Chapter 171

He turned around with the cigarette securely placed between his large fingers, a pair of binoculars in his other hand.

Faulkner mapped my movements until he positioned himself at a reasonable distance, enough to confirm that yes, it was him in that place.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, curious.

"The same thing as you."

As I took two more steps to get a better look at him, unsettling sensations invaded my consciousness.

Certain bloodstains marked his hands, arms, and the edges of his pants. The potent smell unsettled my nostrils. I immediately stopped smoking.

"Did you just kill someone?"

Dante didn’t dare take his eyes off the view, though his hand holding the binoculars gestured forward.

"Vincenzo Santoro was one of the transporters of the merchandise. He worked for twenty-two years at the Factory, just crossing cities to deliver drugged people to the Sections." His passive tone was frightening. "He’s the one who took us, too."

I crushed my cigarette, sharing a bit of Dante's rage. However, I couldn’t accept the deaths of anyone as justice. That wasn’t how things worked.

"You didn’t answer my question."

He took another drag of his nicotine.

"I tortured him to extract certain information. If he died, well, maybe it was because he couldn’t handle being without his eyes."

My stomach churned.

The casualness in every syllable he spoke was antagonistic to the reports and the filth on his hands.

He took comfort in the deaths of his targets. That gave Dante immense pleasure.

"You killed someone and decided to come to a college party? What if someone recognizes you?"

"Nothing will happen," he shrugged. "I could easily say I got into a fight or that I’m injured. People are drunk and high. They won’t know what I’m talking about."

"And what if someone sober, like me, shows up?"

"I fuck her to keep her quiet."

My face betrayed the strange sensation protesting in my chest.

The word fuck coming from Dante’s mouth reacted in my core like electricity, making it cling to my underwear. I had to avert my gaze to some corner of the darkened city so he wouldn’t detect the dampness spreading in my pants.

Christ.

"Sometimes I blend in at Olympus University," he began. "The people who know me are few. Not many. Most come from other cities and countries. They don’t even know what the Day of Punishment was. I lost my childhood, my adolescence, and I’ll lose more phases of life. But I like to experience a bit of what it could’ve been if the kidnapping had never happened. That’s why, occasionally, I go to Asher’s games, secretly attend some classes, and join a few parties. Nothing major. Just to see how life works."

His confession triggered a fraction of compassion I could have for Dante. He wasn’t lamenting. As always, it was a conformity he’d already grown used to.

Still, I felt sorry for him. I felt a desire to pull him out of the life that had trapped him for over eight years.

He hadn’t lived.

After becoming a fugitive criminal, Dante was no longer an ordinary citizen. He couldn’t live the life I and other people did.

"You could leave the country, start fresh with a new identity."

I wanted to throw myself off the rooftop. Having a casual conversation with Faulkner was a crime against myself. My existence. We weren’t friends, nor could we even consider ourselves acquaintances. Our relationship didn’t demand conversations.

It was disgusting how peaceful I sounded in the presence of a guy like him.

"I’d be running away, Gray, and you know I’m not the kind to run from my problems," he said. "My fate isn’t the same as the others, and I’m fine with that. I see my life as a challenge, and I intend to carry it to the end."

"Your life theory is sad," I mocked.

"And yours is happy?" My mouth soured. "I never judged you for being a miserable, bitter wretch."

"And whose fault would that be?" I growled.

"If you think your parents’ deaths made you who you are today, you’re very mistaken," he snarled, turning to face me. I saw the wounds and someone else’s blood on parts of his body in better detail.

"You’re just stupid. You think you’re fighting, but in truth, you’re only prolonging your defeat. You can’t accept it. You can’t accept that you lost everything before even trying."

My eyes welled with tears at his cruel truths. I wanted to retort. I wanted to tell him he was lying, but no. I made a damn deal with him, and my life is only at stake because I haven’t yet adapted to my parents’ deaths. And how deserved they were because, damn, my parents got what they deserved.

It hurt. It burned. It killed me slowly, as if I had ingested poison intentionally, watching in front of a mirror as I disintegrated.

"Then kill me." His gaze turned confused. "End it and kill me. I’ve lost everything. I have nothing left to fight for. Just finish it already. Do it."

My exhaustion led me to stare down at the building’s descent. If I jumped, the free fall would break my bones and burn my brain before the collision.

My thoughts had never been fatal to me. They had never put me at risk. Despite all the bad memories I carried, I still believed I could have a happy ending.

My fate wouldn’t have been written by the hands of William Shakespeare. It was written by me, and I desired immense joy.

By the time I snapped out of my inertia and back to reality, my neck was seized. My body stretched, reacting to the heat that climbed violently.

My eyes locked on Dante’s relentless stare. There was so much in it that it was impossible to enumerate what that man was feeling.

"Say that again, and see how I punish you."

I swallowed dryly.

"Isn’t that what you want? For me to die?"

"Your death is mine, and I decide when it happens. Not even you have the right to it."

His whispered words were something illicit to my heart.

"Last I checked, that wasn’t part of our deal."

"Then stick to it. If I hear you ask for your life to be taken, I’ll make you regret it," he growled.

"More regretful than I already am?" I taunted, and his fingers tightened on my neck, injecting adrenaline. It was a dose of danger that spread warm feelings through my veins.

"Don’t think about taking your life from me because I swear I’ll go to hell to hunt you down."

It was strange how it didn’t intimidate me; instead, it was more comforting than I expected.