Julius Caesar

Julius' POV.

Five days had passed since Samara confessed her love to me and since I returned Maxime and Leonard their doc.u.ments as planned. They were furious but we made it through the night without any victims. They were snide but not reckless.

I was sitting on my bed with Gorj's doc.u.ments, trying to figure out my next move when I got interrupted by my phone ringing. It was Samara.

"Hey-" I started, but she interrupted me.

"I want to see you. I want to see you now." Her voice was steady, emotionless. I frowned a bit.

"Is everything-?"

"Just. Please. Okay? Just come over." She demanded, her voice strangled.

I opened my mouth, closed it, then sighed with a small shrug. "Okay," I said uneasily, shifting on my bed. "I'll be there. Just be safe, okay?"

She hung up and my heart pounded in my c.h.e.s.t at the numerous possibilities behind that call.

Fear was like a flower and my despair was its water. The flower was blossoming and blossoming in my tight c.h.e.s.t. It almost suffocated me. But I found a breath to get up and put on some decent clothes before leaving the hotel.

I stood in front of Samara's door very incredulously nervous.

Smoke- was what I reminded myself to do. I even remember patting all my pockets and realizing that I didn't have a single cigarette on me because I didn't buy them for surprisingly so long. More than a week?

I shuddered, straightening up and ringing the doorbell once. Then again. But there was no response. No shuffling on the other side of the door. Not a single sign of life.

My heart pounded rapidly and I almost lost it before I hastily tried the knob. I didn't expect the door to open, indicating that it was unlocked in the first place. I took in a sharp breath and immediately reached for the back of my pants where my gun would be tucked.

But it wasn't there.

I winced at the realization, cursing under my breath. I stepped in the huge reception anyway and let my eyes scan the whole place. Everything was in place. The immaculate, sun-lit living room, the clean, shiny tiles, the spiralling stairs, and the kitchen door at the further end to the side. I re-scanned the place and did a double-take when I noticed Samara standing by the glass wall of the living room with her slender fingers curled around a glass of red wine. She wore a short, icy-blue dress, a long, grey cardigan, and bunny-like, grey slippers.

She wasn't looking at me. She was looking outside of the glass, at the garden. I could take a picture of her. She looked breathtaking.

I glanced around the room again, noticing a lot of used tissues littered on the couch. Is she sick?- was what I first thought. But before I could take a step toward her she turned to me.

She looked deathly pale as if her skin were broken, pointless colour pencils and white crayons. She glanced at me, looked down, and then smiled faintly. She then gracefully planted the glass of wine on a couch's pillow, where it stood half-full and tilted precariously.

Her silence was odd because she was always the 'vocal' one. The one who had thoughts put into coherent, melodic sentences. The expressive one. And not having her talk was like dropping a heavy, blanket of silence atop of us.

I shifted under her gaze and almost smiled before her eyes fluttered close. She then forced them open to continue staring. Her lips were chapped and sealed shut and her blue eyes, glassy and stormy. Different. She looked at me differently. And that was all it took for my fears to simmer within me.

It's just Samara- was what I told myself- she's probably having a mental breakdown about something and needs your help. Relax.

"Samara?" I dared mutter and she shook her head slowly. So slowly, smiling a brittle sort of smile. A smile, waiting for the push of the right thoughts or words to shatter into nothingness.

"Did you know?" She said carefully, very, very carefully, her eyes wide open. "I-I haven't slept at all last night? And maybe even the night before that?"

My mouth moved around to spell suddenly silent letters, so I just tilted my head slightly in response. I didn't know what put her in this miserable condition but I wanted to help her. So I listened. I listened to her woes that bled out from her words.

"I didn't sleep-" She whispered, bringing a hand to her mouth, touching her lips to her fingertips. "I didn't sleep because I kept thinking," her voice quavered and I looked at her in anticipation. "-I kept thinking and thinking and thinking of a question. One question."

She sniffled and I quickly approached her, not knowing where she was heading with all that. I was just reaching for her arm when she leaned away with a frown.

"Don't-" Her voice came raspy but sharp.

I dropped my hand. This wasn't good at all. "What-"

"Who are you?" She murmured, closing her eyes, tears tumbling down her eyelashes.

My heart dropped. My mind blanked. My breathing stopped. My fears were confirmed. There was no going back. There was only fear, fear as I stared at her, at her vulnerable, blue eyes. Eyes so blue, they made me want to cry.

"That," she continued, turned around, and faced the glass wall again. "-that was the question that disturbed my sleep."

I stared at her back. Stared and stared at her grey cardigan as if it'd come up with anything, anything at all. Because I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking at all. I was calm. I was so calm as I let all my fears rage and storm in the depths of my soul. Because thinking just said 'bye-bye' and left a pile of flesh behind. Me.

"And now?" She sniffed. "You have nothing to tell me. Or maybe there's so much to tell me. Or maybe it's just too late."

I shook my head absently, trying to come up words, trying to lure thinking back, trying to remember anything, anything. So I remembered a reason. Yes, I remembered there was a reason why I couldn't tell her. In fact, there were lots of reasons and fears about why I couldn't tell her.

"But why?" Her voice was full of pain. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you allow me to choose? How did you allow yourself to break my heart so cruelly? So inhumanely? Are you even human?"

When thinking returned, it was unpleasant. It poisoned my mind with thoughts so vile and scary. They were countless, unrelated, unorganized. A mess I created. A mistake.

She turned to me, her face red from all the suppressed emotions and the -oh, oh- tears. And I thought- ha, now look what you did, the girl's crying.

"I didn't- I don't deserve this! No one ever does, Caesar!" Her grace, her composure, gone.

But I remember. I remember that when she said 'Caesar', my walls came rumbling down. I stood completely vulnerable, n.a.k.e.d under her torturing gaze. My heart decided to elope with my lungs. And I wasn't breathing. I was a corpse with stale, stinky blood.

"You told me so." She continued softly. So so softly and quietly, to the extent that I could hear my heart muscles tear at each other. "Remember? At the park? You told me I deserved better. You whispered so many things to me."

And I realized I couldn't handle it. That I was going to suffocate. I needed to go away. So I staggered back, away from her. She was torturing me. She was killing me slowly. She was a weakness. And weaknesses needed to be eliminated. But it was too late.

"Are you going to run away from me?" Her voice was a merciless whip, slashing through my flesh. "Careful now, I'm starting to understand you. You like running away from trouble. Like right now. Like how you keep running from yourself. Like you ran away from the fact that you-you killed my father!"

I froze, my jaw hitting the floor and my mind on flames. I was so engrossed by her knowledge to the extent that I didn't stop to ask myself how. How did she know?

Her face scrunched up before she stared at me. "Why aren't you smiling, laughing, frowning, crying, glaring, doing anything human, goddammit?! Have you really got no reaction to all this?" She said, no longer concealing her anger. Her voice was rough and edgy, and her stance threatening. "Oh, forgive me...I'm talking to a man who killed twenty people- if not more. Does he have a heart? Of course not. I bet his lungs are all comfy and cosy with all that extra space."

I shook my head slowly at her. She was going too fast for me and I was drowning with what she hurtled in my direction.

"I loved you." She breathed. "I loved you!" She sounded desperately sad. "And you let me! How selfish of you?" I then approached her thoughtlessly but she backed away. "Don't you dare come close to me!" She almost yelled. "You're a murderer. That's what you are! Who you are! And who you'll always be!"

"That's not true," I managed to say but she didn't hear. Maybe I imagined saying it.

"You're weak, pathetic, and a bloody psychopath!" She continued and I never flinched. But it hurt. It hurt the most to see it come out of her. "What did you think?" She said, regaining her composure. "That I'd never find out? That I'd be wasting my love on the person who carved this-this crater in my heart? Just tell me, what did you think?!"

She closed her eyes, clasped her shaky hands, and pursed her lips. "And here you are again," she said, limply pointing a hand at me. "-breaking my heart. Again. What other possible ways can someone break someone else's heart so harshly?"

She opened her eyes and my heart quaked. "I'm sorry," I whispered and she raised her eyebrows before laughing humorlessly.

"You're sorry?" She mocked. "I don't know what to tell you. But I'll tell you this-" She turned around as my breath hitched. "-I'll tell you that you should die. Someone should kill you and make it very painful. And I think I found who."

My eyes widened at her words as she turned to me, pointing my gun at my head. Only then did I remember how it fell to the ground when I kissed her, almost a week ago. I almost cursed my vulnerability when I was with her.

"I'm bad at aiming." She tilted her head. "That's why I'm not going for the heart," she said, lowering my gun to coincide with my c.h.e.s.t, then raising it back to my head.

I remember closing my eyes and preparing to die. I was detaching myself from this world quickly and I didn't care. I wanted to do this for a long time anyway. And in fact, death would be my saviour. It could lend me this hand I was so desperately looking for in this raging disaster. It wouldn't be as painful as Samara would've wished.

But the sound of sudden sobbing forced my eyes open. Samara had lowered the gun and had had a hand pressed to her c.h.e.s.t with tears spilling from her eyes.

"I can't. I can-can't. I can't. I can't. I can't." She kept repeating to herself while looking down as I watched speechlessly. "I can't, I love him. I can't."

I was about to approach her but she looked up and raised the gun. She looked scared. She was scared of me. Her eyes were wide and teary. Her shoulders were shaking and so were her hands with the gun. "Leave." She said pleadingly. "Just leave, leave, LEAVE!"

I looked at the fear in her eyes and couldn't look away. "No, Samara," was what I said. Don't be scared of me, is what I wanted to say. I'll never hurt you, is what I never said.

"Please." She sobbed. "You've caused me so much heartache, Caesar. Please."

I looked at her helplessly. "Please, you don't understand-"

"Oh, I do." She said with a grimace. "Leave!"

But I just couldn't watch her slip right through my fingers, so I approached her determinedly. "Samara, give me a chance-"

"What are you-? Get away from me!" She frantically stumbled back, knocking off the glass of wine that splashed on the pillow and the white carpet beneath us.

"You're scaring me-" She cried and I shook my head as I tucked a few hair strands behind her ear. She closed her eyes and screwed her face.

"Don't be scared," I whispered, searching her lost, terrified eyes for one last redeemable atom of a long, lost love. How could I appear so calm?- I remember wondering. I was a catastrophe on the inside.

Her lips quivered and tears stained her rosy cheeks. "I will never," I said, brushing her lower lip with my thumb. "I will never hurt you."

"You are hurting me!" She said as more tears came down and wet my thumb. I immediately backed away. "Just leave! In the name of any moment you ever loved me in, just leave! Hate me if you ever loved me! And let me hate you. Please!" She begged, her voice almost gone from all the crying she did.

"But-"

"Just go, Julius. I beg you. Don't make me ever see you again. Be thankful I couldn't kill you and just go! Go!" She said with difficulty and I just couldn't stand myself staring at the hopelessness that inhabited the pits of her eyes.

So I turned around and did what I did best.

Run.

'" I lick and lick and lick all the blood that covers my fingers, dipping back my head and laughing. I'm the madness and I love it. The smell of blood.

I let my eyes scan the place around me. The two dead bodies that are sprawled on the floor of our reception in awkward angles. A lady and a man. How fancy.

I'm still grinning when Father's booming voice snaps me out of it. I c.o.c.k my head in his direction as he kicks the lady's hand next to her body. I then turn to face him completely.

"Wow. Already done?" He says with a smirk and I smile drunkenly.

"You got blood on your lips, son." He tells me, pointing at his own lower lip as I raise a brow.

I lick the blood and smirk."Gone?"

"You're insane," is what he says.

"And you're proud of me for it."

"And that's why I have a gift for you." He says, taking off his white suit's jacket, exposing a crisp, white, button-up shirt, and a crimson necktie.

"I don't like gifts," I state, glancing at the blood pool forming under the lady's head.

"You might like that one." He says suggestively with a smirk as he heads for the couch that faces me and the show of people I killed.

He then throws at me something that I catch. I open my hand and smirk. It's a key for a Mustang.

"Latest model." He comments as I stare at the key.

"Why are you giving your nineteen-year-old son such an expensive car? I'm not a brat." I say flatly and look up at him.

"You're not." He says easily. "Besides, you aren't any nineteen-year-old boy. You're...different."

"Of course," I mutter. "I kill people and do very bad, grown-up things, right?"

"Certainly." He smiles. "Add to that, your ability to o.r.g.a.s.m at the sight of blood instead of n.a.k.e.d girls."

I chuckle at that. "It's not as bad as it sounds."

"It is." My father says sternly. "Killing people has become a p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e to you."

"I don't kill people for p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e," I say slowly. "I do that for Gorj. That's what you taught me. For you."

And I'm true to my words, I don't kill people for p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e. I kill them because I'm 'supposed' to. Because it makes me grow in Father's eyes. I don't care about what it takes.

Father studies me. "Maybe. But remember," he warns. "-there's a very thin line."

"I got it all under control."

"I hope so," he says, c.o.c.king an eyebrow.

"Yeah, a bit of me hopes so too." I then wink at Father and make my way outside the mansion to find a black Mustang parked in front of me. I grin and walk toward the car before hugging it. I'm on cloud nine.

But then I look up and find blood on my hands. So so much blood. Blood pouring out of them. I jolt away from the car and look around me to find a picture of Audrey's and an older version of myself torn apart with blood gushing out from the rip.

It's impossible. My eyes widen and my breath quickens.'"

I jolted awake, my head hitting the tub's faucet. I winced, looking down at myself. I was fully dressed in a tub full of freezing water with an empty scotch bottle in my right hand, immersed under the water. My left leg was hanging outside the tub and the other was bent under the water.

My eyes and numb hands were barely functioning. It seemed like I drank a lot. And even though it was freezing and I had a brain-splitting headache, I just stayed in there, sulking. I just didn't want to think. I didn't and I couldn't as I stared at my hands under the water for as long as I could remember. Not thinking at all. Just focusing all my energy on not thinking.

I was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming, then footsteps against the tiles. And I didn't care because I just hoped anyone would just pass by and take me out of my misery. So I continued staring at my hands with my head bowed down, unbothered.

"Well, shit, Julius," was what Augustus' voice drawled as my headache intensified.

I closed my eyes.

"No wonder why the suite's door was wide, wide open. Like I had to shoo two stray cats away-" He started but then immediately stopped. Then there was a short pause. "Okay," he sighed. "I'm not being funny. What happened?"

My fingers twitched before feeling Augustus' warm hand on my arm. I turned to him. He was kneeling, frowning slightly. His eyes were a pulsing blue, trying to reach out for my dying greens. I inhaled sharply, closing my eyes and looking away.

"Julius?" He said softly as chills ran down my back. "You're worrying me, Julio. Man, come on, talk-"

"I want to die," I croaked and looked at Augustus as he shifted and sat on his knees on the wet floor.

"Die?" He looked worried. Scared even. In response, I raised my eyebrows slightly and shrugged.

"But you won't, right?" He said, trying to smile but constantly failing. His blue eyes dilated and I sighed.

"I don't know," I said, holding my breath. "Maybe I was trying to drown myself yesterday when I was drunk," I said, pushing back myself so I could straighten my back. "And I'll maybe- no, probably, try again tomorrow and actually succeed. So get away from me. As far as you can get. As fast as you can so that you'll have enough time to forget me."

"Alright, alright-" His smile faltered.

"Shh, Gustus," I said carefully, staring dreamily in his eyes. "I'm trying not to think and hearing you makes me think about so many things. Please."

"You can tell me." He whispered and I shook my head, frowning.

"I told you. I don't want to think, moron." I said, looking to my right at the blank, yellowed wall as water dripped from my hair into the tub.

"But I can't just 'forget' you." He said and my eyes snapped open. "You know that."

"Then do something about it," I said carelessly. "I've caused enough-" I immediately stopped myself. I wasn't supposed to talk or think about anything.

"You've caused enough damage?" Augustus continued my sentence irritably. "It doesn't seem like it. You seem ecstatic about damaging me. Cutting me off."

I turned to him, disturbed by what he said. "Damage you? Blimey." I scoffed. "You've got the whole world by your side. You've got your father. You've got innocence, purity, everything that is nonredeemable once lost. How can the death of your pathetic brother be -oh so- devastating? A brother you got to know by mere coincidence?" I snapped.

His once worried countenance turned shocked.

He frowned, pressing his lips into a thin line. "F.u.c.k you, Julius," he remarked. "Is that what you think of me? Do you really think that you're the shit? That you're the only one who's had shit hit his bloody fan?" He looked at me incredulously and I blinked.

"I don't care-" I started but Augustus raised a hand to stop me.

"Listen, I'm not here to fight." He squeezed his eyes shut. "You've already lost so many and so much," he looked into my eyes. "I wouldn't want you to lose me too. You can't afford it, so stop pushing me away-" He said, tilting his head with a slight frown.

I scoffed, looked away, and was surprised when tears formed in my eyes. I tried blinking them away but it was a torrent. So I pushed myself down with my arms until my head was completely under the freezing water where I think I cried. After a few moments, I pushed myself up and ran a hand through my wet hair. I looked at Augustus to find him smiling knowingly.

"Is it Samara?" He dared ask and I looked ahead of me as more tears filled my eyes to the brim. I exhaled loudly and shook my head as I shifted in the tub.

"How did you know?" I muttered, trying to distract myself with my ring. And failing.

"How did I know?" He repeated with a lopsided smile. "Who else have you got except for me and her? I'm sorry but you know that's true. Last I checked, she seemed like a pretty decent person," he said with a smirk. "You know? A keeper. Wifey, hottie. What the hell did you do?"

I looked at him and smiled sadly. "You won't believe me."

"Try me." He said with a slight shrug.

My smile dissolved away as I locked his eyes. "I killed her father."