Chapter Text
'then write a poem about the fact that you've never been faithful to anyone,
always kept one hand feeling along the walls
for a knob, a hinge, a latch to release the pressure in the chamber'
— Seema Reza, from "Permission," A Constellation of Half-Lives
The first day of waking up in the hospital had been the worst. Nathaniel had opened his eyes to a man looming over him, face blurred by the bright hospital lights from above, and Nathaniel, as much as he fought and tried and trained, hadn’t been able to subdue the full body flinch that woke the nerve endings of his hazed body, arms moving to shield himself. But as he moved, harsh material tugged at his wrists, the sound of leather snapping against leather muffled beneath the rough sheets on the bed. He tried again, but still, the pressure remained around his forearms, and again, and again, until he was struggling against both restraints, trying to just move them to just bring them to cover him but they barely allowed an inch and the hard leather dug into his ravaged wrists with the white-hot touch of metal.
Tranquillising fear had him thrashing with effort, injuries screaming in protest before someone was gripping him, plunging something sharp into the lucid blue veins of his arm. Nathaniel couldn’t tell if he was screaming, if the noise filling his ears was the same thing that tore his throat to shreds as black swam, filling up his vision as he was pulled under.
When he woke again, he was alone, his wrists bare of the restraints, sheets smoothed and flat against him, any sign of his struggle gone.
Nathaniel forced his eyes shut, a poor attempt at ridding the pounding in his head, his temples. Every inch of his skin bloomed in pain, every joint, every taut tendon, and it took a moment longer to remember why, to piece together fragmented flashes of what had happened a few hours ago— or maybe the day before. Nathaniel had no way of knowing the time.
No matter how tightly he squeezed them shut, his father’s smile, that awful twisted thing, was painted onto the backs of his eyelids. Nathaniel flicked his eyes upward, stared at the dimmed fluorescent lights on the ceiling above, but still, his father’s awful smile danced in his vision each time he blinked.
The notes of Nathaniel’s heartbeat sounded loudly in the corner of the hospital room, the tempo broadcasted and counted on a screen that was insistent and glaring. It lived in his chest, the only proof that he was alive, that he’d somehow survived, and there it was, over and over like the sound of a reversing car.
The tubes that connected him to it were worse, crawling like vines up his arms, along his skin, a horrifying reminder that foreign hands had touched him, had stripped him and prodded at the damage he’d kept hidden for so long.
There was nothing within him to startle when the hospital room door suddenly swung open. All he managed was keeping them in his sights, eyes tracking the scrubs, the clipboard she held.
“Hello, Nathaniel,” she offered, voice as equal firm as it was soft. The doctor set down her notes on the empty spot of the bed just by his legs, turning to pull and adjust the tubes tied to him.
“How are you feeling?” She spoke again after a while, her hands coming to rest when she’d finished checking the entry points, that the liquid was moving freely from the drips, facing him with that same look from before. Not quite pity but a close relative.
It took Nathaniel two tries before he could open his mouth and let sound out, his throat rough and mouth sticky from the time that had passed since he last spoke. Begged. Screamed.
“Fine,” was all he managed even though every part of him ached.
The skin around her eyes softened, “I’m sorry about earlier, you reacted violently when you were first brought in. Precautions, you see.”
Nathaniel just stared back at her. Her lips pursed kindly, as if she had expected his silence.
“Do you remember anything?” She implored with no sense of urgency, and made her way to the corner of the room where a water jug sat.
Nathaniel jerked his head in a nod when she faced him again, a cup filled with fresh water, her hand out in offering. He accepted it and took tentative sips.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
His uncle had warned him, hadn’t wanted him to see it but Nathaniel had watched anyway. He’d stared, frozen as the bullet went clean through his skull, a crack and his body collapsed as if all the strings holding him up had been snipped.
For a moment, a long one that had felt like hours and days and years, Nathaniel had sat there, looking at his father's sleeping form, his shut eyes. It was the first time Nathaniel had seen those familiar features at ease, without the burning current running through them, even with the blood painting lines down his forehead, dripping further still to pool like tears along his lash line.
But he wasn’t sleeping.
He was dead. Nathan was dead.
The cleaver had been gripped in his lifeless fingers. Even in death, he had still clung to the fear that he’d crafted for his son, a gift unpleasant and morbid. Nathaniel wondered how many eyes had seen that same axe in their last moments, had felt the same pain Nathaniel felt now, had felt that same fear Nathaniel had been dragging along behind him for twenty years.
And then a door was being broken down and guns flashed before his eyes, a face he’d recognised being replaced with one he didn’t.
“Browning,” he answered, placing the cup on the small ledge off to the side of the bed.
“Okay, that’s good. I just have to run a few more tests on you, is that alright? And then when you’re ready, Agent Browning is here to see you, but only when you feel up to it, okay?” She explained.
Nathaniel nodded again. She smiled at him with a warmth he had forgotten existed, one that was so unlike his mother, her reassuring eyes, her upturned lips that rivalled Mary’s constant frown. Nathaniel wondered if that was what mothers were meant to be, thought briefly about how different he’d be if that woman had raised him instead of the one who had.
“I just have to touch some things on your arm, is that okay?” She asked, and Nathaniel was stunned into stillness briefly. His whole life questions hadn’t been asked, they’d been told and demanded of him. He forced himself to nod for the third time.
“Thank you,” she said warmly.
Nathaniel supposed he should feel some sort of way about the white material that covered the wounds not even a few days old. He thought he should have some sort of reaction to the memory of blood rushing from his father's head, colouring the hair that was too similar to Nathaniel's own an even darker red. The man who had become an ever-looming shadow over him, just a step behind, talons clawing at his neck, playing with his airway as if he didn’t need it to breathe, to live— dead. The man his feet had become calloused for, shoes worn through, and soles familiar with all forms of ground, learning the ridges and dips of the earth to outrun his own eyes, his lips, his hair.
The man who haunted his dreams, killed, like it was easy.
The woman who had kept him alive, killed, like it was easy.
He should feel something about his father, the man who had tainted his childhood, who had killed Nathaniel’s mother, being dead. He should. Relief, sadness, happiness, anger— anything. But as he sat in Agent Browning’s office, his body felt foreign to him. Like a corpse— like his dad, his mum.
Nathaniel’s mind remained blank, clear of every thought, every escape route that his mum had drilled into the make up of his very being.
It was eerie. Silent.
All that played were numbers he’d memorised since he was ten years old, tired and not quite broken, eyes full of horror and body aching in a way a kid shouldn’t feel, shouldn’t know.
304 984 7137
The same sequence rang through his mind over and over, in the same order, the same tone, a young boy flashing before his eyes each time. They jumped from ear to ear, sitting behind his eyes and then in front. To the left, the right.
304
Agent Browning was speaking, his mouth was moving, hands waving along with his words.
The metal chair dug into Nathaniel’s back in a way that refused to be comfortable.
984
The walls were white.
His elbows pressed into the slim steel of the armrest, his wrists clear of metal cuffs, hands red— no, white— and bandaged. The desk was black and cluttered with papers. A telephone sat on the edge of it.
7137
The phone burst to life and Browning’s voice cut off abruptly, a click and it was continuing again, sounding as if he were on the other side of a wall. Nathaniel was staring right at him.
The numbers started over.
The phone receiver slammed into the end call button as Browning put the handset down, silencing the next call that pierced through the air.
“-sorry about that, Nathaniel,” Browning said, sounding more frustrated than apologetic, voice filling his ears in a rush of noise.
Dread poisoned his stomach, curdling his insides in a way he hadn’t figured out how to forget.
For as long as Nathaniel could remember, when his parents would get into bad arguments, which would then turn into even worse fights, he would hide from them. Not physically, his flight not yet encoded in each joint. Nathaniel would sit there, shrunk in on himself as the horror unfolded before him, his mind playing through memories he had with the older boy with black hair.
He would watch as Nathaniel jabbed his shoe into Kevin’s knee when he was practising violin, or when Kevin chased him through the halls and into the bathroom, sniggering and playing with the soap in the sinks, or when they’d sneak out from the institute and run through the trees adorning the property, clothes snagging, fingernails dirtying, and birds singing with their laughs. Any happy memory his mind could supply to rid of what was in front of him. And Kevin was all the good he had known in the world.
With his legs fused to the cushion of the couch, his mother cowering and shielding herself against the man he called his father, Nathaniel’s ears would tune out the horrid pounding of skin against skin, of metal landing and shouts of pain, barks of rage, thuds and sounds that bodies shouldn’t make. He would go somewhere beyond, somewhere he couldn’t even dream of, somewhere far away from the fear and the pain that his too-young body had never known peace from.
The last time he had done it, Nathaniel had closed his eyes for a second too long, and his father had redirected his hits, grabbing a fistful of the unkempt hair that sat atop Nathaniel’s head, pulling him from that mindless town he’d held onto with both arms, and dragged him into the bathroom.
He was quiet, it was always worse when Nathaniel’s father was quiet.
The tap to the bathtub had almost snapped with the force of his father’s hand, the faucet gushing with water and filling up the tub beneath it, drowning out the pounding in his ears.
All Nathaniel could do was let his body be overcome with tremors, his limbs shaking so violently that the hand his father had on his hair was the only thing holding him up.
Bile sat in his throat but he had known better than to let it out. Even at seven, Nathaniel understood that forcing it back down hurt less than what would happen if Nathan saw it.
The bite of the tiles on his bare knees had given him something to focus on past the throbbing of his scalp and the lump in his throat as his father forced him to the floor, the bath full enough for Nathaniel to reach.
Nathaniel hadn’t wanted to beg, but he couldn’t stop the pleas moving past his lips, his mouth running faster than his mind could follow, voice shaky and weak.
Nathan had welcomed it for only a moment before gripping and using his full force to submerge Nathaniel’s head below the surface, holding long enough for his resistance to grow weak, pulling him out, only to dunk him mere seconds later, barely allowing Nathaniel a full breath.
Each time he was pushed beneath the ice cold water, all Nathaniel knew was mortal terror, encompassing and mind fraying. Each second he thrashed was a lifetime, ones that had him convinced he wouldn’t come back up to breathe, that his lungs would no longer know air, his nose and scavenging mouth a welcome entry for the water to drown him.
His hands had gripped the sides of the tub so painfully his nails cracked, his knees bleeding in the grooves of the tiles, staining the grout red, like blood sinking into soil. His throat was hoarse from his screams. His stomach was full from the water he’d swallowed.
And some part of him, some small part held onto the naive belief that his mother would barge in and stop it, that she would save him from the too-large hand that cut off his source of living. His small mind crying– screaming out for his mother’s protection, her love. Hope, however misplaced it was, still washed up against the shore each time his father took to hurting him, instead of her.
A clock clicked over to the next hour and Nathaniel felt the air rush into his lungs, expanding his chest and filling his stomach, replacing the pool of water.
Nathaniel blinked.
The walls were white.
“Neil,” he replied suddenly.
The word was heavy on his tongue, voice gravelly from disuse, and the name was like glass in his throat. He hadn’t heard it all year, Riko had taken that from him, along with everything else. It was the name he’d chosen when his mother had passed and he was alone for the first time in his life, needing some comfort to hold on to, and even then, his high school teachers had rarely called on him. He hadn’t heard it even longer before that, not since it had been mixed with the warmth of his brother’s tone, said with such familiarity that Nathaniel craved it even now.
“Neil,” Browning amended, smiling a smile that wasn’t unfriendly. It didn’t sound right coming from him.
984
Browning studied him for a long moment and Neil ignored the urge to squirm.
The man leant back into his chair, making the leather squeak loudly.
“Now, Neil,” he said all authority-like, and Neil stared at him.
Browning’s hands flattened against the desk in a way that suggested he was unaware that he was doing it. The papers crinkled beneath his fingers, some with images of bodies, others with photos of the walls Neil had grown up in.
“We have two options here. One,” Browning enunciated, a finger coming up to match the number he’d listed. It nearly felt like he was being scolded.
“We can relocate you to any close family you may have here, preferably those who are not in a gang,” he said seriously, and Neil had the urge to snort. He didn’t.
'Relocate' because he wasn’t allowed back in that home he grew up in.
Between the hospital and the precinct, Neil had been taken back to the house where he’d been found, into the room where his own blood had spilled, mixing with years and years of built up crimson stains. He was forced into all the rooms of that house, giving away information and parts of himself that he had shoved so far down he couldn’t patch up the holes they left when he plucked them out.
It was taken for evidence, the entire estate, and no longer belonged to any part of Neil, Wesninski or not.
“Or two,” another finger stood straight, “we can keep you close to some agents that will be assigned to you.”
And Browning looked at him as if Neil was going to reply. When he didn’t, he continued, “Do you have any family not in Europe?”
7137
“No,” he replied, and it wasn’t a lie. Not a full one anyway.
“Okay, so option two-“ Browning began.
“No,” Neil cut him off, “I have somewhere I can go.”
The officer looked at him, staying silent as an offer for Neil to explain further. Neil clicked a nail against the metal frame of the chair.
Browning squinted his eyes before leaning back in his seat, a sigh whistling between his lips.
“Neil, do you know what the Witness Protection Program is?” He asked, each syllable slow.
“I’m twenty. Legally, I’m an adult. I’m declining whatever protection you think you can provide,” Neil responded.
Browning gave him an exasperated look, “Kid, these are some dangerous people you’re dealing with, some serious people that want you dead.”
Neil's face remained blank, “I lived with them for fourteen years and have been on the run from them for six, I know who I’m dealing with,” he voiced coolly.
“Where are you going to live? Not to be blunt but what money do you have? A kid who hasn’t earned a day in their life. Neil, let us help you,” he refuted.
Neil’s lips thinned, “It wasn’t you who stopped my father from killing me.”
Browning looked strained, his jaw working as if he were about to say something.
“Can I go?” Neil cut in before he could.
Browning’s eyes widened and his mouth opened to reply.
“You’re not holding me in custody, I’m not in trouble, you’re not arresting me, legally I’m not obligated to stay… so, can I leave?” he spoke over him again, “I’ve answered everything you asked,” Neil added.
Neil had been discharged from the hospital the day before, and the entire time he’d been there, he’d been berated with questions, forced to reveal half-truths about his life on the run and who he’d been running from. For five days, officers new and old filled his room. Browning had been the first, as promised, and he’d asked the most questions, about his time growing up, about what he knew of his father’s business. What he’d been forced to endure. Neil had answered with as much honesty as he could despite himself, but when unfamiliar faces began filtering in, he had drawn back into himself and allowed only short and pointed answers. When he wasn’t being forced to relive every memory he had of the house he grew up in or the countries he’d fled to, Neil had slept as much as he possibly could.
When he’d signed over his name, Neil Abram Josten, the questions finally subsided and he was released from the hospital the next day, only to be forced into a tour of the Baltimore house, and then brought here.
The longer he was away, the more anxiety grew within his chest, festering like a bee’s hive.
The look on Browning’s face was that of exasperation, his hands pulled into his lap, staring at Neil as if he was trying to read him front to back but the words on the pages were written in a language he couldn’tunderstand.
The window to Neil’s right was unlocked and propped open, the slats revealing the car park outside. At this time of day, it was practically empty, and just beyond it, he could see a pole with a bus symbol. He was too far to read the timetable and locations listed.
Neil shifted. The door behind him was shut but the lock on it hadn’t been turned, an easy exit with an easy enough backup.
The wheels on Browning’s chair creaked and sounded against the discoloured carpet.
“Yeah,” Browning said, sighing into it, “yeah, I guess you’re free to go.”
Neil made to stand, refusing to show the pain that seared through his hands at the weight of his body pushing up from the chair.
“But kid, just in case, I’m always here. If there’s any danger or anything you need help with, don’t hesitate to call,” he said, before handing him a business card from the mess of his papers, standing up to reach him over the desk.
Neil stared at the outstretched palm a moment, before taking it and sliding it into his pocket, turning from him and leaving through the unlocked door, past people and desks littered across the precinct, past the front receptionist, and out the glass door, his legs not stopping until he was clear of the car park.
When he finally caught his breath, Neil had to squint his eyes against the sun glaring down on him, used to the darkness of basements and the fluorescents of hospitals.
A gunshot rang, whipping past his ears with the sound of a car flying down the road in front of him. Neil shut his eyes, body collapsing on the bus stop bench.
Neil looked at his bandage-covered hands resting atop his knees and saw Lola’s sharp nails wrapping around his fingers, her other hand gripping the knife that sliced through his skin easily, blood filling up his palm until his hands were stained red, void of any bare skin.
Neil stumbled up off the bench to look left then right, eyes searching for a telephone booth or petrol station close by. He stepped from the curb onto gravel, allowing him to see further down the street. About four or so blocks away, a lot stood that had all the tell signs of a petrol station.
A horn blared loudly and Neil stepped back, heels hitting the curb just as a car sped by him, the wind whipping his sweater against his stomach.
His body didn’t feel quite like his own, and Neil was reminded of the few days after his mother had died, the disjointed and hollow pit that scraped out his stomach and limbs.
Neil pulled the hoodie over his head, shielding himself behind it, and began walking down the pavement. He didn’t have much of a plan, and what he did have, he hated. But he had nothing on him, less than lint in his pockets.
The electronic bell sounded as he shouldered his way through the glass door. A clerk barely glanced up from his newspaper at the noise and Neil made a quick list of the cameras to his right, behind the cash register, and one in the far left corner, aimed at the rows of snacks lined up in the middle of the store.
It was only just run down, the roof stained with water damage, the floor dented and dirty. Half of the fridges were empty and the pastries in the glass display looked rock-hard. He was the only one in the shop.
Neil tucked his face away from the surveillance as he approached the register, making an effort to scan the chocolate bars adorning it. He then looked up at the clerk who’d yet to acknowledge him with a stuck-on smile, knocking over the gum stand with his elbow as he reached for a candy closest to the till.
The man’s attention snapped to him, a scowl screwing lines into his middle aged face. Neil tried his best to look apologetic, and when the employee set his newspaper down, directing his focus on righting the fallen display, Neil slipped the lollipop from the box, snagging a one-dollar bill from the open tip bowl just beside it. He slid the money in his pocket before bending down, using both hands to pick up the mints from the floor.
“Sorry, got excited,” Neil apologised sheepishly, holding up the cola lollipop between his fingers as the man set the last gum packet in its rightful place. He didn’t return Neil’s smile as he settled back into his chair, an expectant hand out. Neil gave the candy over, reaching into his joggers for the dollar and sliding it onto the counter as the man scanned the wrapper. He took it and dropped the candy where the money had just been, paying no mind to the bandages on Neil’s hands.
“Can I have quarters?” Neil asked, grabbing the lollipop and plucking the wrapper off, popping the sweet into his mouth and holding it within his cheek.
The employee slid the change back to him and purposely picked his paper back up, ignoring Neil entirely.
He scooped the coins into his hand with some effort, turned, and the alarm chimed for the second time, announcing his departure.
Around the side of the building, Neil found a run-down phone booth, the plastic milky and sprayed over with graffiti tags illegible. He plucked the lollipop from his mouth, grimacing slightly at the taste of cola on his tongue before chucking it into the trash pile stacked beside the booth.
Neil stepped between the plastic and loaded a quarter into the waiting machine. When he glanced over his shoulder— a weak attempt at security— his stomach dropped out as he caught sight of his reflection in the cracked booth. Blue eyes stared back at him, stark and piercing among the white gauze and ruined skin.
He whipped his head back to the keypad, fingers raised, hovering over the numbers as not enough air entered his lungs, his legs feeling as if they would buckle if he stood any longer.
In some sick moment of fear, overwhelming fear that had Neil feeling so young, young and afraid, he dialled the number woven so deep his shaking hands moved on their own accord.
Neil called the number, called Kevin.
Not even two ringtones later, the call connected.
His voice sounded through the speaker, just one word, no recognition or familiarity in the way he said it, yet Neil felt frozen, his jaw clamped shut.
Silence, and then the same word again, confusion warping it.
Neil slammed the receiver back into its hold faster than his mind could process, the dial tone filling the booth as he gripped the handset in his hand and stared at the numbers looking back at him.
His voice. Kevin had answered, he’d kept the number, he kept it and his voice was deeper than it had been— he’d kept the number after all these years, these months, days, hours, minutes—
The tremors in his hands took hold of his heart, churning his stomach until he was forced to release the contents it held and Neil barely had time to dart away from the phone, bending over and retching into the garbage bags. A thin stream of bile escaped his empty stomach, and Neil gripped his side as his middle strained, putting pressure on unhealed wounds.
Neil had an overwhelming urge to cry as he crouched on the disgusting floor, heat pushing at his eyes and constricting his throat.
Fuck
He wanted to sit down, wanted to curl in on himself and collapse into the aching of his bones, wanted his mother to appear and deal with it all, wanted Kevin to hold his face and wipe the nonexistent tears, wanted to slow down for a moment, wanted to catch his breath, to stop running, to go home, he wanted to have a home. Neil wanted, and wanted, and wanted, but all he did was wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his hoodie.
The shrill sound of a ring tone broke through the air, plastic sounding against metal, insistent as it rattled in its hold.
Neil shut his eyes for less than a second, feeling oxygen expand his chest as he breathed deeply, ignored his body’s protests, and stood up.
“Hello?” Neil said into the receiver, despite knowing who was on the other end.
“We’re around the corner,” replied a gruff voice before the connection cut off and the dial tone sounded again.
“You’re not dead,” a guard Neil knew from before he could remember, Louis, greeted as the door slid open. He was a man with no soft features, angular and aged with sun, except for his light brown hair that was never styled. Louis had been part of Riko’s protection as a child and was now in Ichirou’s close circle that remained in the Nest.
The fact that Ichirou had sent just him meant he believed Neil to be of little to no threat, or that he was trying to assert his own power over him, that he believed he had full control of him, a slack leash that Ichirou knew he wouldn't tug at. The shame that burned him was scorching.
“Sorry to disappoint. You can hit me with the van if you want, see if that works,” Neil jested blandly.
When all Neil was met with was silence, he gripped the handle to the side, and stepped into the raised vehicle, the door shutting loudly behind him.
They drove the six hours in silence, quiet save for the wheels turning over the pavement and the aircon humming low from the van vents. The last time he’d been in a vehicle this dark, Lola’s white teeth had been glinting at him, the smell of burning flesh singeing the hairs in his nose, his wrists ruined. Somehow though, Neil managed to sleep. Maybe it was the unsolicited comfort of being around someone he knew, someone who had never hurt him, or maybe it was because exhaustion was the only thing he could manage to feel these past few days. His eyelids had been heavy since his knees had hit the ground in that basement, his father's weightless body dropping like a crash in water and sinking in his brain. Maybe it was because he was sitting in silence finally, no monitor beeping, no officers asking questions, no nurses bustling around him. Just him, Louis, and the driver at the front of the van.
The familiar final turns to Edgar Allen stirred him from his sleep, and when he fully woke as they drove down to the parking garage and finally pulled up to a stop, Neil felt as if he’d had his eyes wide open the entire journey. He was as tired as he was six days prior, like he hadn’t slept a moment in those days between.
Neil was escorted from the van with a fleeting look over his shoulder at Louis, whose face remained stone as their eyes met. Two men with guns flanked him as he was brought past the Nest, past the halls and classes that had long since ended for the day, all the way to the left wing. Giving him no time to recover or recoup himself, one of his guards swiped a badge, typing in a long code different from the one Neil had once known before he was stepping into an elevator, one guard following whilst the other stood stationary behind the sliding metal doors.
The silent ride up did nothing to quell what swirled in Neil’s stomach. When the elevator reached the top floor, the guard led him into a room he was all too familiar with, and shut the door between them, leaving Neil alone. When he turned, his eyes shot to the place Riko’s body had lain, the floor now spotless and reflecting the light from the ceiling above it. The same floor that had held the pieces of a man his father had cut up, the twitch of his fingers still engraved in Neil’s memory, Kevin’s horrified noise something he’d never forget.
Ichirou sat on the same sofa he had watched his brother fall lifeless, the gun in Neil’s hand, the trigger pulled tight under his finger. His face held the same emotion as that day, authoritative and merciless. Neil didn’t stop moving until he stood in front of the man, head bowed and heart loud in his throat. They were alone, aside from the bodyguards flanking Ichirou behind the couch, and the one standing in front of the door he’d entered, blocking his only exit.
His suit was a shade lighter than his hair, and he looked sharp enough to cut skin, any humour he’d had towards Neil in the past gone from his scrutinising eyes and pursed lips.
Ichirou looked closer to his father than Riko, and Neil was reminded of how dissimilar the two brothers were. Riko had been easy to handle, rash anger blinding his ability to control, similar to Neil’s father in a way that twisted his insides. Ichirou was an entirely different game, one that only the man’s father had been able to play.
“I’m just surprised as you are that I’m alive. I promise I didn’t make it all that difficult,” Neil quipped.
”You look like shit,” Ichirou said.
”Cheers.”
Ichirou’s chin tilted to one side, something lighting up behind his eyes.
”I’m starting to think you’re more hassle than you’re worth.”
”Your men don’t seem to be trying very hard, surely I’m not that hard to kill.” It was a bravado that he couldn’t so much as feel in his pinky toe, but it was a chess piece sliding between pinched fingers, one that Ichirou’s eyes followed.
“And here you stand,” Ichirou fluently slipped into Japanese, “even after a run in with the police.”
It wasn’t a question but Neil bowed his head.
”Begin.”
It took moments, words becoming less and less hoarse with every sentence he spoke, for his voice to return as Neil explained all that he had exposed, leaving out everything he’d avoided with the agents, and excluded the details about his childhood. Ichirou knew what his father had done to him, and Neil wanted to keep his mother for himself, wanted something only for him.
How he’d told them about living at home with his parents until fourteen, how he’d observed only small bits of his father’s business and didn’t know much about it, how his mother took money from his father and ran with Nathaniel, how they’d been all over the world running from his father and his people, how when his mother had died he’d gone back to graduate high school, and how when his father got out of jail, he found and kidnapped him. All half-truths, one after another, bent so far they were bound to break.
Ichirou tugged at his blazer sleeves before folding his hands within his pristine lap.
“Ichirou,” Neil began.
“Five million dollars, Kevin Day, Riko, and now my butcher. And we won’t mention Jean. It’s all very inconvenient, Nathaniel, really.”
Again with the half-truths. Neil’s mother had stolen the money, though he’d kept the rest when she died; Riko had broken Kevin’s hand, not Neil, but the honest part of him knew Kevin had left because Neil had run all those years before; Ichirou had ordered Neil to kill Riko (he could still feel the weight of the gun when his fingers twitched) after he’d convinced the lord of the empire’s inevitable downfall at his brother’s hand, and his uncle had killed his father. Technically Nathan had tried to kill him first, so it was of equal exchange.
And Jean. He’d helped Jean.
Neil remained silent.
The lord tilted his head to the side, raking his eyes over Neil’s bandaged skin and tattered clothes. He tutted his tongue.
”After all the work I did to make you favourable. After all I gave you.”
”If I’d known I was seeing you, I would’ve freshened up.”
Ichirou’s eyes dimmed, features hardening.
“This is what’s going to happen,” he said with an effortless authority, one that had Neil clenching his jaw and flexing his fingers, “you’ve proved yourself… useful this past year, but you’re still indebted,” Ichirou put emphasis on the word, “to me. I’ve been good to you,” he stood, smoothing out his suit, the clink of his dress shoes sounding in the silence, “maybe better than you deserve.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You’re going to repay me,” Ichirou took a step forward, “you’re going to go to Kevin, you're going to convince him to drop those dead weights he calls 'bandmates', and you're going to make sure he comes back to us. You are the reason he left, you will be the reason he returns. You have this year and this year alone.”
Neil looked up at him.
“Your family is my family. My father owned your father, now I own you. Explain to me that you understand,” Ichirou voiced calmly.
Exhaustion was gnawing at every part of Neil, and he felt a weight pull down his shoulders he’d been a fool to think had been lifted.
“He should have never left,” Neil said with certainty, even though the words pulled at the skin beneath his eyes.
Ichirou seemed assured as he nodded, “Now, the problem with this plan is we are still in need of a replacement for your father.”
Every cell in Neil’s body protested as he stared back at Ichirou.
“You were so good for me, Little Butcher,” He taunted, smiling in a way that wasn’t kind or warm. Ichirou moved until he was within reaching distance, studying him closely, “I know how good you are with knives.”
All of the blood drained from Neil’s face. “I could rejog your memory right now if you like,” Neil forced out.
Ichirou’s face lit up at the challenge, a palm rising to cup Neil’s jaw, thumb digging into the column of his throat.
“The Butcher’s son. He taught you well,” Ichirou continued, tilting Neil’s face to one side and then the other, examining each stretch of his skin, “It’s a big loss, honestly, a loss that you’ve proven you can fill.”
“What does he do to you?” Jean’s voice cut through his locked spine, accent and words so unfamiliar to what had been spat in his ears so long he hadn’t been able to keep track. Of course he was awake, of course he’dwaited for him to come back.
Nathaniel paused on the threshold of the bathroom, let the blood that wasn’t his stick to the carpet and mark the tile, “go to bed, Jean,” he said in the same language, though not as well, not as fluidly as he should’ve, and continued on, swinging the door behind him with the finality of a knife.
”We’ll call them favours for letting you go, for letting you off so easily.”
Ichirou hummed, prompting a response from him, and Neil found himself nodding against his grip.
He looked at him for a breath, “If you fail, we will kill you.”
Death had hovered behind him like a shadow since the day Neil was born, something he never seemed to be able to run away from, no matter how far his feet took him.
“Yes, thank you, my lord,” he replied softly.
“Lovely chat as always,” Ichirou announced, patting his cheek, before dropping his hand as the two guards flanking him skirted around the couch and gripped each of Neil’s arms.
“And Neil,” he smiled a smile that scraped down Neil’s spine, swapping to English as he said, “don’t run.”
He was forcefully turned away from the man, his feet sloppy and dragging beneath him before he was shoved into the waiting metal shaft. The descent felt like a free fall as the numbers ticked down.
The guard on the ground level greeted him once again as soon as the elevator doors opened, and he was led deeper and deeper into the building, winding all the way back to the Nest, to his room. What was once his room. Neil almost felt as if Riko’s horrible smile would appear with every turn they made. A selfish part of him wished for Jean down each corridor.
His room number came too quickly and not quick enough, and before Neil was ready, the man shoved the door open and forced him inside, the resounding bang of the door slamming behind him rattling the walls.
He stood frozen for a long time. The vast room sat untouched, like the events of the past week hadn’t occurred. Handcuffs were still locked onto his headboard. A cap and tugged off joggers were stuffed beneath the bedframe. The other bed was stripped bare from when Riko had raged and burned all that Jean had left. Neil had been in such a hurry to get away from the reminders of the night before that his bed was unmade, sheets thrown and curled at the end of the mattress.
The only difference to the destruction was a pale folder placed carefully on his side table.
He moved with groaning joints. Neil’s hands gripped the paper folder so tightly that when he finally opened it, he had to smooth them out to read.
A plane ticket, papers that looked similar to a college acceptance letter, print of a timetable, a small flip phone connected to a charger, and at the back, papers with a photo of a man Neil didn’t recognise, information about where he lived and his other personal details listed below.
His stomach was empty, yet Neil was still hit with a wave of nausea as he folded the paper from view.
Neil turned the ticket over.
BWI to FLO
South Carolina.
His body shook as he sank to the floor, all of the contents of the folder tumbling onto the carpet from lifeless hands. Slowly, his mind in a state of reverie, he dragged himself to the empty bed, pulling himself up to the bare mattress, and curled in on himself, hiding from the things he couldn’t face and handing himself over to his mindless town.