Page 99 of A Dead Man's B-Side
I’m an orphan with no one to protect me. I’d been robbed and beaten and stabbed and ridiculed.
I hadn’t had a great start to my life, but at least I had a home to return to without blood-crippling fear, one that allowed me the certainty of control.
Maybe I would have succeeded in my education, gone to university and landed myself an honest and well-paying job.
Oh god. Did they kill my parents to watch how I’d fend for myself?
From those simple strings of words, a wave of dark, scrambled thoughts formed as I questioned every bad thing that had ever happened to me. Too quick for me to stop, like trying to catch pouring rain through a fishnet. My life, my entire life, was engineered, planned, prepared, for this. For that moment in time when I received my invitation to The Founder’s Society.
“… He stole from you?”
“As I’ve been repeating, the little thief stole my money and then some. Things he didn’t exactly need. A card with Thelema’s caregiver’s number on it, my pen, mylicense, and several credit cards. Do you know how long it took to get those replaced?”
Thaddeus was chuckling, but no sound came out of Cassius until the former noticed. “What’s wrong?”
“Where did you say you learned about Miroslav? What made you decide to sponsor him?”
It was silent, a beat, two. “New York. He wrote an essay under the foundation program I was running. I liked his answer. Why?”
“I don’t know. Just… reminds me of–”
“Cassius, you’ve got to let that boy go. I understand it was hard, but it’s been years since Alexei died.”
The blood drained from my face. My muscles seized as if I’d spent an hour wandering without a jacket on the peak of the highest mountain known to man. I couldn’t feel them, couldn’t control them. Neither could I help it when my legs gave out from under me, the cold ground almost rising to catch me.
Suddenly, it was all clicking together. Thaddeus assigned the essay. He couldn’t have known it was me, but I’m sure he suspected. Why else would he warn me about how he’d judge me?
He had to have guessed I had something to do with Alexei. Knew him, hated him.
So, he sponsored me, invited me to the Founder’s Society.
Another thought filled the last.
He set the first task, hoping I would draw my own blood? Have it tested to confirm?
Could he have known I would draw my own blood?
No, right? Because it wouldn’t prove anything. Because I disappeared before the police could document anything. Or… was that how it worked?
It all got confusing again. More questions fill my mind.
Did he sponsor me because of Cassius? Nominate me to the board for Cassius?
If so, why? When Cassius doesn’t know, why?
What would be the point?
From the sound of it, he didn’t look like he was willing to tell him the truth. Thaddeus was conniving and calculating, so there had to be something else.
I was too scared to keep listening. Too paranoid. Afraid. Suddenly, I couldn’t see. I didn’t know where I was moving, crawling. I didn’t know if it was me who was gasping for air or if it was all in my head, but I remember the darkness surrounding me, the night cloaking my shaking legs trying to make it across the grounds.
My mind didn’t clear until I found myself lying against a tree, my cheek against the rough and cold as ice soil. I didn’t know where on campus I was, but I knew I was somewhere no one would bother coming. Especially at night.
I breathed. I listened to myself breathe. I watched my breath condense. Over and over, I forced breath after breath in and out of my body until I could finally see through the blur. The one that came from the tears clinging helplessly to my lashes, and the one that shuffled my sanity like a deck of cards.
When I calmed, the thoughts returned.
Think, Sasha, think.
