KILL ME SOFTLY

39

But there's a side to you that I never knew

I knew none of it was real. None of it. Not his talk about family, not his eyes that that looked like mine that were always light and airy with the type of kindness that never lasted, not his promises of a future he'd ensure I'd have.

And Silas' lies we're good. His smile appearing so genuine. His words satisfying to helpless ears. The woman before all of this would have believed him. I would have wanted to believe him. I still do.

Justice could have lied, betrayed, told me stories to shade my trust of him. But I think I know well enough now of what a woman scorned looked like, and how I knew she wasn't lying at all.

I felt like a different person. Cold. Untrustful. Vile. I felt all those words everyone had called me once. The things Elias had said I was. I felt those words in my bones.

I looked at myself in the mirror and my eyes were like knives, and the woman who looked back, she was a woman scorned.

"Almost Ready?" Silas said, tapping on the bathroom door in hesitance.

No. I needed longer to compose myself. Plan. Hide. Lie. Scheme. Survive. I wasn't ready at all. I never have been.

I wasn't sure of how this day would play out. But I knew I'd have to disappear. Die, In every way a person could, but without my heart stopping.

My cheeks were tired of smiling, but I smiled anyways as I perked up my cheeks and opened the door, his eyes waiting, staring, inventing. "Yes." I said, as he extended his hand out for me.

His rough skin on his palm wound around my arm gently as he walked me to the door, closing it behind us and I nearly shivered.

"What's all of this about?" I said raising my eyebrow as he guided me through the hall, his hand moving to gently press onto my mid back as people met us and began to trail us carefully, cautiously behind us.

My smiles and agreements were taken at a bad measure I'm sure, as his men still stared like I was nothing more than a wild animal brought into their home.

"It's just precautionary, I noticed you never made a will." He said with a side eye, the corners of his mouth turned up. How lucky he noticed.

I wanted justice to be wrong.

The knife tucked into the back of my pants began burning my skin. Begging for me to use. But not too soon. It'd ruining all of it if I just slit his throat. I'd never get what I wanted out of this if I did. And truly knowing he's my brother I wasn't sure I had it in me to do it.

And I should be able to. I should. Knowing he would very easily do it to me. He is going to kill me.And Surely his men that walked behind us would shoot me dead for even trying. Worse if I actually succeeded.

"I don't really have shit I need to give away. Or people who I would give the shit away to." I managed to choke out, as he stopped at a door.

That stupid smile on his face just grew wider as he turned to me, his hands coming to my shoulders as he looked into my eyes in a way that looked as if—as if maybe for a second he cared. "You have me now. You aren't alone anymore." He said, as he opened the door quickly and walked inside while adverting his gaze , as if unable to look into my eyes a second longer.

"Right." I said. "I forget you're my brother sometimes." I admitted jokingly, and he chuckled lowly, as she ushered me inside. I haven't forgotten, I sit awake at night and think about it. And how my blood, and what could have been, hardly seems to matter now at all.

"It's hard. I get it. Adjusting." He smiled, as he nodded towards his men who closed the door after us. "I know you're not happy here." He said lowly, as he walked to the head chair and sat down in this business room.