Absolute Being: I Am Nothing Chapter 41

Tayo stared. His mouth was dry. The world felt too bright, too sharp. He saw Adam, but his mind screamed that it was a trick. A ghost. A nightmare.

"You’re not him," Tayo said, his voice cracking. "He’s dead. We buried him."

Adam looked around the office. He walked over to the large desk and ran a finger along its polished surface. "You always liked nice things, Tayo. Even back when we were sharing one-room apartments and eating cold beans."

That voice. That casual, almost bored tone. It was him.

Tayo’s legs felt weak. He grabbed the edge of the glass wall to steady himself. "What is this? Some kind of... clone? A look-alike? Who sent you?"

Adam didn’t answer. He picked up a small, expensive-looking paperweight from the desk—a crystal lion. He weighed it in his hand.

"You sold my crew," Adam said, still not looking at him. "My people. To the same government that tried to wipe us off the map a dozen times. You made them into... security guards. For politicians."

"It was survival!" Tayo burst out, desperation clawing into his voice. "They were going to crush us! Wipe us out completely! I saved the Red Bandits! I kept the name alive!"

Adam placed the paperweight back down carefully. He finally turned to look at Tayo. There was no anger in his eyes. No hatred. Just a cold, empty calm that was somehow worse.

"You kept the name," Adam agreed quietly. "You just killed everything it stood for."

He took a step forward.

Tayo flinched, stumbling back. "Adam, listen! I had no choice! The world changed! You were gone!"

"I’m back now," Adam said.

Another step.

Tayo’s back hit the glass wall. There was nowhere to go. He looked past Adam to the others—Kola, Musa, Sade, Bode. Their faces were stone. No mercy there. They had already chosen.

"What are you going to do?" Tayo whispered.

Adam stopped in front of him. He didn’t touch him. He just looked him in the eyes.

"First," Adam said, "you’re going to tell me everything. From the beginning. The first deal. The first lie. The first time you looked at something I built and thought, ’This could be mine if I just get him out of the way.’"

Tayo shook his head. "I never—"

Adam’s hand moved. It was so fast Tayo didn’t even see it. There was no flash, no sound. Just a sudden, excruciating pain in his right hand.

He looked down.

His pinky finger was gone. Not cut. Not severed. It was just... not there. The stump was clean, bloodless, but the agony was real and deep, a screaming nerve pain that shot up his arm. He gasped, clutching his hand to his chest.

"Don’t lie to me," Adam said, his voice still calm. "It wastes my time."

"I didn’t betray you!" Tayo cried, tears of pain springing to his eyes. "Not at the start! They came to me after! They said they’d spare the others if I cooperated!"

"Who came to you?" Adam asked.

"General Okon! From the Special Task Force! He said they had a missile lock on the old warehouse. They knew where everyone’s families lived. They gave me an ultimatum."

Adam nodded slowly. "And you chose to save your own skin."

"I chose to save everyone!" Tayo screamed. The pain was making him dizzy.

"Okay," Adam said. "So you made a deal to hand me over. How did you do it?"

Tayo was breathing in short, ragged bursts. "They... they gave me a device. A tracker. I was supposed to plant it on you before the meet with Lionhead. I didn’t! I swear! I chickened out! The missile... that was them acting on their own! I had nothing to do with that!"

Adam watched him. "But you didn’t warn me."

Silence.

Tayo’s face crumpled. "I was scared."

"Scared," Adam repeated. He reached out again.

This time, Tayo’s ring finger vanished. The same clean, painless-severing-but-agony-after effect. Tayo shrieked, sliding down the glass wall, cradling his mutilated hand.

"You let me walk into that meet," Adam said, crouching down to his level. "You knew they were tracking me. You knew what they could do. And you said nothing."

"It wasn’t like that!" Tayo sobbed. "They promised they wouldn’t kill you! Just capture! I thought—"

"You didn’t think," Adam cut him off. "You hoped. You hoped I’d just disappear and you’d get to be king of the ashes."

He stood up. "What about after? When they declared me dead. What then?"

Tayo was crying openly now, snot and tears mixing on his face. The pain was a white-hot fire in his hand. "They... they kept their word. They didn’t touch the others. They gave us... legitimacy. Licenses. Protection. We became a private security firm. We were safe!"

"We were slaves," Kola growled from across the room.

Adam ignored him, his eyes locked on Tayo. "And you got rich. You got comfortable. You forgot the people you left behind in the gutter."

"I gave them jobs!" Tayo pleaded.

"You made them servants," Adam corrected. He sounded almost bored. "Now. The recent stuff. The president. What are you doing for him?"

Tayo hesitated. His eyes flicked to the dead woman on the floor.

Adam’s foot moved. A light tap on Tayo’s shin.

A snapping sound echoed, dry and sharp. Tayo screamed again as the bone in his lower leg broke. Not a clean break. A splintering, jagged fracture that twisted his leg at a sickening angle.

"Talk," Adam said.

"Black ops!" Tayo screamed, his voice hoarse. "Silencing opposition! Disappearing activists! Gathering dirt on judges! Whatever they want!"

"Kidnapping?"

"Yes!"

"Assassination?"

"Sometimes!"

"Children?"

Tayo froze. His breath hitched. "No. Never children. I refused that."

Adam stared at him. He was silent for a long moment. Then, he tilted his head. "You’re lying."

"I’m not! I swear! I have a line!"

Adam knelt again. He placed his hand on Tayo’s broken leg. "You just gave an order. Before we walked in. To kill a girl. A seventeen-year-old girl. Annabeth."

Tayo’s blood ran cold. How? How could he know? They’d just...

"Who is she to you, Tayo?" Adam’s voice was a whisper now. "Why does a seventeen-year-old girl scare a president?"

"I don’t know!" Tayo cried. "He just said she was trouble! That she was Alex’s daughter! That’s all!"

The air in the room went still.

Adam’s hand, resting on Tayo’s broken leg, went perfectly motionless.

Slowly, Adam lifted his head. He looked at Tayo, but his eyes were different. The cold calm was gone. Replaced by something dark and bottomless.

"What did you say her name was?"

"Annabeth," Tayo whimpered. "Annabeth Alex Albert. They said her father was Alex. Your... your brother."

Adam stood up. He turned away from Tayo, walking a few steps toward the center of the room. His back was to them all.

No one moved. No one breathed.

Adam’s shoulders were tense. They could see the line of his jaw, clenched tight.

Adam walked back to Tayo. He looked down at him, a man broken and bleeding on the floor of his own expensive office.

"My brother’s daughter," Adam said quietly. "You gave the order to kill her."

"It was just business!" Tayo wept. "I didn’t know!"

"That’s the problem," Adam said. "You stopped seeing people. You just saw problems and solutions."

He crouched down one last time, his face close to Tayo’s.

"You remember what we did to traitors, Tayo? Back when the Red Bandits meant something?"

Tayo’s eyes filled with pure, animal terror. He remembered. Everyone remembered.

Adam placed his hand on Tayo’s forehead. It wasn’t a violent gesture. It was almost gentle.

"This won’t kill you," Adam whispered. "But for the rest of your very, very long life, you will feel every single thing you ever made someone else feel. The fear. The pain. The betrayal. The helplessness. It will play in your mind, on a loop, forever. You will be a prisoner inside your own head, drowning in the suffering you caused."

Tayo’s eyes widened. He tried to speak, to beg, but no sound came out.

Adam closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were the void again.

A single, silent pulse of energy passed from his hand.

Tayo didn’t scream. He just went rigid, his back arching off the floor, his mouth open in a silent, endless gasp. His eyes stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing of this world, lost in an endless private hell of his own making.

Adam stood up. He looked at the others. Kola, Musa, Bode. They were staring at Tayo’s twitching, catatonic form, their faces grim.

"Clean this up," Adam said, wiping his hand on his pants as if he’d touched something dirty. "The woman too. Make it look like he had a psychotic break and shot her before killing himself. The police will believe it. They wanted him gone anyway."

He walked toward the door.

"Boss," Musa said. "Where are you going?"

Adam paused at the threshold.

"To disrupt an anniversary," he said, and walked out.