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past the living area, kitchen, barroom, entertainment room, two balconies, two bedrooms, and several bathrooms on the way. Yet despite the grand size, and several renovations over the years, a musty stink lingered that Brandon had come to associate with old money—with lethargy and complacency. Beneath the trendy furniture and cutting-edge interior design, all the refurbishing couldn’t hide that this place was old, rotten. You could see it in the rust that flourished on the air vents, and in the occasional wood splinter that pierced through the wallpaper. You could hear it in the creaky old pipes that haunted the building at night. And Brandon saw it in the blind fool he called his best friend, chained forever to his tragic past.
    Cole could go fuck himself. Cole and his whiny voice and his toneless muscles and his short stature. He’d never read any Nietzsche or other important philosophy. He was totally in the dark. Cole could try to control Brandon’s life, restricting him, telling him what he could and couldn’t do, like an imperious parent. But Brandon was not a slave. Brandon deserved to be free. Free from the brainwashed masses living their pedestrian lives with their all-important families and purposes and artificial morals. What a clueless society the slaves had built. Brandon had thought more deeply about existential issues than all of them combined. His bleak conclusions were the only ones that a sane person could come to, and Brandon was one of the few sane people left in the world.
    When he’d been younger, living in foster home after foster home—most of them highly religious environments—Brandon had kept a journal so people would remember his ideas after his death, just like Kurt Cobain had done. Most of it had been big-headed plans to get hired in the upper echelons of a company, then to siphon off as much money as he could get away with. But the very first entry, written before he’d formed any of his grandiose plans, had been different. It had formed the foundation for the rest of his thinking, and remained the perfect, most accurate filter through which to understand life’s misery. He still knew it word for word.
     
    If any one of us dies, who notices? We are all just specks on a tiny planet circling one small star in all of space.
    The Fun cannot last forever. If I die on a wild night out, that is a good death. Live like a rock star, party hard, die young. Go out with a bang instead of a whimper.
    Living is not good or bad. Dying is not good or bad. The Universe does not care about me, so I do not care about the Universe. I am indifferent.
     
    That entry had stuck with Brandon through the years. He’d made it his manifesto, if he could be said to have one. It reminded him that he owed it to his younger self to take what he wanted out of life while he still could.
    Brandon threw open the door to Crystal’s bedroom. Still wearing that turquoise dress, she sat on her bed texting someone. At Brandon’s entrance, she looked up from her phone, then stood and backed away when he shut and locked the door. “No, no, no,” Crystal said. “We’re not doing this again.”
    That’s right, bitch. See which one of us has the power. He strode toward her. “Beg,” he said to her.
    Crystal bolted for the far end of the room, where a sliding door revealed a small balcony. She ran to the door, pulled, and fled onto the terrace. Her breathing quickened, thrilling Brandon all the more. As he neared her, she backed toward the terrace’s railing, and he glanced past her at the ground ten stories below.
    “Where you gonna go? Only direction outta here is down.”
    Crystal darted forward, trying to flee past Brandon, but he grabbed her arm and wrenched her back inside the bedroom with him. “I don’t wanna,” she pleaded. “Not again. Please.”
    He pulled her face toward his until they were centimeters apart, just as he’d been with Cole only minutes ago. “Get out of my house,” he whispered. Then