CHAPTER 38: WILLIE'S TRUTH
The rooftop was cold this late at night.
Marcus sat on the concrete lip overlooking the city, his legs dangling over the drop, watching San Francisco's lights flicker in the distance. He'd been coming up here more often since Finals — something about the height, the distance, the way the city looked peaceful from far away. A lie, but a comforting one.
"You're hard to find."
Willie's voice came from behind him. Marcus didn't turn — he'd sensed Willie's approach through the Reaper's Cloak, tracked the familiar weight of his friend's presence climbing the maintenance ladder.
"Didn't know I was supposed to be easy."
"You never have been." Willie settled onto the concrete beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. "Mind if I...?" He held up a cigarette, half-question.
"Since when do you smoke?"
"Since I killed someone." Willie lit the cigarette with hands that trembled only slightly. "Figured I'd try the rest of the bad habits while I was at it."
They sat in silence for a while, Willie smoking, Marcus watching the city. The air was cold enough to make their breath visible, carrying the cigarette smoke away in thin trails that disappeared into the darkness.
"You killed someone during Finals," Willie said finally. His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. "Not a hunter. Someone else. Someone you knew."
Marcus went very still. "What makes you say that?"
"Because I killed someone too." Willie took a long drag, exhaled slowly. "I know what it looks like after. The way you move different. The way you don't quite look at people the same way. You had that look before Finals even started, but after? It got worse." He turned to meet Marcus's eyes. "Who was it?"
The question hung between them like smoke. Marcus could lie — should lie, probably. The truth about Chester connected to too many other truths that would unravel everything if he pulled the wrong thread.
But this was Willie. The only person in this entire school who looked at Marcus and saw something worth trusting. The brother he'd never had, in any life.
"His name was Chester Wilson," Marcus said. The words came out rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep. "He was the man who killed everyone at the orphanage where I grew up. Everyone except me."
Willie was quiet for a long moment. "The fire. The one they say you set."
"I didn't set it. Chester did. He killed the kids, killed the staff, burned the building to cover the evidence. I survived by hiding in a drainage pipe, and when they found me, they blamed me for everything." Marcus's hands curled into fists. "He was supposed to be in prison. He got out. He came to finish what he started."
"And you stopped him."
"I killed him." The admission felt like letting go of something heavy — a weight he'd been carrying alone, finally shared. "In the corridors, during Finals. He found a way into the school, and I... I stopped him."
Willie finished his cigarette, crushed it against the concrete, stared at the dead ember for a long moment.
"Good."
The word was simple. Final. No judgment, no horror, no questions about how or why or whether it was justified. Just acknowledgment.
"You're not going to ask if I feel bad about it?" Marcus asked.
"Do you?"
The question caught Marcus off guard. He searched his feelings — the complicated mess of guilt and relief and something darker that Chester's presence had left behind.
"I feel like I had to," he said finally. "And I feel like something changed when I did it. Something that can't change back."
Willie nodded slowly. "Yeah. That's what killing does." He reached out, offering his hand. "We're both killers now. That changes things."
Marcus looked at the hand — rough, calloused, the hand of someone who had always pretended to be more dangerous than he was. Until now.
"It doesn't have to change us," Marcus said, taking it.
Willie's smile was sad, knowing. "It already has."
They shook once, firmly, sealing something that felt more permanent than words. A pact between two people who had crossed a line together and could never fully return.
Willie produced another cigarette, lit it, offered it to Marcus. "You smoke?"
"Never have."
"Good time to start." The smile was still sad, but there was warmth in it now. "We're all picking up bad habits, remember?"
Marcus took the cigarette. The smoke burned his lungs, made his eyes water. It tasted like ash and regret and something that might have been freedom.
They sat together on the rooftop, two killers watching the city lights, sharing silence and smoke and the weight of everything they couldn't say.
Brotherhood has weight, Marcus thought. More than either of us expected.
But he wasn't alone in carrying it anymore.
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