Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123575 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“If your goal is for him to hurt me, then you’re going to be really disappointed.” Her voice wobbles, giving her away. Not even she believes the words she’s saying.
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” I step backward through the doorway. “And if he does, then you’ll remember who is who next time.”
“That’s not fair!” She lunges forward, trying to reach the door, but I’m already activating the closing mechanism. The hydraulics engage, the heavy door beginning its inevitable slide shut. Her chest starts to rise and fall rapidly, and clear panic contours her face.
“Arson, don’t do this! Please!”
The desperation in her voice should satisfy me, should soothe the raw wound of hearing my brother’s name on her lips. Instead, it lodges like a shard of glass in my chest, painful and impossible to ignore. It didn’t have to be this way. It hurts like hell, but I maintain course.
My pride demands it, the rage I’m feeling…I can’t turn back now.
“If you want Aries so badly,” I say as the door closes between us, “you can fucking have him.”
Her face in that final moment—terror mixed with betrayal, with confusion, with hurt—burns itself into my memory as the lock engages with a definitive click.
“Enjoy your time together,” I call through the intercom, voice steady despite the storm raging inside me. “Isn’t this what you’ve wanted since you were sixteen? Your precious Aries all to yourself?”
It’s obvious this isn’t what she wants. Painfully obvious. Through the observation window, she presses herself against the far wall, putting as much distance between herself and Aries as she can. Her blue eyes pierce mine, wide with disbelief and a betrayal so raw it would be visible even without our strange connection.
“But… you promised to protect me.” Her bottom lip trembles, and her voice begs me to go to her, to comfort her. “You said you wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”
The reminder cuts deep—deeper than I anticipated. In the aftermath of what happened, I did promise that in the gentle moments that followed. Promised it with my hands, my body, in every tender stroke.
“Promises were made to be broken.” I feel so cold inside I can’t even tell who I am anymore. “Consider this a lesson in trust. In distinguishing between twins.”
Aries watches our exchange with calculated interest, though he doesn’t make a move toward her. The chains limit his range, but not enough to keep her truly safe if he decides to act. We both know this. She knows this. And it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
“Please don’t leave me here,” she says, a final appeal that lands with surprising accuracy. “This isn’t you. This is what they made you. What they wanted you to become.”
Part of me knows that to be true, and for a moment, I see myself as she does—acting exactly as the institution programmed me to act.
Violent. Reactive.
Using others as weapons without regard for collateral damage.
I’m becoming the very thing I hate.
The realization hits me right in the chest, and the rage drains away as quickly as it erupted, leaving a streak of horror in its wake.
What have I done? What am I doing?
I blink, feeling more than just my own pain at that moment, and reach for the control panel. My finger hovers over the door release, but I pause when Aries speaks.
“Reconsidering already, Brother?” he taunts. “Always so predictable and weak.”
Our eyes lock through the glass, identical faces mirroring a lifetime’s worth of hatred. Opening that door now means admitting my mistake.
It means proving him right by showing my one and only weakness: her. It means surrendering whatever twisted victory this moment represents.
Pride wars with the unfamiliar urge to protect. To fix what I’ve broken. To honor what formed between Lilian and me in those quiet moments after the violence.
“Arson,” Lilian says, voice steadier now despite her obvious fear. “Don’t do this. Don’t be what they made you. Be the person I know you are.”
Her words echo through my thoughts with such precision it’s unsettling, like she can see inside my mind, past the monster to whatever remains of the person I might have been. No. I slam the door closed in my mind. Taking a step back from the controls, I try to mask the conflict and confusion I’m feeling.
“You wanted to be involved,” I say, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. “This is what involvement looks like.”
The moment the door locks, separating us with inches of reinforced material, regret floods me—it’s instant and overwhelming. Admitting that now, with Aries watching, with everything balanced on this moment of cruelty, feels impossible.
I turn away from the observation window, unable to bear the wounded betrayal in Lilian’s eyes a moment longer. Each step down the corridor feels heavier than the last as if I’m physically dragging the weight of what I’ve just done behind me.