23. Hart

His phone was smashed on the floor in the far corner of the worn-down room he'd rented for the evening. The texts wouldn't stop coming in. The ringing had pierced through his head and made him want to rip his hair out. It had reverberated in his brain and made the aches feel sharper, more prominent.

It wouldn't stop.

They kept calling him. Texting him. Demanding things he didn't want to give. It was ripping him apart, the sense of responsibility he was so used to carrying around battling with the need to just not be inside his own body anymore. Not like this.

He was done with it after a couple of hours, and at the next sound he'd grabbed his phone and thrown it against the wall. It had felt like his hand was working without any direction from him, like he was watching someone else manipulate his body into action. He hadn't exactly meant to do it.

But it had stopped the ringing.

The feeling inside him remained.

He'd lost everything he had in just a few hours. His brothers had all turned against him, looking at him like they'd never seen him before. Like he was a fucked-up thing they needed to fix. They'd told him to his face that he wasn't doing his job right. That he had messed up and done things wrong. That he had his priorities fucked up and needed to do better. They'd said all of the things that had been eating at the corners of his soul for as long as he could remember.

That he wasn't enough. He needed to do more. He needed to be more.

And he'd been living under the assumption that he was giving as much as he had to them. The truth had felt like a stab wound. It had hurt, and stung, and bled until something inside of him screamed that there was no other option but to get out of there. It had pushed at his insides and made his limbs carry him away.

He'd moved in a daze.

Something deep inside of him had thought they'd stop him. Ask him to stay. But the silence had been damning and deafening. Ungrateful, something hissed in his head, slithering and dark. Ungrateful children. Ungrateful brats.

Fine. Let them live their lives as they saw fit, without him there to make it all worse for them. Without his mistakes and insufficiencies. The things he'd been accused of that weren't true.

He had been yelled at and pointed at and cast away, and it did hurt. Because he knew how Nexus worked.

His team would get a replacement for him now that he was gone. Each cursebreaking team had to be complete to function. Nexus would send another interpersonal specialist to Slatehollow, and then it would be like he'd never been there at all. A ghost. A memory. Would they ever think of him? Would they even care?

A voice told him they wouldn't. That they'd never wanted him. Never appreciated him. Look at how fast they had turned on him.

But his brothers weren't the only ones who had let him go.

At the thought of Cane, Hart writhed on the scratchy bed cover, like it was enough to cause him physical pain. He squeezed his arms around his stomach, sweating and panting, his head feeling like someone had shoved a poker into it.

Being replaceable to Cane…he couldn't stand it. No, no, no. It couldn't happen.

For years he'd been aware of the fact that there was nobody out there who fit him better. There was nobody out there for Hart other than him. But now that feeling was under a microscope. He felt like he couldn't breathe without him there anymore. His thoughts were all mixed up.

Cane didn't think the same about him, obviously. He'd turned on Hart just like his brothers had, convinced there would be the next man. A different man who'd be just as good for him as Hart. No, not just as good. Better.

All those years of being the best version of himself, and it had all been for nothing. He wasn't good for anything. Or anyone.

It ripped Hart up and sent him springing out of bed, disoriented and stumbling. He crashed into the far wall and tried to balance himself.

"No, no, no…"

Cane couldn't leave him. He could never leave him. It was a crushing weight. An urging hand.

He stumbled into the bathroom to the yellowing sink there, bracing himself on it and running the water. He splashed some on his overheated face before glancing up.

He met his own eyes in the mirror. Darker than night with almost no white left. Only a curling flicker at the corners of his gaze, just out of sight.

He stood transfixed.

And then there were a thousand Harts, scattering like confetti all over, the tinkling in his ears adding to the funfair he'd just created. He looked down at the chaos as if through someone else's eyes.

When had that happened?

He dropped the soap dish to the floor and stepped over the mess, glass cracking underfoot. His head felt heavy and swollen, so he curled back up on the bed, pulling the collar of Cane's shirt over his mouth and nose, inhaling the scent of smoke and his bodywash.

He closed his eyes and tried to make the bad thoughts go away. He visualized all of the motivational posters he had hung up at home and in his office. None of the words on them fit what he was feeling. None of them helped. The letters rearranged themselves, the thoughts behind them hard to focus on.

He wanted to sleep, but that nagging voice, that force inside him kept throwing images at him. They flipped behind his closed lids like a movie and wouldn't let go no matter how hard he tried. He was arguing with himself and losing.

A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts.

He straightened up in bed and frowned at the chipped wood. He hadn't ordered anything—not that the dingy place he was in had room service. He'd paid in cash, so the suspicious-looking man tending the front desk had nothing to ask him for.

There was no reason for anyone to be knocking on his door unless it was a mistake. He went to burrow back into bed when another knock sounded, this time more forceful. He stood up and walked toward the door, the haze of compulsion falling over his mind once again. He looked down at his body, finding his arms and legs moving as if in slow motion. How many times had this happened? Why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't he stop himself? He was so exhausted.

Something had taken over the reins of his body and wouldn't let go.

He looked around himself and spotted a heavy-looking ashtray sitting on top of the worn and cheap table in the corner. It was filled to the brim, the butts matching the ones Hart usually smoked. But he didn't remember seeing the ashtray before. He didn't remember chain smoking until the thing was full.

He took a detour to it without knowing why, emptying the tray into the trashcan right next to the table and gripping the glass in his hands. The tips of his fingers smudged the ash left sticking to the surface as he walked back to the door still being rattled by loud, insistent knocks. He lifted the ashtray over his head and reached for the doorknob.

"Come on, sweetheart. Open up."

The voice made his heart jump, a rush of dark, creeping satisfaction and ecstasy flooding his brain.

Cane.

He'd come for him. They were together again.

He lowered the ashtray, pulling on the knob quickly to get the door wide open. It rattled against the wall, but Hart ignored it as he stared at Cane in disbelief.

"How did you find me?" he asked, jumping aside when Cane pushed his way into the small room and slammed the door shut behind him.

He marched toward Hart, gripping him around the waist and pulling him into his chest, crashing their lips together.

Hart groaned at the taste of him, the rush going straight to his head and making him dizzy and weak-kneed. He wrapped his arms around Cane's neck to keep himself upright, the ashtray in his grip spilling little flecks of ash all over the back of Cane's shirt.

He allowed his mouth to be dominated, let Cane push his tongue in and control the kiss. He'd missed him so much. Wanted to join them together as one, to crawl inside his mouth and never leave. But there was something nagging at him. A thought that was trying to push through. Cane needed to get him out of here. But why? This felt so good. He wanted him so much. They could just stay forever.

They kissed angrily, hungrily for long moments, fingers gripping, hands moving. Hart got lost in the beautiful ebb and flow, and wondered why he suddenly felt like crying. Why he wanted to beg Cane not for more, but for help, before that nagging presence in the back of his head started acting up again. Getting louder. Bolder. Pushing all Hart's thoughts into a box and locking them in the dark mercilessly.

It pulled the haze over his closed eyes and made the hand that held the ashtray rise. He broke the kiss, then brought the heavy glass down, catching Cane on the shoulder with it. He didn't know why.

Cane shouted in pain and pushed Hart away, face contorting.

"Fuck, Hart," he said, cupping the spot on his shoulder. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Hart's insides turned over and bile rose in his throat.

"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!" he screamed, desperate for Cane to stop saying there was. Desperate to go back to when he saw him as perfect. He dropped the ashtray and gripped Cane's shirt in his rigid fingers. He shook him, pushing against his chest and pulling him back in. "Nothing is wrong with me, stop saying that. Stop it."

"I'll stop when you stop acting like this," Cane said. "You fucking ran off on everyone, Hart. We were worried out of our minds."

Hart froze. He had. He'd run and he'd made sure he wasn't followed. He'd left his car and stayed well away from places his team knew he frequented. But worried? No, that wasn't right. They didn't want him anymore.

"How did you find me?" Hart asked instead. Cane shouldn't have been able to find him.

"I'll always be able to find you, sweetheart," Cane said softly, looking around the room for a moment with a ghost of emotion on his face before fixing his intense gaze back on Hart. "You think I don't know why you came here?"

"What?" Hart asked, looking around the room himself as if he'd find answers written on the damp walls. He'd come here randomly. Because it was cheap, low-grade, and so unlike him that nobody would think to look for him there.

"The night we first met," Cane said, walking over to the wall behind the bed and laying a hand on it. "You brought me here with you. This motel. This room."

"I didn't," Hart protested.

"I fucked you here against this wall," Cane said. "Holding you up until you were screaming. I had you bent over that bed. I had you on your knees for me in that shower. This whole room reeked of us. You didn't come here by accident. You came here because you knew I'd find you here."

Hart looked around, blinking hard against the haze. He felt like he was drowning. The room still didn't look familiar to him.

But Cane against that wall did.

The image of him bent over that bed felt like he'd seen it before.

He began to pace, the filthy carpet muffling up his steps.

He felt a sharp pain in his skull, pressing harder and harder at his temples, like something was trying to escape from the confines and bleed out. He clutched it on either side, trying to relieve the pressure.

"Hart…"

Hart shook his head, not wanting to hear more of the same.

But maybe Cane finding him was a good thing. Hart wanted to be near him. Needed him. More than anything. More than air. More than food. More than sleep. He was a husk without him, drifting and useless. If he could chain them together forever, inseparable, wouldn't that be bliss? Wasn't that how they should always be?

You could just leave together and never come back to Slatehollow.

He paused in his steps and opened his eyes, staring at the wall in front of him as the idea slithered in and took root, spreading its tendrils out and infecting everything.

"We can go," he said out loud, as if through murk and mud. He glanced over to see Cane eyeing him warily, which was all wrong. All wrong. He rushed over and grabbed Cane's arm with renewed fervor, even though he was so, so tired. "We have to go."

"Go where?" Cane asked, looking at him with confusion and worry. "Sweetheart, you look like you can barely stand up."

"Away! From all of them. My brothers and Nexus and the people who want to hurt you. We can just go. We only need us. Just the two of us. Don't you see? Just Hart and Cane. That's all you've ever wanted right? I'll give you everything."

Cane's face contorted as Hart spoke, the expression hard to pinpoint through his manic need to explain, to make Cane see what he finally saw.

Cane grasped the back of Hart's neck and leaned in. Hart felt his breath hitch with want, drowning him in the feeling, so magnified now he'd given in to it.

"Hart…you're not thinking straight," he whispered.

Hart dug his nails into Cane's skin in punishment, the action irresistible. He began to drag them down Cane's tattooed skin. "We need to be together forever," he hissed.

Cane drew a pained breath between his teeth but didn't let go of him or pull away. "Come with me then, and we can be together."

"You're a liar! You want to take me back. You all want me to change! There's nothing wrong with me. It's you all that can't see—"

He was cut off by a hard kiss, Cane throwing Hart onto the bed and falling on top of him. Hart groaned, his brain a soup of lust and want and need. He clawed at Cane's skin again, trying to get him closer, to drag him into the very heart of him and fuse them together. Then he could never leave.

Cane grasped his wrists and pushed them over his head.

Hart made a noise of protest into Cane's mouth but got shushed as Cane gathered them in one hand.

"Everything's gonna be fine, sweetheart. I've got you," Cane breathed against his swollen lips.

Hart shivered at the words, gasping for air as Cane attacked his neck next. "Yes, yes. Have me. Have all of me. Use me up until there's nothing left," he moaned, not even recognizing his own voice.

Cane shut him up with another harsh kiss, and it took Hart a second to recognize the feeling of scratchy fabric around his wrists growing tighter. He blinked his eyes open, tearing his mouth away from Cane's to look up.

Rope.

Cane had tied his wrists together. He looked up at Cane and saw the grim determination there.

"LIAR! YOU'RE A LIAR, YOU'RE A LIAR!" he screamed, bucking with his legs and trying to bring his tethered wrists down to hit Cane.

Cane easily controlled the movements, grabbing him and hoisting him over his shoulder with a groan.

"You'll thank me later, sweetheart," Cane said with a grunt of pain. "Maybe you'll even make me my own holiday of appreciation."

Hart continued to scream as Cane carried him out of the door.