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He shakes his head violently, the car swerving to the left to make a curve, going just outside of the city. I look at not-Ben, and his eyes are set straight ahead, lashes batting insanely fast.
“I first got to know you because of Ben,” he finally says, “When he first got tickets for your show and didn’t have the courage to go, I took his ID and went there to meet you. It was magical, Lily.”
He pauses before continuing, “Can you really not see the resemblance?”
Twins.
It’s a delayed reaction and I still can’t believe it when I figure it out.
How could this have gotten past us?
“Ben never said he had a brother…” I say in shocked voice.
“We never got along. Poor thing tried to alert Brody about me, but he was too much of a coward to go through with it.”
“And…” I start, unsure if I can finish, “You took advantage of him?”
“You don’t understand!” not-Ben says, bothered, “Growing up, anythingpoorBen couldn’t do, I had to do it, and it the end, people still loved him more than me! I was just overshadowed and underappreciated and invisible. I never had a name for myself!”
His distress only enhances mine. I’m shivering like a bamboo stick, and barely controlling my sobs. I’ll be a complete mess in the flip of a switch. It’s just a matter of him doing something sudden and triggering me even further.
“And whatisyour name?” I ask, genuinely interested. Maybe giving him some dignity will soften things up.
“Does it matter?” he looks at me sideways, deeply hurt.
“Of course, it does,” I say, my voice trembling. “Everyone deserves a name.”
He breathes a deep breath, smiling with triumph that someone is finally recognizing and listening to him.
“My first name is Ken, but I’d like to go by my middle name,” he says, excited.
“And what is it?” I ask.
“Castor,” he says, smiling the most unsettling of smiles in my direction.
“Alright, Castor,” I measure my words. Anything I say now can spell either my freedom or my doom, “where are you taking me?”
“To a special place,” the car turns onto a barely lit road, and Castor holds the wheel with a white-knuckled grasp.
I can’t hold back anymore, and I start to full-fledge cry, sensing that his intentions aren’t the best. He looks to me with alarm, diverging his attention from the road and making me even more scared for my life.
“Please, don’t be scared!” he pleads, desperate. “I just want to be alone with you!”
He turns the car onto a dirt road, a place surrounded by open land where nobody can hear me scream.
“We’ll just look at the stars, okay?” he tries to soothe me, failing miserably. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better; it only reinforces that I won’t know what to expect from him.
Castor parks the car in front of a cliff, grabs a blanket from the backseat and climbs out. Frozen in panic, I can’t get out until he comes and opens the door, guiding me by the arm to follow him.
“I just love this place…” he says, as he flattens the blanket on the ground. Awkwardly, he sits down over it, and then offers me his hand to go join him.
"Everything is going to be better, Lily," he says, his hand motioning me to come closer. "I promise. Now come sit with me."
I finally oblige, slowly, sitting as far from him as I can. I have my arms pulled tight against my body, my chest quickly going up and down with my crying. I'm almost at the point of getting hiccups, and Castor doesn't seem bothered at all.
Castor slides to my side and puts an arm around my shoulders, drawing from me a squeal of abject horror.
