Monsters

Kirg - Age 16: Confessions Part 2

"Kirg, what's wrong?" she asked again, rocking him slightly as she held him tightly to her. 

It felt so good, so good to be in her arms again. Home again. Ishka was home. 

"Kirg? Talk to me. Please." 

The please is what did it. It sounded so unsure, so forlorn, as if she expected him to pull away from her. Again. 

He lightly stroked his thumb over the bared skin on her forearm, seeking the emotions she held tightly to herself. 

Fear. Sadness. Aching loneliness. Wren had been right. He'd thought he was protecting her by pulling away, but here was proof that he'd only managed to hurt her. 

He wasn't going to pull away anymore. She might after what he had to confess, but he wasn't ever going to pull away from her again. 

"I...Bram blames me for what happened to him," he finally admitted.

She sucked in a startled breath, "How could he--?!"  

"It's because of me that he couldn't even fight. If it wasn't for me..." 

"Who's fault is it really, Kirg?" she surprised him by demanding. 

"What?" 

"Is it Bram's fault?" she wondered. 

"No?"

"Whose fault is it? Who was the one that actually hurt you?" 

"Dark Lady," he said without hesitation. 

"And who was the one that actually hurt Bram?" 

He saw where she was going with this and pulled back, frowning, "But she used me to get to him. If it wasn't for me--" 

"What if it had been reversed?" she prompted. "What if she'd threatened to kill Bram if you hadn't complied?" 

It's not like they'd had much of a choice anyway, but-- "I would have let her," he admitted. 

"Would you have blamed him for it?" she demanded. 

"No? I don't know, Ishka." 

She thought for a minute, "What if it had been me?" 

His blood turned to ice in his veins at the very thought of her being on the receiving end of anything Dark Lady had done to them. "What do you mean?"

"What if she'd threatened to tranq me give me to the males if you didn't comply? That had actually been something she'd mused about doing, you know. She'd seen how you and I looked at each other while she... You and Bram must have been passed out by then, but Mom threatened to kill anybody that entered the cell." 

Kirg remembered how protective Luken had always been, and rightly so, but he hadn't known the full extent as to that was why. 

"Would you have hated me for that?" she wondered quietly. 

He immediately shook his head, "No. Never." 

"Then quit hating yourself, Kirg. What happened to Bram wasn't your fault. It was all her." 

She pulled him back into her embrace, comforting him as she allowed him time to think. 

He digested what she said, not sure he completely believed it. Even if he did, Bram still blamed him, and it weighed heavy on his blackened soul. 

"I've wanted to die," he finally admitted. 

He felt her tense and buried his face into her hair, admitting brokenly, "And... I've done things... things to hurt myself."