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We’re walkingwhen I feel Andreas pull back.
“Actually, I changed my mind. I can’t keep this up anymore.”
Sebastian and I are farther into the room at this point, but we turn in unison, both with the same level of confusion.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he reiterates, almost agitatedly. “I can’t keep this up anymore.”
He enunciates the words and follows them with laughter. The manic sound of his amusement completely disfigures any memory of our friendship together.
“I don’t want to be your friend. Not after having years of your abuse. I don’t even give a fuck what happens to you now.”
What the fuck is happening right now?
“Watch what you’re saying,” Sebastian intervenes.
“Or what?” Andreas remarks. “You lot are so mind numbing I can’t even begin to tell you.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale heavily. “Do you want to tell me what the fuck this is about?”
“Gladly,” he responds, taking a moment to issue me with a bright smile. “I am sick of your shit.”
I thought I needed to grovel, and while what I just said still stands, I realise I’m not going to miss anything by not having Andreas by my side. Maybe that’s why I grieved so briefly. Maybe that’s why I didn’t really cry.
“Alistair paid me quite handsomely. In the beginning, it wasn’t the arrangement. Actually, how you and I met was genuine, but then one day, I was taken aside by a gentleman offering me money to keep tabs on you.”
“And you didn’t think that was weird?”
“I was given the correct evidence on who he was, what he wanted, and who he was associated with. Plus, as much as you tried to downplay it, Nicolas Abernathy wasn’t exactly a wallflower, and neither were you.”
I look at this man before me. He looks like Andreas, but the attitude he carries now is so unlike the man I knew and trusted, and I’m not sure if it was always there or if I did this to him. If I didn’t do this, I feel stupid for not seeing the warning signs.
“I bided my time, and really, Beckett shooting me and me winding up here was actually all too perfect, and Alistair thought so too.”
“And Sebastian?”
“Pretty good fuck, but his loyalties are a turn-off.”
The disapproving growl from Sebastian shows that he doesn’t take kindly to being used like that.
“You’re all so delusional. Your loyalty to each other is the biggest flaw you have. I’ve been sitting here for weeks watching, and you’re just a bunch of bumbling fucking morons, and you’re the fucking worst!” he says, pointing at me. “You loved a man who you believed did the dirty on you. You didn’t tell me, but Alistair did. How do you keep loving someone who you believed asked to have a baby beaten out of you?”
I don’t owe him an answer. I owe no one that response. Instead, I react very openly.
“I trusted you!” I bellow, the roar in my words so intense they burn my throat. “I fucking trusted you!”
This time, I’m physical. My words fill the air, but my hands push him through it, and I don’t care about the stumble he takes.
“Hit me all you like, Tally. I know you best. Want to know why?”
“Talia.” Sebastian’s tone is a warning.
“Let him speak.” My words are gritted between my teeth, but I want to hear this.
Sebastian nods and takes a minute step backwards, allowing Andreas the floor to say what he needs to.
“I know you best because, for almost five years, I was the one you confided in. I was the one who watched you desperately strive to make an army that you could use to come back with, and while I might not have been aware of that at first, I knew it the moment we came back and you watched Beckett take it all over.” He laughs that same manic chuckle as before. “Alistair was right about you. You’re a pathetic, worthless whore who no one wants.”
