78: You’re not him anymore.
**Bane**
Memories about what happened to Kieran came back in waves. The more I remembered, the colder my sweat grew and the more painful my heartbeat became.
I had committed many vile crimes in my life, done many awful things and hurt a lot of people in the process, but I had never hurt my own pack members like this.
While I felt genuinely horrified, the monster kept giggling like a little girl every time another memory flashed before my eyes.
I pulled my hands into tight fists and gritted my teeth, trying my damndest to focus on anything but that. The chains above my head rattled, louder with each tug of my hands.
Looking down, I hissed. The ropes across my chest dug into my skin, but the physical injuries were nothing compared to the weight of the entity that had rooted itself within me and made my body a permanent place of residence.
The parasite just lurked there, behind my eyelids and thoughts like he was waiting for me to blink just once so he could switch the roles and take over.
He had been quiet, other than the occasional giggle, for much longer than usually, and somehow, the silence was worse than his screaming.
Well, until it wasn’t anymore. “Bane,” it whispered my name like it had a bitter aftertaste. “Do you remember how he screamed? Do you?”
I froze, trying not to move a muscle. I didn’t want to show any reaction, that would only give him the satisfaction of knowing I was listening to every word.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Bane,” he purred. The sound of his voice alone made me sick to my stomach, but the bastard didn’t bother to care as he continued. “I’m not talking about your little weak follower. Your Beta, that’s who I’m talking about. Your loyal second-in-command. The man who would have died for you. Do you remember him? Remember how he screamed, begged and cried? Do you, Bane?” The last words that left him sounded downright demonic, so deep and raspy that the sound sent a shiver down my spine.
“Shut up!” I forced the words through gritted teeth.
He was the last person who had the right to talk about Zion. He was the one who used my own fists to torture my best friend.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm my raging heart, but deep down, I knew the bastard had done exactly what he planned to. Zion was gone and I knew that my best friend would never forgive me for what the entity did.
And truth be told, I couldn’t forgive myself either. I didn’t fight enough, didn’t push hard enough to protect the very people who needed me to step up and be the Alpha they wanted and needed me to be.
“He thought it was you,” the monster laughed, the sound too sharp for my ears. “You know that, right?” He continued, dropping the amused act and instead sneering at me. “When he lunged, fought back and when he bled. He thought it was you crushing his ribs, breaking his bones, messing up that pretty little face.”
I gritted my teeth as my fingers curled into tighter fists, as much as the chains allowed. My skin burned and the previous injuries tore open again, but I didn’t care anymore.
Pain was good for me because it was real. And right now, I struggled to understand what was real or not anymore, so I needed something to ground me.
“You’re not me,” I whispered.
“No,” he agreed and sighed. “But I fit so damn nicely inside you, don’t I? Don’t lie to yourself, Bane, you know everything feels better when I take over. That’s when you don’t have to think about what happens next.”
I didn’t answer, I refused to. Sometimes silence was a weapon more powerful than any words and attacks could be. My suspicions proved right when I noticed how the barn around me faded.
I held my breath as I watched the fog slowly back off and I was back in that moment. Kieran’s eyes - the rage, the tears. Fuck.
“You can’t stay inside him,” he growled at the monster. I could perfectly remember the look on his face, the hatred burning in his eyes, all turned towards the monster and partially, me too.
Kieran attacked me, or the monster, I wasn’t sure anymore but what happened next was something I would never forget.
The moment he started clawing at his own chest would be forever burned in my memory as one of the worst moments of my life. And just to torture me more, the monster kept replaying the scene over and over again.
Each time, I watched it happen from a different angle - once from above, like I was a god watching the tragedy happen. Once, even from below, which made me feel like a scared child, cowering under the old floorboards.
Suddenly, while the memory still kept repeating itself, I heard him speak again.
“Zion’s voice,” he muttered casually and the next moment, I heard it.
“You killed him.”
“You enjoyed it.”
“You’re not out Alpha, you’re a fucking weapon waiting to detonate.”
A lump grew in my throat and I struggled to swallow past it. Tears pricked in my eyes as I shook my head and refused to listen to those words. That wasn’t Zion speaking, Zion would never say anything like that.
The monster was upping his game, he had started some sick and twisted psychological warfare to fuck me in the head so much, I wouldn’t have any other choice but to believe in his lies.
But fuck, how hard it was to try to ignore those words. It sounded like him, even the emotions behind those words somehow matched Zion perfectly - the rage and the betrayal.
“You’re lying,” I snarled, but the fight had left me, I was too tired to sound convincing even to my own ears.
“Am I, really? Or are you finally hearing what they truly think of you?”
I screamed, the sound loud and raw, as I pulled at the chains until the metal cut deeper into my flesh and splashed the blood around me. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD! OUT! GET OUT YOU PARASITIC BASTARD!”
Finally, the haunting view of Kieran’s face, twisted in pain, faded and changed into something brand new.
I was no longer watching, instead, I was standing over Kieran. There was blood dripping from my fists and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand if it was mine or his. Fuck it, I couldn’t remember what exactly happened to Kieran to begin with.
Kieran was choking, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and my heart hammered against my ribs like it wanted out of my body for good.
But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop this. This wasn’t a memory anymore, it had become a twisted reality I wanted no part in while I still felt everything the bastard did. The hunger was unreal and raw, impossible to get rid of.
“Let me in, Bane,” he whispered. “Give up and let me in, and in return, I’ll make it stop. There will be no more guilt and fear, you’ll have only power.”
I fell to my knees and fell forward, gabbing the dirt as if it could hold me tied to whatever reality this was. And then, just as I sucked in a painful breath, I heard Kala’s voice. “Zion needs you to be strong, Alpha. Aife needs you to come back. You’re not alone.”
I clenched my jaw and looked down only to realize the chains around my wrists were back, glowing bright red, cracking.
Just as suddenly, the barn flooded back into the view, my body was still restrained, my chest heaving and my throat raw from screaming. I didn’t move, but the creature inside me started stirring more, I could feel it.
“Do you remember how he looked at you?” The voice that spoke wasn’t mine, wasn’t even the monster’s. “He was going to kill you.”
It sounded like Zion again. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how perfectly the creature mimicked it, especially emphasizing the pain behind the anger in the sound of the voice. This was how I expected Zion to sound after everything that had happened, a broken, betrayed man.
“You were weak and he saw it. Kieran looked at you and knew you were a lost cause.” My best friend’s voice kept mocking me. “He would’ve stopped at nothing to see you bleed out like a filthy pig.”
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