Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-eight

Chapter twenty-eight

Click.

Right away Joseph knew what I'd done. Or what I didn't do.

My arm fell limp to my side, the bullet-less gun bumping my thigh. I couldn't kill him.

“You can be,” Joseph said in an unconcealed mild surprise, “very convincing.”

I returned the gun to my waistband and told him, “Me, Bruno, Ris, and Ryan are going to leave. You're staying here or going home. I don't care. As long as I never see you again.” I hesitated, making sure he understood the words so strongly he could taste them. He was quiet. I took that as his comprehension and maneuvered around him, knees threatening to give way. I didn't want to think about how Bruno had been right about him. How I had known it all along. How I closed my eyes. And how, while walking blind, I'd lost my path.

Joseph was now behind me, ever silent. I faced the shed door. My fingers flitted to my side.

A knowing.

A single heartbeat.

Movement.

I spun, leaping back as I yanked out the second gun. But Joseph was quicker. He caught my wrist before I could flip off the safety and pulled me to him while twisting my arm, my body following the painful movement. My back met his chest, arm bent behind me, rendering the other useless. I breathed hard, adrenaline coursing through my veins. But I stayed very still. Any small movement and my shoulder screamed.

Joseph ran a quick hand over my clothes. “The map. Where is it?”

“What map?”

“Do not test me, Adrian.”

I'll scream.

You will regret it.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to stall. Bruno would come. He would sense the danger, and he would come. “You'll just hurt me again?”

“Never again.”

I felt his lips on my hair. The opposite of revulsion rose up inside me; a deep shame immediately followed.

“Shame haunts us both.” I felt the quiet words on my temple, the location of Joseph's mouth. “The more you fight it, Adrian, the less you'll win.”

“Unhomboldt,” I managed. “How did you do it?”

“A trade.”

“You traded. . .” The realization dawned on me. How I was tested on. Ris' disappearance. Bruno's money, which probably covered Ryan, too. The wounds along Joseph's spine. “You traded us. Even yourself.”
 
“You were protected, Adrian. I made sure no harm came to your friends.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“In due time.”

I struggled to understand his words. What about Shizuko? April? Had they been a part of it? Panic rolled frantic through my mind. Seconds were winding down, and still there was no movement outside, no sound of rescue—

Joseph released me, easily trading the gun from my hand into his own. “Near the window, Adrian.”

I did, slinking further away from the door.

“I could end it.” The firelight was slowly failing and in it, Joseph watched me, assessing me with those eyes he was not born with. A wretched fear crowded my chest: the idea of dying. I took a split second to wonder if this was how Bruno felt, every second of every day.

My hands raised above my rib cage, palms up. “Joseph.” It sounded like I meant to say please.

My breath caught as he let the gun's barrel brush my cheek, ever so softly, a forlorn kiss. “Why spare me, Adrian? Why have me continue living this way?”

“It doesn't have to be this way.”

The gun slipped down my jaw, sliding down my throat in a sweet caress. “Now that you know what I've done, you will never—”

“I will never?”

Joseph let it pass. “You never want to see me again. I cannot let that happen.” The barrel lingered on my collarbone, gentle, loving. “Do you regret not killing me?”

My lips parted. I was hyperaware of the press of cool metal, reminding me I could be killed any moment, if I did, said any wrong thing. “I regret not saving you.”

“Serva me, servabo te,” he murmured, and strangely I knew the meaning of the words as though he'd spoken perfect English.

Save me, and I will save you.

Joseph stared solemnly at the gun on my skin. “One bullet for me, one bullet for you. You can trust I will end me after you are gone. I cannot live in a world where you do not exist.”

Somehow, an image of Bruno wove itself through my terror. How unalive he suffered. I made a decision, then. I could lose him completely, lose myself completely, but the right way of doing things never found my hold, only the only ways.

With one sad glance at the unopening shed door, I told Joseph, “Take my memories.”

His head tilted.

“You don't have to kill me, or yourself. Just take my memories of this ever happening, of me ever finding out about this. You don't have to tell me why Unhomboldt or what you're planning—just—just take them. They're yours.”

For a silent moment, Joseph considered. He lowered the gun, slipping it inside a hidden crevice in his robe. “Skilled as always, Adrian.”

I gave a quaky smile, though felt vacant and detached on the inside.

Minds entwining, everything not wrong shot between us. Behind my eyelids flipped my memories like one of Ris' books. Me aiming a gun at Joseph. Bruno's deadness. Ryan eating peaches and so on. They began to fade, a fog creeping in the missing places, filling every corner and fissure. Joseph paused at the memory of me and Cherry and the map. A haze erupted as he stole it away. After getting to the part where I woke on the couch, which he let remain, he pushed me up against the shed wall, wrists pinned above me.

I instantly understood why he made me kiss him first, why he never kissed me real. Because the vision rose up unbidden, of me penned between Grim's bookcases by Joseph, who was using all his hunger to keep me there. He let the memory play out. I felt my fear, my unwant, my desperation. Then, it became gray, a blank space, a nothing.