The McKay Boys

20| lucifugous•

You'll never know the psychopath sitting next to you. You'll never know the murderer sitting next to you. You'll think, "How'd I get here, sitting next to you?"

Chapter Theme Song: 'Heathens' by Twenty One Pilots.

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Amelia

My mouth hung loose like a vine branch dangling in the morn, my eyes rounded to barrels as I stared up at Kanan, whose face was masked with a cold-blooded plate, his eyes cruelly dispassionate. His question rang through my ears repeatedly like a broken sound system. Creating distant echoes and frequencies, all piling above each other. Should I just get rid of him?

Should I just get rid of him?

Should I just get rid of him?

...of him, should I just get rid of him?

By now I had lost the ability to breathe and think properly as dread and terror coiled in my gut, fusing into one huge lump of overwhelming anxiety. The room was gradually coming together in the middle, threatening to squeeze us both between the stifling, cold walls of it.

If I hadn't known Kanan, I'd have thought the question to be a joke. A sick, twisted, not-so-funny joke. But I knew him, and I saw how proudly he smiled when he stared down at Jacob Whitaker's battered skull. It was spine-chilling. How one could take a stone and repeatedly strike someone in the head with it.

And then a crack of deep laughter resounded in the room, echoing off the walls and chilling me even further. It was loud, rich, and powerful. I could almost hear the startled crooning and flapping of unsettled birds promptly swapping their locations. He dipped his head, hair stained with shampoo grazing my forehead, shoulders jerking through his convulsions. I blinked my eyes in awe, watching him speechlessly.

Only Kanan would laugh at the most inappropriate timings. I couldn't understand him.

When he brought his head up again, a placid smile was lingering on his flushed lips, and he reached out to take my face in his cold grip. Though he and Khalil were gravely identical, their body temperature would always set them apart. Kanan was always cold, so cold like a lifeless man ...and Khalil, immensely warm.

He rubbed the skin of my cheek with his fingers, and I felt the angst slowly simmering inside of me. It was odd; how someone with such damnable hands could be that gentle too. His features mellowed to a certain softness as he squished my lips together, his eyes twinkling as they settled on my wet mouth.

"Oh, Amie..." He whispered, lifting his gaze back to my eyes. His oceanic pair weren't dark anymore. Icy. Soft. Passionate. But not dark. "I'd set the world on fire for you..."

My mouth separated as he brought his forehead down against mine, smiling. "And watch it burn to ashes just for you..." When he lifted his head again, he patted my cheek.

"Get some rest. I'm done kidding around." He grinned and climbed off the bed, and I watched in bewilderment as he walked out of my room and closed the door behind him.

The room seemed a little brighter now, and the dark mist had cleared up making me able to breathe again.

Kidding around? He had to be...right?

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I couldn't fall asleep that night. I couldn't tell if it was because of Kanan's humourless question or because of what Giselle had said earlier that day, about Pseudo-incest and all of that. All I knew was that my mind was in so much torment that sleep had abandoned me. My bladder pulsed with the urge to pee, and I peeled Khalil's arm away from my waist and splayed my legs off the bed. My shoulders sagged in exhaustion, my eyes feeling dim and heavy as I stared droopily at the slippers beneath my feet. My brain was asleep, but my body couldn't cooperate. I used the last of my energy to pull myself up and push my feet through the sandals, trudging out of my room lifelessly. The rain was pouring on the outside, loud, heavy splatters against the rooftops, and the lightning would illuminate the house at short intervals. I ambled down the dark hallway like a midnight ghost to get to the nearest bathroom.