Page 66 of Adam
Both sides benefited from it. Some learned to be lethal, others learned how to crawl back from the edge. I survived both.
As their commander, I wasn’t there to hold hands. I initiated everything. I had to be ruthless, strip away whatever scraps of morality might slow me down, because mercy was a luxuryAlaric never afforded. And if I hesitated, I’d be the next name on his list.
So I taught them how to bite when the leash tightened, how to make the world mistake hunger for purpose. I taught them to look civilized on the surface and savage underneath. It kept me alive—and sane.
“I had to,” I say, raising my eyes to meet his. “And eventually, I learned how to embrace it.”
“Deep down you’re a good man, Adam. You’re a hero.”
There it is again. That pathetic attempt at redemption through someone else’s delusion.
I almost laugh.
“Why am I a hero?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“You were always easy on me,” he says. “You didn’t push me as hard as the others. Hell, you never shot me like you did others.”
“And look where it got you,” I snarl. “You’re weak. You wince before you pull the trigger. You talk about mercy like it’s a virtue. It’s a fucking leash, Michael.”
“I don’t want to become like you!” he shouts, his voice cracking under the weight of his own fear.
“Like what?” I step forward, heat rising in my chest. “A hero?”
He exhales through his nostrils, gaze dropping to the ground. Coward.
Fucking fool. Fucking liar.
He swallows. His eyes are wide and stupid with denial. “You enjoy the killings. They call youBanefor a reason,” he says. “It’s as if you’re two different people.”
His eyes flicker between mine, trapped between fear and disbelief. I could teach him a lesson, show him what being “Bane” really means. But I don’t. He might be the only one whoknows I’m not rotting in a ditch, and that secret has to stay buried. It keeps me alive, and it keepsheroff the list.
I smile. “Yeah. I do.” I keep his gaze just long enough to watch the panic settle in. Then I turn, swing onto the bike, and start the engine.
“Bane sends his apologies. He’s got better things to do than this heart-to-heart,” I say, my tone almost cheerful.
I throw him a half-assed salute, twist the throttle, and ride off.
People think becoming a killer is a fall, a descent into hell. They don’t understand.
For me, it wasn’t a fall. It was a homecoming.
Survival never made me ruthless. I was already poisoned, already stained from the inside out. It wasn’t the killings that twisted me. Because long before I ever spilled blood, I was already drowning in the filthsheleft behind.
Ididn’t see him the rest of the day.
I’ve been avoiding him. I declared I wanted to stay at home so I wouldn’t have to face him again.
More than half of the day has already passed, and I’ve done nothing but lie in my bed, staring at the ceiling again. Thinking. I didn’t want to work out, swim, not even draw.
Well, I haven’t drawn in a while, and I’m afraid I’ve lost my passion for it, but it’s something that always stays with me. Hell, I didn’t even listen to P!nk.
I can’t explain the emotions he evokes in me. I can’t even understand them, and that drives me crazier.
I don’t know who he is—what he is—but what scares me the most is that I don’t know who I am around him. I don’t knowif his interest should flatter me or terrify me. I don’t know if his interest is because he’s getting paid to show it or because he really wants to protect me—my name, my body, my sanity. Little does he know I’ve already lost my sanity around him.
One thing I know for sure. He’s nothing like anyone else out there. He’s a puzzle I’m both terrified and desperate to solve. Every piece of him feels dangerous, and yet, I can’t stay away. But under his touch, I’m defenseless. Vulnerable and exposed. He could ruin me, and I think a part of me wants him to.
I’ve stepped onto a path I can’t walk back from. There’s something unspoken between us, something reckless. He’ll probably be my fall. And I’ll be his, whether he wants me or not.
