Page 66 of Sin Like the Devil

“Pass me the stuff.” Raine shrugs his elbow free.

“Not a chance. I’m holding this for you.”

“Wait, what?” he splutters.

“You’ve got at least two weeks’ worth here. I don’t trust you not to take the whole lot at once.”

“Nox!” Raine exclaims. “I don’t want to kill myself.”

“Yet you seem determined to try. Who needs to sit on this many pills at once?”

“I don’t wanna run out again. That’s all.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoff.

He tries to make a grab for me, but I easily duck out of the way, escaping his off-target hands. Raine growls in annoyance, unable to sense where I’ve moved out of reach with his stash.

“Lennox! This isn’t funny!”

“Do you hear me laughing?” I fire back.

Giving up, he huffs, his lips pressed into a harsh line. “I think I preferred it when you didn’t give a shit about me.”

Jaw clenching, I battle the urge to grab him by the scruff of his t-shirt and punch the stupid out of him. I’m not a fucking idiot. I know I have some serious issues. But they’ve never included a lack of caring. Quite the opposite.

“If you think that’s true, you don’t know me at all.”

“Stop pretending like I’m your problem to fix then!” Raine stomps his foot like a toddler. “I survived long enough on my own before I rocked up at Priory Lane.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Maybe I don’t want your help!”

Staring at my stubborn as fuck friend, all I can see is the dark-green eyes of another staring back at me. My sister. She looked more like our mother, though. Daintier. Light-footed. Always dancing and practising her ballet.

Our coarse, often messy brown hair and big toothy grins were the same, despite the several years between us. She was always smiling too. I remember that detail.

Until… she stopped.

Breath seizing, I have to fight back the onslaught of memories that usually only visit me at night. I can’t hold on to the cloak of my protective anger then. That’s when she sneaks in to torment me about all the red flags I failed to see.

Even at her tiny height, she had the presence of a motherfucking giant when she yelled. It breaks my goddamn heart to hear these words from Raine now as much as it did hearing it from my sister then.

Just stop fussing over me, Nox!

I don’t want your help.

Yet she needed it. Far more than I ever realised. I only knew just how much she needed her big brother to protect her when it was too fucking late.

By then, all I had left were ashes to scatter and belongings to pack. He wanted any memories of her existence scrubbed away. I’ll never know if it was his guilty conscience or covering his tracks.

“Lennox?” Raine’s voice drags me back. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah,” I say flatly. “Whatever.”

Pulling the bags full of pills from my waistband, I don’t care who sees us. Raine squeaks in shock as I grab his hands and deposit the stash there.

“Do what you want with these,” I snarl. “Better than me trying to help, right?”

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