MAD

chvpter 22

"No. I dream about my mum..." I avoid describing the macabre nightmares, "ever since I was a kid I had this one about her finding out about Tristen."

He frowns, "Was he the baby your parents lost at the beginning?"

I nod slightly, "Yeah, when the government dumped them in Lake Darling with the plague... Dad said losing him," the big brother I never met, "broke her." Needing to talk about something else I move on, "Sometimes it's happy dreams, like finding Tokyo..." I trail off. They're probably the saddest ones. "Mostly they make no sense."

"I dream about Kade," He murmurs with a heavy voice, "sometimes violent shit, like that fight at the end... but the dreams that really fuck with my head are when we share a cigarette... like, factory workers on a smoko." 

"Did you look up to him?" I always assumed that if Reid put Kade down then they must've been estranged, but my heart splinters at the dawning realisation that he and Kade could have had a brotherly relationship.

"He was eight years older than me, right piece of shit to be honest. Stole from mum, always doped up, scared Bloom a lot... but when I was a kid I hung off his arm."

"What was he like?" I murmur.

He inhales like he's trying to think, "Smart. Too smart for his own good... but he was also lazy, which made him bored and destructive. I was his little lackey, so everyday he'd decide what deviant bullshit we were gon' get up to, and, well, I'd tag along." He shakes his head.

I turn to look at him, studying his face. Silence follows, not really for any purpose, so he decides to finish his description. "When he lost Jasmine he done got twisted mean," [WARNING] neither of us mentions the nagging fact that Jasmine was also the girl that he raped. "I had to call the shot because he was gon' kill me and pimp Bloom out."

I know he's holding out on painting a real picture of Kade's character. At best he was a twisted gangster, but my heart clenches for the part of Reid that still loves him. 

He avoids my gaze like he don' wan' face my judgement. "Dad was gon' pimp me out." I snicker cruelly, but then my voice drops into honest remorse, "but somehow I miss him." I murmur, and he looks up, "can't justify who you love sometimes." I add softly. He studies me with dark eyes, and a blade of moonlight glints across his gold earrings before illuminating the cross tattooed beneath the ridge of his jaw. "I don' know how you were friends with Tokyo, he was so spoilt." I mumble.

He thinks for a moment, "Yeah, and he knew it, but he was the only person in the city who saw all my problems, and just, made them fine. Him and Elias."

I smile slightly, nodding against him. "E carries shit too, since his little brother and his mum. Guess that's why he's so good at picking up strays like you and me." I joke, and he snickers.

"Don' go makin' him no jesus, he's got a temper." He grins.

"Got it from him Nona." I quip.

He snickers, "No one could piss him off like Tokyo though. They used to bicker so much."

I laugh, "Yeah like when they started brawling and broke that fuckin' chair in the Patch."

"Oh, yeah," he remembers, "How'd that even start?" He shifts himself above me. I twist slightly, giving him silent permission to touch me. 

"E reckoned Tokyo snaked his dart then Tokyo started on that E snaked his girl cause he got with Gypsy at Zingers, next minute they done wrecked the best hangout in the city." The stupid memory makes me smile, but then Reid's brows shoot up and I look at him funny. "What?"

He snickers, hiding his face in my shirt for a moment. 

"What?" I push, already grinning.

"Was that really about Gypsy?" He wrinkles his nose, "Surely not, I thought that was when they refused to talk to each other."