Chapter Eight: Ties That Bleed
The glass shattered against the wall, just inches from Elias's face.
Whiskey droplets sparkled in the air like amber rain before crashing to the floor.
Elias didn't flinch.
He stood across the room, breathing hard, fists clenched. The photo still trembled in his hand—the one with the message scrawled in red ink: Next, I take him.
"Are you insane?!" Elias shouted, voice cracking. "You said you'd keep me safe! And now someone's playing games with my life, with Noah's past—your past—and you're just drinking like it's nothing!"
Damien's eyes, bloodshot and stormy, locked onto him.
"You think I don't care?" he growled, stepping forward. "You think this doesn't tear me apart?"
"I think you're lying!" Elias spat. "About everything! About Noah, about what happened to him, about what we are—what I am!"
Damien was in front of him in two strides.
The slap of glass still echoed as he gripped Elias by the shoulders. "You don't know what you're talking about—"
"Then TELL ME!" Elias screamed. "Tell me who I am! Tell me what he was to me! Why did someone send me that photo? Why did they scratch his face out?!"
"Because the past isn't dead!" Damien roared.
In a flash, his hand was around Elias's throat, pinning him to the wall.
Elias gasped, hands instinctively going to Damien's wrist. His feet still touched the floor, but just barely.
"Damien—"
"You want the truth?" Damien hissed. His breath was hot, whiskey-sour, but his eyes were wild. "Fine. You're not his brother. You never were. He was your father."
Elias froze.
The air turned to ice.
"You're lying."
"No." Damien's grip loosened slightly, not enough to free him, but enough to make Elias feel the change. "Noah was fifteen. He didn't tell anyone who your mother was. He begged his parents to raise you as their own. Said you were his little brother."
"That's not—"
"It is." Damien's voice cracked, finally. "He was terrified. And when we—when we got close—he was even more scared. Of what would happen to you if they found out."
Tears burned Elias's eyes.
"I don't believe you," he whispered. But it was a lie. The truth had already wedged itself into his chest like a blade.
Damien's hand fell away.
Elias slumped forward, breath hitching. He shoved Damien back. "You kept this from me? You let me walk around thinking he was just my brother—"
"He was your brother. He was everything. He was mine."
There it was again. That obsession.
The way Damien said it—like a vow. Like Noah wasn't just someone he loved, but someone he claimed.
Elias stumbled backward.
"You're sick."
Damien's eyes flared.
He advanced.
"I protected you. Every second. Every step. You think this world is safe? That truth is gentle? You're standing here because I bled for it. Because I buried the boy I loved and kept your name out of every file I could."
Elias's voice broke. "Then why do I feel like I'm drowning every time I look at you?"
Damien stopped. His breath heaved.
"Because I see him when I look at you."
Silence.
Damien closed the distance between them, slow now, shaking.
"I see him," he whispered, "but you're not him. You're you. And I would burn the world to keep you breathing."
Elias's lips parted, a thousand feelings at war in his eyes.
Damien's grip on Elias's throat loosened just barely, but the damage was done. His voice trembled between anger and something dangerously close to desperation.
"I lost him, Elias," he rasped. "I won't lose you too."
Elias's breath hitched. His heart pounded so loud he couldn't hear his own thoughts. "You don't love me," he whispered. "You're just trying to replace him."
Something snapped in Damien's eyes.
That's when Elias shoved him back—hard—and sprinted from the room. He didn't wait for shoes, for clothes, for anything. Just the overwhelming need to get away.
"Elias!" Damien bellowed behind him. "Come back here!"
But Elias didn't look back.
He ran.
Down the hall, past the elevator, slamming the stairwell door open and descending like his life depended on it. Sobbing. Barefoot. Crying faster than his legs had ever carried him.
The cold night air hit him like a slap. He kept going, lungs burning, tears streaming down his face as Damien's voice echoed distantly in the building behind him.
"Elias!"
But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
He didn't know where he was going.
He just knew he had to get away from Damien Cross.
Because for the first time—
He was terrified of him.
Down the hall, past the elevator, slamming the stairwell door open and descending like his life depended on it. Sobbing. Barefoot. Crying faster than his legs had ever carried him.
The cold night air hit him like a slap. He burst into the street. Headlights flared nearby, but he didn't care. He just kept running. Anywhere. Anywhere but there.
He made it to the edge of a dark alley when—
Tires screeched.
A van door slammed.
Two figures lunged from the shadows.
"What—?! No! Get off me!" Elias screamed, twisting violently, but a cloth clamped over his mouth—soaked and stinging.
The world blurred.
The last thing he saw was a gloved hand gripping his face and a voice he didn't recognize whispering:
"You look just like your brother."
Then blackness swallowed him whole.
---
Back in Damien's apartment, the shattered whiskey glass lay forgotten on the floor.
Damien paced, heart hammering, rage and regret colliding in his chest.
He opened the door to chase after Elias—only to find the stairwell empty.
No Elias.
Only silence.
And a single item lying on the pavement outside, beneath the streetlight:
Elias's sketchbook.
Opened to a page.
A half-finished drawing—
Of a man Damien had hoped to never see again.