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Chapter Twenty-One

Running my hands beneath the stream of water, I watch as deep red turns the water pink. I scrub them with soap, hard, aggressively attempting to rid all the traces around my nails and on my fingers.

But it’s no use. There’s a hue I can’t get rid of, even after the rest has washed away.

All the blood on my hands…

I’ve created something special, and for now, it’s all mine.

I haven’t told Darian yet. I know I will eventually, but he’s dabbling in other parts of our new life. He’s been rather busy, anyway.

Becoming a leader.

Two years ago, we invited our first new friend to live on our territory. And since then, the plan of the universe has continued to take its shape, everything meant to occur in these woods revolving around my brother.

Darian King, Head Priest of The Principality.

It started as an idea, as anything does. A mildly far-fetched thought about what human existence should look like, why we’re here, and what should come of our new lives in the forest. Darian and I decided we mustn’t squander the opportunities we’ve been given to start over.

Because nothing happens by accident.

More people stumbled upon our settlement, and we decided to stake a claim in this land we call the Expanse. It’s ours, and we’ll defend it or die trying. Darian thinks I’m being dramatic when I say that, but he doesn’t know the things I’ve seen…

The evil I’ve made to keep him safe.

The funny thing is that each and every person who has wound up here in the last two years, who have wandered onto the Expanse looking for an escape from the outside world and a new community, a fresh start, they’ve all looked to Darian and me for guidance.

I’m no one’s leader. But Darian is.

He’s taken to the role almost effortlessly, because of his charisma, his obvious strength, wisdom and patience. He’s the perfect person to preach the message of Mother Earth, her gifts, and the transformation of life.

It’s really quite simple. We don’t call it a religion, because neither of us believe in that. It’s just the way of the world. We live by earth and die by earth; our God, Mother. A great spiritual being more than a pronoun, of course, but the way we see it, She’s a “she,” since She gave birth to us, from dirt and water and air.

In the early days, Darian and I smoked a lot of homegrown weed. We ate mushrooms, and I made an herb to smoke from some flowers I’ve grown, native to the mountain of their namesake, the white angel trumpets. The plants have entheogenic properties, from the species Brugmansia suaveolens, which I’ve been studying for quite some time. I’ve been cultivating them in my greenhouse, synthesizing as best I can until we get a lab built.

I think it could be a tremendous breakthrough in my chemical research, but I need the space. I need help as my operation grows.

Anyway, the first time we smoked it together, we experienced things I could have never dreamed, unlike the relatively basic highs from cannabis or even mushrooms. It was with our minds truly open to the great plan of the universe that we saw it all so much clearer.

This is our purpose. And thus, The Principality was born.

We fucked harder and more intensely than we ever have that first night, in the woods surrounded by colors and whispers and shapes of unknown entities, dancing and singing around us. Even thinking about it now gives me chills… Especially since we don’t get to be together all that much anymore.

Darian has sworn to me that he doesn’t necessarily want to lead these people. He’s younger than most of them, but for some reason, they all look to him for answers. And because of his giant, lovely heart, he feels obligated to give them what they want.

But no one knows about us, and it’s been killing me inside a little bit every day. Sometimes I just want to grab him and kiss him in front of everyone, to end the facade that we’re brothers and nothing more.

I find myself resenting him, or them, or Mother, for making it this way.

For making me fall in love with him and then giving him to everyone else.

This is what I’m thinking as I sit in my greenhouse, vial in hand. I created something new, and I’m going to try it for the first time. I’ve made it to be injected rather than smoked, because it’s no regular psychedelic. To be honest, I’m not sure exactly what it will do.

But I guess I’m about to find out.

I remove the packaged syringe from my pocket and unwrap it. Sticking the needle into the vial, I suck in the clear liquid, my heart jumping in my chest all the while.

I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’m very careful as I tie up my arm and inject myself with precision, making sure to see blood fill the syringe before I plunge. As soon as it’s empty, I remove the needle from my vein and untie myself, blinking heavily.

It feels like the trumpets at first; warmth and thick, wavy air. Colors and shapes rippling around my head. The Earth speaking to me, telling me how things need to be. How they are.

But then I hear something different… voices. They’re faint, whispers unlike those from nature. They sound like people speaking from afar, but I can’t tell where they’re coming from. I’m in my greenhouse and no one comes up here.

Walking as steadily as I can outside, I wander toward the cliff that overlooks the lake. It’s not crazy high, so I can see people mulling about down there. We have plans to build Darian a cabin next year, and a lot of work is being done to make a clearing, chop down trees, create lumber. It’s a whole process, but it will be very exciting once it’s built.

He deserves to live in a castle, not a trailer.

Watching them scurry to and fro I realize, even much to my own skepticism, that what I think I’m hearing are their thoughts. I mean, it’s hard to know for sure, but I’m hearing things that people would think, coming from them. The carpenters are worrying about measurements, the farmers thinking about crops. It’s faint, because they aren’t close, but still.

I think I can hear them…

Needing to investigate this further, I hop onto my ATV and drive down the path toward the housing trailers. And as soon as I’m closer, the voices hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks.

Slinking off, I’m dizzy as I walk, hearing things; so many things. Everything.

A guy named Jason waves at me, but he’s thinking about how I make him uneasy. A woman named Shirley says hi, and she’s wondering if I’m seeing anyone. A guy named Justin passes me without a word, but he’s also wondering if I’m seeing anyone, the same thing he seems to be wondering about Jason.

Children run past me, and all I hear are thoughts about toys, and the animals they just came from feeding. I can practically see what they’re describing in their heads, and it has me spinning.

Blinking over and over, I rub my eyes. It’s not fading the way the high from the trumpets does. It’s been at least twenty minutes and the voices are as strong as ever, pounding inside my skull.

This is crazy.

I need to get to Darian. This high is so intense, and I have no idea what’s going on. Is it possible the psychedelics I’ve created have given me some sort of telepathic abilities? And if so, how?

My mind aches with the stronger question… Why?

I wander up to the trailer I used to share with Darian. The one I moved out of when people started joining our little community. I still remember the look on his face the day I told him I was leaving…

“Don’t go… Please.”

I shudder myself out of it as I knock on his door, not waiting for an answer before I push inside.

“Dar… something crazy is going on,” I rumble, rubbing my eyes again.

I don’t see him, but I can hear him. Actually… I hear two voices.

My heart rate picks up considerably as I step farther into the living room, turning toward the bedroom door, which is only partially closed.

I know I should leave. I shouldn’t even look where my eyes are aimed, I know that with every muscle in my body. But I can’t stop myself.

Neither can I stop my brain from hearing their thoughts.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been with a man…” says the male voice who isn’t Darian. My eyes settle on the bed, the bed we used to share, my breath leaving my lungs in a pained gasp. “It feels so good.”

“You’re so sexy,” says Darian in a hushed, aroused whisper only I’ve ever heard before. Or so I thought… “Keep touching me.”

The man is named Lars. I recognize him right away. He and his wife have been living here for about six months. He’s very nice, quiet and polite. And he’s gorgeous, a fact that’s hard to ignore, though I’ve tried. More so, I’ve tried to ignore how my brother notices it.

And now he’s on top of my Darian, kissing his lips.

My lips.

My heart is screaming inside my chest. I can hear it, louder than anything else, the sound nearly drowning out their thoughts about how good it feels to do something forbidden, something secret. The sounds are almost as painful as what I’m witnessing; Darian’s hands on Lars’s abs, slipping beneath his shirt. Lars’s hand on Darian’s crotch, rubbing him through his pants.

I feel sick, like I might throw up. I need to move; I need to leave, but I can’t stop watching. I’m frozen to the floor like a masochistic statue.

“Are you sure your wife doesn’t mind?” Darian hums into Lars’s mouth.

“Positive. We’ve done it before, together. She told me to just keep it discreet.”

“She’s wonderful.”

“She is. Are you really single? You seemed… unsure at first.”

Darian stills, and I hear him thinking about it. The sound is so strong, my knees buckle, and I almost fall down.

Drake will never be able to love me back… Darian’s voice speaks in his mind. He’s ashamed of wanting me.

“I’m single. I’m just… experimenting,” Darian whispers, his words and the tone of his voice striking me down like a thousand knives cutting me all over.

The regret lining them… it’s damning; coated in unrequited feelings and uncertainty, two things Darian has never been.

Until me. This is what I’ve done to him.

“Can I take you in my mouth, Head Priest?” Lars’s voice stings my ears once more, and I turn, quickly storming away as quietly as I can, though I’m sure they heard me slamming the door.

I can’t be bothered with it. I just need to get the fuck out of here.

The thoughts of everyone around me assault my mind as I jump onto my ATV and peel off, dirt and dust kicking up behind me as I tear up the path. I rush back to my trailer at the bottom of the mountain, the farthest from the rest of housing. But when I get there, I still don’t stop. I keep going, up the mountain.

I go up and up and up some more, driving for a long time, farther than we tend to go.

This is uncharted territory.

I come to a fast stop when I almost crash into a tree, jumping off the ATV and immediately falling onto my knees in the dirt. I clutch my chest, because I think I’m having a heart attack, and I can’t breathe. I don’t know what this feeling is, but it’s like a tight, suffocation in my chest, squeezing me from the inside out.

“Fuck… fuck fuck fuck.” I cough, covering my eyes, forcing away tears.

This is stupid. Why am I reacting this way?

I left him. I moved out. I told him we couldn’t…

This is what I wanted. But why?

Why, when I’m so clearly in fucking love with him…

Climbing to my feet, I stagger around, stomping through my thoughts. I walk for a while, weaving between the trees of the mountain until my feet start to ache and my body feels heavier than my heart.

And when I stumble upon a clearing in the woods, I decide it’s the perfect place to sit down.

As I saunter into the clearing, a rock appears before my eyes. It’s dark, black and smooth. It just looks like a seat, and my tired, tear-filled eyes land on it right before my ass does.

Plopping down, I bury my face in my hands, and I cry.

I cry vicious tears, agonizing tears. Tears that sting my eyes and my cheeks, and my hands. They’re like acid, and when my lids creep open, there’s red on my hands.

Deep, thick red, staining my pale skin.

A chill brushes my skin until all the hairs on my arms stand up.

“Why am I bleeding?” I whisper to no one.

My chin lifts as a form steps in front of me. It takes a few blinks over my blurred vision before I recognize the person.

My gaze narrows suspiciously.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” the all too familiar voice stabs my ears. “Hey, shrimp. Long time no see.”

“Dan.” Pure hatred etches my tone as I stare up at him in rage and disbelief. “I thought I killed you.”

He laughs. “Oh yea, you did alright.” He grins, and I notice the bloodstains on his shirt, right at his stomach. “Great job, by the way. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Yea, well… you underestimated me, you fuckin pig.” I stand up, ready to attack his perverted ass.

But I pause and look around when I notice that the forest suddenly looks different.

Swallowing hard, I cringe as my jaw sets. I’m in a bathroom… A familiar one.

Shivers rack my body when I look down, my mother’s body lying on the floor by my feet.

“Fuck…” I whimper, covering my eyes with my hands, trying to rub this shit away, but it just won’t go.

“Don’t be a pussy, shrimp.” Dan’s fucking prick voice slithers into my ear, and I turn to glare at him. “You killed me. You’re not a bitch like I used to think you were.”

“Yea, you wanna get stabbed again, asshole?” I growl at him, getting up in his face. “Keep talking.”

“I was wrong about you,” the fucker chuckles. “I admit it. You’ve got loyalty to that boy.”

He’s talking about Darian, and I’m seconds from strangling his dead ass with my bare hands.

“You don’t talk about him,” I hiss in his face. “I killed you once for touching him, I won’t hesitate to fuck your ass up for speaking about him.”

“Language, baby boy.” A female voice rasps, and I jump, glancing down at Mom, who’s now awake, speaking to me.

Her face is still blue, eyes circled in black. She looks dead as fuck, yet she’s talking…

To me.

“What the fuck is going on…?” I breathe, stumbling away.

“Drake, you needed to see this today,” she says. My brow furrows. “You’re not afraid of anything, my love…”

“Except one thing.” Dan grins, evil.

“Oh yea? And what’s that?” I rumble while my head spins.

“Losing him,” my mother sighs from the floor. “But what you need to understand, baby, is that he’s not yours to lose. He belongs to them now. You can protect him and love him as your brother. But he can never be yours, Drake. Do you understand?”

More pressure builds behind my eyes as I remember the sight of him with someone else…

“I love him…” I cry, to my mom, the woman I only knew for the first portion of my life. She’s nothing but a vague concept, a distant memory to me now.

“I know, darling. But you have to stop.”

“Go, shrimp,” Dan says, and I seethe in his direction. But he simply nods toward the bathroom door.

And as much as I want to ignore him, I open it, and step through.

On the other side, I’m in muddy water, surrounded by ledges of land on each side. I think it’s a ravine, or a gully of some kind. It looks familiar as part of the mountain, farther down than where I am, or where I was.

I’m not sure why I’m here… Or how I even got here from all the way up where I was just a moment ago.

Confusion is holding me captive, my movements slow and murky as I look around. It’s the pale daylight of early morning, no longer the dimming of sunset. The cool air of spring no longer surrounds me, but the humid heat of late summer.

How has everything changed in the blink of an eye? How did I get here, and where did I come from?

What’s happening?

A sudden sound catches my ear. My face pivots all over, searching for whoever is making that noise, though I see no one.

The closer I listen, the more I realize that someone is crying. More specifically, a man…

The sound is familiar…

“Darian?” I call out. “Dar, where are you? Are you alright?”

I know it’s Darian crying. I can tell, but I don’t see him anywhere. I don’t see anyone.

“Dar?!” I scream louder, spinning around and around, searching for him while he weeps.

Darian’s hushed cries are accompanied by smaller ones. The sobs of a younger boy echo Darian’s. But who?

Who is that? And why is Darian crying with him?

I stumble backward when I see the ground by my feet, covered in stiff limbs and dead torsos. Bile rises in my throat, and I swallow over and over, my hands shaking with fear.

And when I lift them once more, they’re still drenched in blood.

All the blood is on my hands…

My mind lingers on that clearing in the woods while I continue scrubbing. I remember all the times I’ve been there since that first instance, and the things I’ve done, what I’ve seen. The things it’s allowed me to see…

I hope Abdiel is okay.

Surely, he’s reached it by now. I know he was nearby. I could hear him shortly after I took care of the prisoner. I wondered for a moment if he would find me.

But of course, he didn’t. He’s on a different path, and I just have to hope he’ll be strong enough to overcome whatever the forces in that clearing want to show him. Others haven’t been so lucky…

Shrugging off my bleak mood, I stomp up the stairs from the dungeon and saunter back out of the shack into the woods. Snatching my walkie from the ATV, I radio Lorn.

“Grab Xander and get up here,” I bark, feeling eyes at my back. “I’ve got a body for you to burn.”

“Yes, sir,” Lorn replies, but I’m barely listening.

I’m too busy turning to face the familiar gaze watching me with a quiet scolding.

“What brings you up here, your majesty?” I grunt at him. He says nothing but lifts a brow.

He’s silently simmering in my direction, and of course, I already know why. But this dance we do is like a second language at this point. Actually, it’s the only way we communicate anymore.

We don’t do real conversations. We haven’t in years. It’s strained between us… I know that. I wish it weren’t, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

My mother’s corpse was right all those years ago when it told me I can’t have him. It’s turned my black heart even blacker, but again, there’s nothing to be done. This is how it must be.

The universe showed me something that day, in that clearing. It showed me the location where Lars and Jenny would die, thirteen years before it happened. It showed me and I couldn’t stop it. Because it’s my curse to hold all the pain.

The blood is always on my hands, so it doesn’t end up on anyone else’s.

Darian looks like he wants to say a million things, but he sighs and settles on, “What did you find out?”

“It’s like we thought,” I answer, leaning against my ATV and pulling out a rolled joint. “He and some friends were spying. They’ve got drones. They decided to sneak in and attempt to steal whatever they could.”

His jaw tightens visibly. “So… you don’t think it has anything to do with the business?”

I shrug. “You know I don’t believe in coincidences…”

“Yea, neither do I. But this shit is serious.” Darian rubs his eyes. He looks tired, weakened. Abdiel’s only been gone a day… Does he really miss him that badly already?

Maybe he’s just worrying. Or maybe it’s something else that’s stressing him out…

“We’ll go to war if we have to.” I light my joint and take a drag, trying to remain as impassive as possible.

“Not everyone loves killing as much as you,” he murmurs, and I flinch.

That hurt. The truth usually does.

“I resent that.” I step closer to him. “I get shit done, Head Priest.” My fist pounds over my heart. “I protect this place.” I protect you from me.

Darian pushes into my space, the warmth of him immediately crowding me, though I don’t show it. “Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep it going when you know you don’t have to? You’re damning yourself, Drake. It’s like you do it on purpose…”

“I am doing it on purpose,” I seethe in his face. “I do it because no one else will. It’s the balance, Darian, and you know it. You can keep telling yourself that’s not the case, but it fucking is. Just accept it so we can all be on the same page.”

“I don’t want to accept it,” he snarls with pain in his eyes. “I can’t. The natural order doesn’t have to involve you compromising yourself.” I scoff over his words, looking away, but he moves his face in front of mine again. “It doesn’t. You’re hiding… Using the drugs, the mountain… the evil as a crutch. A buffer so you don’t have to face the truth.”

“Oh yea? And what’s the truth, Darian? Hm??” If flames could come out of a gaze, they’d be doing it now, aimed right at my brother. “You think you know everything… Well, you don’t know shit. You have no idea the kinds of things I live with. What I live with!”

I back up before something bad happens, pacing about in my rage, the fury rippling off me in waves. I can feel it up here. The night gets darker, colder, and the leaves tremble the way my fingers are.

Darian looks up, looks around, at how the trees are moving and the sudden shift in the atmosphere. But he doesn’t appear scared or concerned. Not for himself…

He looks worried for me, sympathy shimmering in his blue eyes. They’re darker now, and I’m sure he’ll be craving soon. And I’ll shoot him up, like a fucking dealer, because it’s the last remaining connection I have to him.

Everything he just said is entirely true. I am hiding. I’m hiding so much more than he even knows. But such is my burden. And he’s wrong about one thing…

I don’t have a choice.

“Thanks for coming up, brother,” I mumble, stomping out my joint and hopping onto my four-wheeler.

I don’t hesitate to start it up and peel off, leaving him alone in the dark.

Because I have to.

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