NCT Ten | Mafia

Trust.

Ten's P.O.V

I rub the dirt off the rivet. "Sometimes I would touch my finger there when my brothers weren't looking. I knew it was bullshit. I mean, hello, I made it up myself, right? But it worked with them, and sometimes, when I was feeling like shit, I wanted it to work with me, too—to suck out the bad and burn it away. I wanted to believe my own stupid lie." I lower my voice to a whisper. "I really wanted to. I almost sometimes could."

I don't know why I'm telling her. I'm supposed to be making myself scary, not pathetic. I turn, finally, because I have to.

Because she's the one bright thing in my life, even if she's not really in my life.

She's there, straight and tall, brown eyes shining, but not with tears. She's looking at me with admiration. "That's the bravest thing I ever heard."

I give her a cockeyed look. Like she made a joke. "You caught the bullshit about the rivet, right?"

"That's my favourite part. You helped them when they needed it most. When you needed help as much as any of them, but you were the leader, weren't you? You made it better for them."

My heart thunders. I absorbed all the darkness. She's not supposed to be making it into a good thing.

"How old were you when they...trapped you?"

I shrug. "Nine or ten. Most were younger. Johnny—the one in prison—he was like five."

She sucks in a breath and comes to me, throws her arms around me, as if to shield me from the world. She puts her face to my shirt.

This is wrong. I should shake her off, get her out of here.

I don't.

I rest a tentative hand on her back. "Shit, sweetheart," I say softly. "I'm ruining you."

"I'm sorry," she says, a broken litany. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"For what?" My voice sounds remote to my ears. "A lot of bad shit happened in that basement. Which part are you sorry for?"

I feel her flinch. I unwrap her arms from me and step back. "You don't even know."

"Don't," she says.

"Are you sorry we missed out on hopscotch and multiplication tables or the class where they teach you to write in that curly way? Or that we got our souls ripped out our assholes? You really should try to be specific."

"I'm sorry for all of it," she says softly. "Mostly that part of you is still here."

My heart thunders. I see what she's doing. Trying to absorb the darkness. "We're outta here."

"You were brave. You saved those boys."

I push her toward the steps, help her up. "You only say that because you haven't met those boys."

"You still know them? That's cool that you stay in touch."

Stay in touch.

"What do you think, like we send each other birthday cards or something? We're fucking criminals. We're like a pack of wolves roaming the goddamn city. We're not even official people."

"What about your parents? Didn't you try to find them once you were out?"

"You don't get it. They changed us into monsters down there." I kick a rusted hinge with part of a shattered door still clinging to it. "None of our folks much wanted us before we went down there. You think they wanted us after? A few of my guys found that out the hard way. It can only be us guys. We're each other's family now."