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"Not to be mean or anything, but I could bash your head in right now." Billy notes.
Jun looks to be thinking of something to say, before electing not to and turning her back.
"I apologize, are you uncomfortable?" Sarcasm surrounds Lex like a shield. "Try not being a cunt next time."
"They will be down here soon. They'll find you." She says. The meaning behind her choice of words does not escape me. She's guaranteeing that we will not starve to death, but not telling she will release us herself either. Jun moves to the stairs, avoiding all eye contact with us.
"Don't leave us here!" Billy yells. The girl flinches, but steadies her feet and continues.
"Just-" Petra bolts to the bars, holding onto them for dear life. Her voice returns to full volume and, with more confidence, she continues: "Just tell us why."
My eyes wander to the ceiling. The blinking, pale light bulb gives me more entertainment than this. I can understand their irritation though. Seven bodies trapped in a cell meant for one -two in trying times- does not breed chipper participants. Especially taking in consideration we were not supposed to be down here in the first place.
"Why did you come here? America, I mean."
I look back down.
Not that I had not theorized about the motives behind her arrival at King's. For years the Kurokis have tried to lure Saya back, it wouldn't be illogical to assume they'd send the best bait there is: the only person Saya would do anything for.
However, current events do not corroborate with my theory. Not in the slightest.
That is where my own frustration began. Crammed spaces do not bother me. Before I had a room, and blankets, and walls around me, all I had was body warmth when winter came. Hypothermia outranks personal space in my book.
What really bothers me, what gets under my skin, is lying.
Impossible answers and omission, even if indirect, are lies. And Jun is surrounded by lies, if not built from them.
"This does not concern you." She answers.
Petra clicks her tongue. "But it does, you see. Half the school believes you are certifiably insane, and the other half that you are an unfeeling murderer. But I do not. Neither of those would think like you do. A murderer would not bother to subdue three men, cutting their airflow for long enough to cause unconsciousness. It takes less time and effort to shove that needle-" she points to the ground, the thin metal reflecting the light. "In their necks."
"Don't psychoanalyze me." Jun clenches her jaw.
Petra pays her no attention. "No crazy person goes through this much trouble to get out of here. You have an objective, a clear one." Her next words are cold. "What is it?"
Jun scoffs. "It should be obvious by now. Adding suicidal to either murderous or insane is not that drastic of a move."
"Stop goddamn lying." I snap, nearly growling at the other side of the cell.
She makes eye contact with me for the first time. Jun blinks in surprise.
"Tell us something, anything, that isn't fucking bullshit." I push through Lex and Billy to stand centimeters from the bars. "You didn't kill those people, did you?"
Petra furrows her brows at the statement.
It is a strange thing to come out of me. It goes against most of what they watched me feel about her, all the things I have continuously said about the vile morals of Jun. Her deeds, as I told Saya and themselves, were supposed to damn her for life, though I was not sure then, like I am not sure now, the deeds all of us had in mind were factually true.
Jun's lips falter, and for a second I feel victorious. After such a drought, I had found a hint of genuine sentiment. The feeling lasted very little, as she stepped closer to us with a rage unlike I have seen before.
"I told you to stop analyzing me." She grabs the bars, and I don't doubt she is mirroring what she would do to my throat. "I also told you to stop thinking you know me. You are not a therapist, Marcus, you know nothing about who I am and what I've done. Because if you did you would know that I did it. I killed them, all of them."
"Well, I'll be damned." Lex slaps his knees. "Brandy was right."
Jun winces at that.
"So what now? You're going to find another building to jump off of?" It was, undeniably, a challenge. A bait for her to trip over a mess of her own making. "What about the boy, huh?"
"Dude, what are you talking about?" I feel Billy's palm on my shoulder.
I realize what I did too late.
"You didn't tell them?" Jun looks less angry and far more confused.
Shit. "No, I didn't."
"Tell us what, Marcus?" Petra stares me down.
I look between the two girls, selecting my words carefully as to not cause a mushroom cloud inside this dungeon. I come out empty handed, because I cannot find anything to say that feels right.
"You owe me nothing." Jun notes. It is a sentence that out of context means very little, but I get her. For once, I understand what she means. My silence is a favor to her, one that she does not deserve.
"I don't." I agree. "But they were not there to see you say it, the way you said it. They wouldn't understand."
"You don't either."
"I know what I saw."
Jun runs her hands through her hair, distressed. "The boy was collateral damage. And I won't let them do that again."
"And your death is going to prevent it." Petra must have gathered the subject well enough to have no doubts in her voice. "How?"
Jun sighs. "They want my head for what I did. Better to let them have it than to make them come here to get it."
