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“You should.” I had to remind him of our position and how precarious it was. “You’re the king. People will take sides. Some will side with you, while others will side with whomever they feel looks stronger. Our enemies need to fear us, and our allies need to respect us. Who knows how this will affect the rest of your reign? It’s wise to be cautious, at least for now.”
Augustus huffed, his cheeks puffing up. “Our enemies? Since when are we on the same team? I’m the king. You’re a criminal.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at me.
I chewed on the inside of my lip. We became members of the same team the day he was born. “We’ve been working together for years. Sometimes because our parents forced us together, sometimes because you needed the skills and connections the DuPonts have. But we became a solid team the day this psychopath murdered the woman we love. So stop acting like I’m against you and lean on me. All good rulers use every resource at their disposal. I’m your best shot and you know it.”
“How can you stay calm?” he croaked, his face turning pale from the pain. His nails dug into the seat, and the leather hissed. “I can barely think straight. Barely get out of bed. I’m starting to think you never loved her at all. Not the real her anyway. Because if you did, you’d be as fucked up as I am.” The lines on his face were deep, a mask of sorrow and loss, not of strength and wisdom.
“I loved her just as much as you did. Maybe more. We just show it in different ways,” I gritted. I was grieving. I was mourning a dream—I mourned hope for a life with her where she didn’t hate me for controlling her. “I’m not sure how to process what happened. How to accept the fact that she’s gone.” I shook my head and clenched my teeth, the lie like acid on my tongue. Augustus stared at me. “Don’t think for a second I don’t want to rip every limb from his body and watch him bleed out. I’m just saying…be smart about this,” I reiterated, unsure if he heard me the first time. “You don’t need to rush in and kill him, because he’s not worth the risk of putting us in danger. Use the element of surprise, catch him off guard, incapacitate him before killing him. We need to make sure we have all of our bases covered, just in case. Do you even know how to use a gun?”
“I have no fucking clue what I’m doing!” He let out a frustrated growl. His breath practically smelled like sulfur. I could feel the heat from it, like I was in the presence of a volcano about to erupt. “I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t know how to lead a fucking kingdom, and I certainly don’t know how to avenge her death. I just have to do fucking something, or I’ll lose my goddamn mind. Sitting here is killing me. Being in that castle that smells like smoke is brutal. And you know what, Atticus? I finally get it now. I know how she felt when she walked through those castle doors. How she hated everything about that place because it reminded her of her trauma. I put her there, Atticus. I did. And she died there.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, refusing to look at him. I couldn’t handle the sympathy he was forcing on me.
“I’m the reason she died,” he choked out between dry sobs. “The reason she suffered. I’m a fucking murderer. She was safe in Harvington.”
I bolted upright, my gut reaction to punch the shit out of him and beat the shit out of me. “This is not your fault,” I said, trying to make my point. “You didn’t make those fucking bombs go off.”
He sighed, his voice cracking. “I took her to that hell, Atticus. I put her through shit.”
“It’s not your fault.” I wasn’t sure how many more times I’d have to repeat those words to him. I wasn’t sure how many more times I’d have to convince him.
“It is. It’s all on me.” He wrinkled his brow. I was stunned speechless. My tongue twisted at the taste of bile in my throat. “I miss her,” he said. The tears that had built inside started to burn their way out. He bowed his head, his fingers stuffed into his mouth so I wouldn’t hear him sob. The sounds of his cries were muted, like a television blaring beyond a closed door. When he sat back up to speak again, the broken look on his face was jarring. “Three years, Atticus. Three years I missed her, but it never felt permanent. Now, I’ll never get her back, and it kills me.” He punched the tops of his thighs. “I need a minute to think. Park the car!” he commanded the driver.
The stunned guard driving our car pulled off to the side of the road, along a stretch of winding highway where we hadn’t yet seen a house or sign of civilization. He got out and started pacing, thrusting his hands through his hair as tears streamed down his cheeks.
We didn’t need this right now. Augustus needed to be angry. Detached.
Lethal.
I got out of the car and stared at him. “Man up. You can’t break down right now. We have a job to do.”
“Man up? Man up? I can’t. I can’t do this,” he said while walking a line in the grass.
I opened my mouth to say something cruel—something to get him pissed off enough to pull himself together. But he shocked me once again.
He charged after me and wrapped his arms around my body, pressing his face into my neck. “I can’t do this. It hurts too fucking much.” The ache in my chest made it hard to talk.
I didn’t hug him back, and he didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t return the sentiment. I was numb and confused. Augustus and I had always kept each other at a distance. I cared for him. I protected him because I had to. But I wasn’t good with emotions and I wasn’t good with him. I didn’t know how to support Augustus other than tearing him down.
I stood there, rigid, for minutes. He didn’t seem to care what I did. I couldn’t tell if he was waiting for some kind of signal from me that I was okay with his outburst. He was willing to put up with my silence.
But after a while, it became too much. I felt his sorrow and it was strangling me. “This isn’t the time to cry,” I snarled while pulling away. “We have to kill this guy.”
“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do? You’re not my friend. You’re not my brother. You’re not my father. You’re just some guy I know who follows me around and does what I say.”
“I’m just trying to help you pull yourself together.”
“Don’t forget you failed her just as much as I did,” he said through clenched teeth, his airway opened, but the words were muffled, just like his sobs had been.
“I didn’t.” The words escaped me before I could censor myself.
“You saw her last. You let her slip through your fingers. You should be standing here sobbing like an idiot.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I said. I stepped toward him. I could have punched him right then and there, but I didn’t. Throwing a fist at him would have been too easy. “You have no fucking idea what I’ve been going through. You don’t know the regret. You don’t know the guilt. You’re so busy, wrapped up in your own shit, that you haven’t seen what I’ve been going through.”
“Sorry for not sending you fucking flowers, Atticus.”
The car full of guards watched their king lose control.
