Kill Me, Kiss Me

ΤWENTY

THEO tapped the soft black leather of the car seat, a bitter frown twisting his lips. How sorely funny it was that he'd actually driven this very cliff of a cliff just 'days' before. And he'd actually thought Alexandr a lunatic, how conceptions changed in just the blink of an eye, one moment Alexandr was someone who was fleeing from, the next, he was an ally. But is allies truly the right word to use here?

Evergreen pines flashed through his sight, lone shadows of gloom even though they stood as one sprawling forest. A set of grand wrought iron gates at the end of the road loomed closer and closer, first a distant speck of glittering black, now a contraption that admonished all defiance.

Allies was not the right word to use here, under any circumstance. Not when the Hew family was the whole reason he was here, forced to sit in this car and await the knell of his death.

"Why are you helping me?" Theo asked without so much as casting a glance at the man beside him.

Silence reigned above the hum of the engine.

Alexandr took a short, sharp breath, "For the same reasons you were pulled into this chaos in the first place."

Rubbing the side of his cheek softly, Theo stared straight ahead at the shuddering gates, creaking open to the sight of a grand mid-century manor of dark glass and cold steel.

"What's so valuable about this face of mine?" His fingernails dug into the side of his face sharply, "I'm no Helen of Troy."

Again, Alexandr made no answer, as if by uttering the solution, a Pandora's box would be opened.

"Fuck." Theo said softly under his breath, releasing his grip on his face.

The car cruised slowly up the stone driveway to the black glass entrance that shot up and up as if to accommodate the height of a giant. A man dressed in all white awaited in the doorway. The man's face shot blurry through Theo's vision, but the breath stuck in his throat. Even as their car stopped with a jolt, all he could do was stare at that man in plain white. His eyes worked over that face again and again, the almost-translucent skin, the pale eyes, the stance that seemed as dense as helium - ready to float off into oblivion.

Opening the car door in a trance, Theo stumbled out into the cold dry air.

"...Setton."

His throat felt as if it was swelling to the size of an egg. What was that man doing here? Was it finally time for him to leave this hellish game? He tried again, "Setton."

The man stared back at him blankly, not a glimmer of recognition or care lighting up those robot eyes. From the strands of hair on his head to the white leather shoes on his feet, he was an exact clone of Setton, yet there was a fatal difference in the air hovering around him, there was no life. There seemed to be no life at all in this mimic even though he bowed stiffly and gestured towards the door.

Alexandr came up besides him and made a move to enter alongside, but the Fake slammed out an arm, barring his entry, all the while not uttering a decibel of sound.

"I'm going with him!" Alexandr demanded, running his fingers through his tousled hair roughly.

The Fake shook his head, taking a step forward with his arms still outstretched.

"Fuck!" Alexandr spat towards the floor, "Call me."

Theo leaned on his back foot, staring blankly at the barely contained rage behind Alexandr's jewelled mahogany eyes, "I will do what I can."

Satisfied with Alexandr's compliance, the Fake stepped back in front of Theo and swung open the threatening front doors as if they weighed as light as a feather. Extending an arm in the polite gesture of 'please', the Fake ushered him into the front hall, the front door slamming shut behind them with a final, resounding boom!