage boy. Then again, a boy like him had never gotten to be a kid, let alone a teenager. There were five years between them. Five long years Dominic had had to spend on this earth alone with the devil. How he had survived, no one knew. No one even knew if Dominic had the answer to that. “You have to be the strong one, Angel. You might not break if he does. But if you break, he breaks.”
His words of wisdom were all he left him with when he walked away, leaving him to the darkness.
It wasn’t until hours later, with those words swirling through his head, that he realized the severity of them.
To keep his twin meant to protect Matthias and sacrifice himself to the darkness. It was something he had done once, but now he understood he was going to have to do it every time. Matthias’s weakness would have to become his strength. His fear would have to become Angel’s friend.
Placing his little hands on the door, he felt around, tracing the walls around him. With each touch, what were once walls had slowly become his cage.
As he breathed heavily, the trapped feeling started to close in around him. If he was lucky, he would be in there until the moment right before he broke. The next time, he could only hope he could last longer, and longer, repeatedly, each time being released right before he lost it all. Then maybe one day …
… A sweaty Angel awoke from another nightmare. Knowing he’d had too many in a row, he made himself get up off the bed and grabbed his pillow.
Staring at a sliding door, he finally slid it open to reveal a closet.
Angel threw his pillow down on the closet floor before going in and lying down on the floor.
The hard surface hurt his injuries at first, but then he managed to get somewhat comfortable enough to sleep. It wasn’t until he slid the door closed again and caged himself in that he greeted his old friend.
It was funny a thing … When he pulled his hands from his cage, the darkness didn’t allow him to see it. It was only there if he decided to reach out and touch it.
Twenty-One
You Fuckers Are Ugly
Opening the door, Adalyn walked into the beautiful, dark apartment.
“Do you know how to knock?” Vincent grumbled from the sofa.
“Yes, I just don’t want to.” Heading over to the sofa, she decided to be an even more pain in the ass by trying to squish herself between him and Lake.
“There’s a whole damn couch, Adalyn!” He tried to fight off his sister, but with Lake laughing instead of trying to help, he gave up and got up off the couch. “You’re fucking driving me crazy!”
Satisfied, she sunk into the couch, lying down and placing her head on Lake’s lap. “I’m just trying to hang out with my best friend.”
“Well, she’s my girlfriend!”
“That’s irrelevant. She was my BFF first.”
“Lake, aren’t you going to say anything?” Vincent looked at her for help.
“I mean …” Lake’s eyes went back and forth between them, not knowing what to say at first. “We were best friends for years before I started dating you.”
Adalyn snickered. “Yeah, ’cause you were too busy whorin—”
“I’m going upstairs before I kill you.”
“Bye!” she yelled up at him as he walked up the stairs.
Lake lightly hit Adalyn’s shoulder. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“I wasn’t wrong, was I?”