The Price Of Hatred

Chapter 18 - Ghosts of the Flesh

​The air in the cavernous hall froze. James felt the oxygen leave his lungs, his throat tightening until it burned. He took a heavy, unsteady step backward, his boots scraping against the stone floor.

​“No,” James choked out, his voice cracking under the sudden weight of a lifetime of lies. “No… I don’t have a brother. I never did.”

​“Yes,” Father said, his raspy voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm, absolute certainty. “You did.”

​James shook his head violently, his chest heaving under the heavy tactical jacket. The world was spinning, fracturing around him. “No. You know nothing about me! You don’t know a damn thing about my life!”

​“How did it feel when you were dead for three hours, James?” Father asked, taking a slow, calculated step down from the dais. His sharp, ancient eyes locked onto James’s trembling frame. “How do you think the people who actually care about you will feel when they receive the official word from the prison that you are dead? When they are told you stopped breathing? What do you think their next move will be?”

​James didn’t answer. He could hear the frantic, concussive hammering of his own heart in his ears.

​“They will bury you in the next two or three days,” Father continued, his voice dripping with an icy, merciless venom. “Just like you buried your mother. Without ever truly knowing if she was actually dead that night… or if you were just burying a ghost.”

​A cold, white-hot shockwave struck James’s chest. His breath hitched, his lungs collapsing as a suffocating panic took hold. He lunged forward, his massive frame shaking with a terrifying, wild energy. “No… what the hell do you mean by that? What do you mean?”

​“I mean she is alive,” Father stated flatly, staring directly into the storm of James's eyes. “She is breathing, sleeping, and waking up every single day. She simply lives her life without a single memory of her past… without a single memory of you.”

​“No! No!” James roared, the agony in his chest exploding into pure, unadulterated fury. He slammed his fists tightly at his sides, his knuckles popping, his entire body shaking with the urge to rip the old man apart. The memory of his mother’s weeping voice from his nightmare screamed in his head. “You raped her! You broke into our lives and you raped her!”

​Father looked down at James’s clenched, trembling fists. He saw the blinding, murderous hatred radiating from the giant, but he didn't flinch.

​“We had an affair,” Father corrected coldly.

​“You raped her!” James screamed, his voice echoing like thunder off the high rafters of the hall.

​“Don’t even think about it,” Father hissed, his tone sharpening into an iron threat as he gestured faintly to the guards in the shadows. “Not if you ever want to see your mother alive again. Not if you ever want to see your friend Todd survive.”

​James leaned in, his face inches from the old man’s wrinkled mask, his breath hot and lethal. “I will make sure of one thing, old man… I will make sure mine is the very last face you see before you die.”

​“No, you won't,” Father replied, a dark, hollow confidence in his eyes. “Because I have to live so that you can live. If I die, your brother Gage will return home instantly to claim this throne. And if Gage takes the seat, Tidder will die… and you will follow right behind her.”

​James let out a sharp, hollow bark of laughter—a bitter, broken sound that carried no joy, only raw emotion. “You don’t know me. You don’t have a fucking clue what I see every time I look at my enemies.”

​“Yes, I do know you,” Father sighed, letting out a slow, dismissive breath as he turned his back to James. “I know that beneath all that muscle and rage, you are just an ordinary human. You can feel pain. You can bleed. But the stone that Gage possesses… it has the power to destroy everything the moment he gets his hands on the key.”

​James’s eyes narrowed, his mind fiercely connecting the pieces of the old man's twisted puzzle. “So that's what this is. You want the key so you can possess the power of immortality. You just want to live forever.”

​Father turned his head slightly, his profile silhouetted against the rain-slicked window. “To live so you can live.”

​“No,” James spat, the disgust thick in his throat. “People like you don’t deserve to live forever.”

​“Then you will die,” Father said simply.

​James took three heavy steps backward, turning his torso toward the exit, ready to cut his way out of the compound.

​“It seems you don’t truly care about anyone, James,” Father called out, his voice stopping James in his tracks.

​James paused, his back to the throne, his shoulders tense. He spoke over his shoulder, his voice thick with a deeply personal, aching loneliness. “I care about the people who actually understand me. Not people like you.”

​“Then find your sister and bring me that key,” Father commanded, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “It must not fall into the hands of either of my sons. If it gets to Roman, it will inevitably get to Gage. And once Gage has it… it is unstoppable.”

​James turned around slowly, his face twisted with a dark, burning curiosity. “Tell me one thing. Where the hell is Gage?”

​“He doesn’t have the key yet, which is the only reason you are still breathing,” Father said. “But don’t think for a second that your ordinary combat techniques can match him. Everyone raised beneath the Pitch is trained to kill without leaving a mess.”

​James’s eyes flashed bitterly. “Tell me… was Roman trained the same way?”

​“Roman is a disappointment,” Father said, a flare of genuine hatred crossing his wrinkled features. “Ruthless, yes. But sloppy. Just like his mother.”

​James stood in the center of the grand room, the weight of the ticking clock pressing down on his chest. Todd was out there, bleeding in a basement, his life slipping away minute by minute. “Fine. I’ll help you get the key from my sister. But what about Todd? He’s going to die in the next thirty-eight hours if I don’t deliver that key to Roman.”

​“He will be safe the exact moment you bring the key to me,” Father promised. “I will handle my son.”

​“Fine. I’m going to get Tidder now,” James said, turning toward the heavy exit doors.

​“No. You cannot go alone,” Father countered sharply. “The tactical gear you are wearing is specialized—it was woven specifically to resist her unique displacement power if she tries to use it against you. And 202 will be accompanying you.” Father’s eyes burned into James's spine. “Do not fail to bring me that key.”

​Right on cue, the side doors groaned open, and Code 202 stepped into the hall, his dark suit immaculate, his expression completely vacant of human emotion.

​“You will go with him,” Father instructed 202, never breaking eye contact with James. “Ensure he retrieves both the key and the crystal.”

​“I will, Father,” 202 replied smoothly. He stopped beside the giant, his cold eyes shifting to James's profile. “Come with me.”

​202 turned and began his calculated stride toward the exit corridor. James fell into step behind him, his heavy boots echoing through the cavernous room.

​But just as he reached the threshold of the massive double doors, James stopped.

​Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head back. He looked across the vast expanse of the empty hall, locking his eyes onto Father’s face one last time. The emotion in James’s chest was no longer a frantic panic—it was a cold, quiet, promises-of-blood certainty.

"Take a good look at me, old man."

Father's eyes narrowed.

"Because the next time we stand in the same room..."

James's voice dropped into a deadly whisper.

"One of us won't be walking out alive."

Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.