Pitbabe S2, Chapter 35 pg 7
Pitbabe S2, Chapter 35 pg 7
“The grandmother who raised him since childhood, two neighborhood friends, and three friends from the hospital where he was treated as a child. All of them were killed, wiped out.
The only one left is me, because I was the last one to leave the hospital. They probably thought I wouldn’t survive anyway, so they didn’t bother coming after me. Too bad for them, I didn’t die.”
Chris didn’t go into details about the hospital. I didn’t feel like probing deeper either, because from what he shared, I could guess that Chris must have been sick with something as a child, and it wasn’t just a short period. He talked about that place like it was home, his main residence, where other kids lived too. If he hadn’t spent a significant amount of time in the hospital, he wouldn’t have formed such a close-knit group of friends as he described.
“I found out after leaving the hospital. Once I heard the news, I tried to track down that friend, but I was too late.” Chris paused for a moment, as if his breath caught, before taking a slow inhale and continuing, “He killed himself just a few days before I got out of the hospital.”
It’s too heavy.
What Chris went through—I can’t even imagine if it happened to me. Would I still have grown into the person I am today? And now I understand why Chris is the way he is, sitting in front of me. His coldness, his utter lack of care, is the most rational response I’ve ever encountered.
“Back then, it was pretty rough. I don’t even know how I got through it, but next thing I knew, I was grown,” he said. “I thought I’d moved past all of it.”
Not yet.
He hasn’t moved past it at all.
“But as you can see… I haven’t really grown up.”
He’s still that same kid, covered in scars.
His body has grown with time, but his soul is frozen, untouched by the turning of the world, stuck at the age of that boy, his dear friend.
“How’s that?” Chris gave a faint smile, piercing through the fog that surrounded him. “Feeling like helping me out yet?”
I stayed quiet, mulling it over for about half a minute before asking back, “What does Charlie think?”
“About this?”
“Yeah.”
“Charlie doesn’t know yet.”
“What!” I blurted out, suddenly feeling like I’d been tripped up just steps from the finish line. “So you’re sneaking around talking to me about this?”
“Charlie’s a hassle. If I talked to him first, he’d have endless questions. So I figured I’d get everything ready and then go to him all at once. That way, there’s a better chance he’ll be okay with it.”
Hearing his reasoning, I could understand. Chris really knows Charlie well. For someone who hasn’t known him long, it’s impressive. If he’s not some psychological genius, he must spend his days observing Charlie more than thinking about himself.
Hmm… is this something to be jealous about?
“On second thought, it’s better you didn’t tell,” I said. “And from now on, there’s no need to tell either. Just the two of us knowing is enough.”
“What do you mean?” Chris narrowed his eyes, not quite grasping my words.
Sure, Chris knows Charlie well.
But there’s no way he knows that kid better than I do.
“Charlie would never let me mess with stuff like this, especially with Team X, unless it’s absolutely necessary. He barely wants me involved as it is. If you tell him, you can kiss the plan goodbye.”
Chris stared at me, silent. He seemed to weigh every matter carefully, which was another way he was like Charlie.
“And if you scrap this plan, everything I’ve done, plus all my future plans, will go down the drain too. Charlie will figure it out—he always does. If you spill this to him, he’ll be suspicious of me from then on. Forget about getting anything done after that.”
“You’re smarter than I thought, Babe,” Chris said with a grin. I wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or not—was he genuinely praising my smarts or subtly mocking me? “I believe you now. When it comes to Charlie, you don’t miss a thing.”
“Just the expertise of a Charlie specialist.”
The conclusion that day was that I agreed to team up with Chris. My role was to put on a performance for everyone—whether it was Tony’s side or Charlie’s, even Team X itself. I had to convince Tony I was working for him and make Charlie believe I was truly a traitor out to betray him. All of this was to get us as close to Tony as possible, to make them let their guard down with the most convincing act, and to ensure Charlie couldn’t interfere.
I knew the cost of deception was sky-high, but if it meant wrapping this up perfectly, I was willing to pay the price.
All of this… for Charlie’s victory.
As Charlie’s plan moved forward, Chris and I carefully advanced our own plan alongside it. We kept contact to a minimum and often improvised. Though things got messy and startling at times, we managed to pull through with quick thinking. The longer we worked together, the more confidently I could say that Chris and I made a great team (though, of course, on a personal level, he was still as annoying as ever).
Fake intel was increasingly fed to Tony’s side, making them grow complacent, thinking they had the upper hand—just as Chris had planned. Meanwhile, we gathered data on Tony’s operations. Chris arguably had the toughest role, as he was still dedicated to researching the sense-dissolving drug, supporting Charlie, and simultaneously acting alongside me to keep up the ruse. Honestly, his skills impressed me.
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