Pitbabe S2, Chapter 35 pg 6
.Pitbabe S2, Chapter 35 pg 6
Now I get why this guy works so well with Charlie. It’s not just that he’s sharp as hell—he has no weaknesses. Charlie, for all his skill and caution, has slipped up multiple times because his vulnerabilities are obvious to most. But Chris? I can’t find a single flaw in him. Nothing makes him falter or waver. His senses are razor-sharp, always scanning his surroundings, moving with silent precision. Even joining the team last, he’s become its strongest asset.
“I still don’t get what you want from me,” I said.
“I want you to make us look as weak as possible,” Chris said firmly, his usual playfulness and snark locked away tight. The Chris standing before me now was all business, radiating credibility. “Cause as much chaos as you can. Feed their side as much fake info as possible. Make them think they’ve got the upper hand.”
“For… what?”
“Because if we don’t make him underestimate us, we can’t take him down,” Chris replied. I tried to follow his words, which made some sense, but I still couldn’t see the full picture clearly. “Tony has the upper hand in everything—money, connections, and those sensitives he keeps. If we look too strong, he’ll bring out all his weapons, and that’ll leave us with less time, corner us faster, and shrink our chances of winning.”
“Even if I manage to develop the sense-dissolving drug in time, as long as Tony’s still around, this will never end. We’ll have to keep fighting, keep risking, and lose so much more. I know you don’t want that.”
Of course not. Even now, I wake up every day wondering what’s going to happen next. I want this insanity to end as fast as possible, by any means necessary.
I don’t want Charlie to have to risk any more than he already has.
“Right now, Charlie’s focused on the outcome—completing the project, ensuring the sense-dissolving drug is used correctly, and restoring rights to sensitives. That’s the right move with the resources we have now, but for me, that’s not the main goal.”
“Then what’s your real goal?”
“Killing Tony.”
Here we go again.
That’s the second person who’s come to me talking about getting rid of that man. At first, I just wanted to end this and get as far away from that house as possible. But now, people are trying to hand me knives, shoving guns into my hands, and whispering for me to use them.
Does it really have to be me?
“I want to kill him with my own hands, but I can’t get close to him without your help.”
I’m never going to escape this, am I?
“You’ve got a fast track to get close to that bastard Tony, and you’ve got enough people to help with it. I’ll be honest, we can’t handle Tony on our own right now. But if we had two or three more guys like Charlie, it might be a different story.”
I’d never seen such a bright spark in Chris’s eyes before. All this time, I thought he was just a carefree guy, aimless, drifting through life day by day. But today, he proved to me that the fire inside him burned just as fiercely as anyone else’s. He’d only been suppressing it for his own safety.
“Why do you want to kill Tony so badly?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“If you’re asking for my help, I think I’ve got a right to know why.”
Getting the upper hand on someone like Dr. Chris felt damn satisfying. He looked pretty uncomfortable with my question, but like I said, if someone wants help, they’ve got to show some sincerity. It’s his job to make me feel like he’s worth helping. Because, as you can see, I’m not running a charity here.
“Don’t tell me you were in that place too?” I let out a laugh, thinking it’d be crazy if he was one of those adopted kids like me. Beyond the coincidence of us meeting, it’d be downright creepy if he looked like one of the other kids in the house, like they were twins from the same womb.
“Nah, never was,” Chris replied before letting out a long sigh. For someone who’d always been so clear about keeping people at arm’s length, opening up about himself probably wasn’t easy. I get that, but in times like this, I figured I should protect myself before playing the good guy who empathizes with others. “But my friend was.”
“Friend?”
“Surprise,” he said with a wry smile. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or pitying himself. “Yeah, I had a friend too.”
“Oh…”
“Wanna hear more?”
“Just saying you had a friend there is enough for me to guess the reason.”
This was probably the most empathy I could muster for Chris. Having grown up in that house, I understood everything without needing any further explanation. The pain that big house caused didn’t just hurt the kids inside—it destroyed everyone around them, the people they loved and who loved them. So it wasn’t surprising at all that Chris hated and resented Tony.
“He’s dead,” Chris said, even though I’d already told him I didn’t need an explanation. His eyes made it clear that it still hurt to talk about it, but even so, he was trying hard to be honest with me. “He tried to escape the house. Actually, he did escape. He was great at hiding, got away so well that Tony couldn’t find him. But in the end, as usual… Tony hunted down the people closest to him instead.”
The sorrow in front of me right now was so real it was almost scary. He didn’t seem like someone who suited sadness at all. Before this, if you’d asked me to imagine a sad Chris, I wouldn’t have been able to picture it. But now, I saw it clear as day, and I understood why he’d kept it buried so deep, never letting anyone see.
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