Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

“You.” Sunny exhaled, staring openly.

Me.

For a moment, I let the silence hang. The look on his face oscillated from anger, to bewilderment, to despair, unable to settle on anything for longer than a few seconds before it finally settled on rage.

“I spared you.” He snapped, flecks of spit peppering the inside of his shield.

“Cut the shit. If Daphne hadn’t stepped in, we both know how it would have gone.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It was my call.” He argued, insistent. “Aaron’s whelp stuck her nose in, but leaving you alive was my decision alone. Could have slit your throat and walked away, and aside from her, no one would have cared.”

“So you let me go out of what?” I mocked. “The kindness of your heart?”

“Out of respect.” Sunny growled. “Your entire party was losing their shit—including the so-called Ceaseless Knight—and there you were in the middle trying to cut a deal. Earnestly. Felt wrong to flatline someone so rational just for falling in with subpar people.”

Subpar?

A chill of rage traveled down my spine, barely suppressed. “And Jinny wasn’t worthy of respect?”

“Doesn’t matter what she was worthy of. We had background on you guys. Not a lot. But enough to know the girl was dying.”

“We’re all fucking dying, Sunny, I’m gonna need a little more, how does that factor in ordering your redheaded stepchild to murder her?”

Another sigh. “Just… think it through. We need people in his position to be solid. Stable. With the goal of eventually giving them autonomy. Our shrinks and psych-freaks are good at the brainwashing shit, but they aren’t miracle workers.”

A wave of nausea rocked me.

“What? I don’t understand.” Sae looked between us, more confused than angry. “How does that even make sense?”

“Nick’s a knight in their fucked up court. Not the highest possible position, but critical for securing the upper echelon.” I filled in coldly, gesturing to Sunny. “Go on. Tell her the rest.”

Despite the prompting, Sunny stayed focused on me. It was like he wanted to convince me that what he was hinting at wasn’t monstrous, like if he could just put the right spin on it, it would all make sense. “It’s easier to rebuild someone who’s broken than convince them to abandon a dying loved one. The girl was a ticking time-bomb. She starts to check out, at best he completely loses focus, at worst we lose him. Better to make it look like an accident and tear the bandaid off early. If anything, we did him a favor—”

Sunny’s shield picked that exact moment to drop. In a blur of motion, before I could even rise from my stool, Sae moved before I could, slamming a fist into the side of his head, toppling him to the ground.

I turned, clenching my fist and staring at the wall, listening to the heavy impacts. Part of me—and not a small part—didn’t want to interfere. Just let things take their natural order. Cause and effect.

Only rely on your ruthlessness when you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is needed.

“Stop,” I said.

There was a hesitation, followed by one more painful thud, before Sae stepped away.

“The fuck even is she?” Sunny hissed.

I retook my seat on the stool in front of him. His face was bloodied, bruises already forming from the impact. A slight crater where a prominent cheekbone used to be. “The other casualty of your decision that night.”

He rubbed his face, then put it together. “You’re her. The girl who slipped back into the trial before it collapsed. Jeeeesus Christ, heard you got worked over, but that wasn’t the half—”

“—Matt?” Sae snapped over him.

“—Yup.”

I couldn’t help but wince as the brutal haymaker landed right on his chin, slamming Sunny into near-unconsciousness. He groaned, then slowly pushed himself back up to a sitting position. There was a long pause. “You look great.” He coughed. “Really.”

Sae looked at me again. This time, I shook my head.

“Are…” Sunny swallowed, struggling to stay lucid. “Are all my people dead?”

“You care?”

He managed a nod.

“Some. The real monsters, anyway.” I shrugged.

“And the others?”

“They’ve thoroughly forgotten the oaths they took, and moved on to more productive things.”

He stretched his mouth, jaw emitting a painful click. “Clever. No reason to waste good talent. Thank you for that.” His once-winning smile looked slightly cockeyed. “You know, this doesn’t have to be a one-way street. If you did that for them, you could do it for me.”

I stared at him. “And why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’re smart. And anyone with a pair of eyes and an IQ higher than their shoe-size can piece together that no matter how bad I am, Aaron is just as bad if not worse. Don’t pretend you’re his lapdog.” He pointed a finger at me. “All this is the start of something, not the end. You’re planning to turn on him, eventually. It won’t be easy. If you make me forget, same as my people, I could help you. I know so much more than he believes.”

“Only if I did, you wouldn’t remember it. That’s kind of how forgetting works.”

That stumped him, but only for a moment. He raised a hand and waved it dismissively. “Even still. I hated him for a long time before the world went to shit. A long, long time.” A half-laugh, half-moan escaped his lips. “Hell, could probably forget the alphabet and still remember how much I hate that backstabbing bastard.” His motions were sluggish as he reached out, pointing toward the center of the room. “My… phone?”

“Why?” I asked, wondering exactly how far gone he was. The towers had been down for months. If there wasn’t cranial hemorrhaging from the beating, he at least had the mother of all concussions.

“… Pictures.”

Begrudgingly, I fished the iPhone out of his duffel. “Code?” I prompted, after holding it in front of him for Face ID didn’t work, and punched it in when he gave it to me. The phone unlocked, and I pressed the photo button on the Home Screen. I had to scroll through several pictures of badly mangled bodies before finding one that stood out. Sunny and the kid from earlier. Sunny wore overalls and a straw hat, while the kid holding a pitchfork was dressed as a scarecrow. Both were trying to keep a straight face, the pose a play on American Gothic. Instead of handing it over, I placed it on the ground in front of him.

Sunny smiled, then all at once seemed to panic, remembering the lie he was supposed to be sticking to.

“No one’s gonna hurt your kid.”

As pissed off as I was that he’d threatened my family, that was a line I wasn’t willing to cross. Not out of spite. Not ever.

It spoke to his state that he immediately relaxed, seeming to believe me without a second thought. “Decent. Rules help to keep it together. Keep you alive. I had rules, once.” He squinted, staring at the picture for a long time before he spoke again. “You know why I didn’t want to kill you, Matt?”

“Why?”

“Because we come from the—”

THUNK

Blood spattered the phone. Sunny reached up in confusion, tips of his fingers gingerly brushing the bolt in his neck.

I released my finger from the trigger.

And then he was gone.