“Yes…”

“People write with ink on paper, and not on the forehead, it would be better to learn this!”

“I can write on paper!”

“Yes?”

“Yes!”

“I didn’t notice that you wrote at least something at least once on one piece of paper during this time!”

“It’s just that you never asked me to write. I can write!”

“Come on, write then!”

“Now I won’t write anything for you!”

“You only know how to write on your forehead! Admit it, you can’t lie to me, were you joking about the tattoo?”

“Yes, I was joking,” Nik agreed.

Kors breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t joke like that anymore, it’s stupid. Poison began to come out of your scar, as Cassiel had warned? Answer me!”

“It constantly flows from it,” Nik reluctantly answered him and bent to his leg, slightly lifting up his trouser leg.

“Oh,” barely calming down that Nik was joking about the tattoo, Kors got nervous again, “what is flowing out?”

Nik didn’t answer, carefully examining his leg.

And even now, in spite of everything, Kors wanted to educate him, give Nik a good beating and properly punish him for all the nonsense that he had done. For the fact that he never really obeyed, stubbornly doing everything as he liked. For blinding him yesterday and letting him be hit. And for the way he looked now: sloppy, dirty, dressed in God knows what. Ill, with a bandaged face, but at the same time stubbornly continuing to stick to his line. He jokes stupidly, knowing that he will cause a surge of emotions in Kors with just the word “face – tattoo.” He sniffs with his ringed nose and constantly brings his hand to it, touching and tugging at it.

Ignoring Kors and apparently not listening to his emotions and thoughts about himself, Nik tried to put the needle to his leg. Kors looked at his black tattooed skin and the wide black band of the “bracelet” that went around his ankle just above his foot. The shameful slave stripe was clearly visible and stood out, even though the patterns of other tattoos. Something like sharp teeth was closely adjacent to it. Teeth on the leg, well, only Nik could do such a thing, Kors was no longer surprised. To destroy himself every second was an irresistible craving for his son and the Demon. Slightly turning his foot to the side, Nik injected the drug into the inside of the leg just above the ankle.

“What is the number of injection you have already given yourself?” Kors asked. The way with which maniacal persistence and without respite Nik poured substances into himself began to frighten Kors.

Silence. He was stoned. Already in the morning. How to make him obey? Unfortunately, no way.

“Do you want to overdose again?”

“No,” Nik slightly shook his head in a negative gesture and lay on his back, “I also need water, only another, not rain.”

“Again?!”

“What do you mean again?”

“Didn’t you say you injected it in your Limit?”

“So what? How much time has passed?”

“No, it will never end!”

“It will end. Soon the body will stop rising.”

“I won't survive if you die!”

“I have been dead for a long time.”

“Nik! Why are you making me emotional?! You endlessly take emotions out of me! Stop eating me!”

Nik lay motionless, his good leg bent at the knee and his bandaged head slightly thrown back, a tousled braid with beads woven into it sweeping the floor beside him. He didn’t answer Kors, as if he didn’t hear him.

Without thinking, in some kind of frenzy, Kors rushed to him, and, grabbing his forearm, jerked him up from the skins. Nik quickly glared at him from the gap between the bandages, but said nothing, remained seated. But that look… Kors’ insides went cold.