Page 28 of Pay the Price

I almost envied Ruth. Had I been that certain of everything — of myself — when I was fifteen, before Blake’s murder? I triedto propel myself backward in time, to the momentsbeforethat I hadn’t known would become before.

I couldn’t remember, and I wondered if this happened to everyone when they became adults. If certainty was a gift we unwrapped as children, one we outgrew like an old toy.

Or maybe it was just me and my fucked-up history — my mom’s death and Blake’s murder at the hands of the three men I’d come to care about.

How could I be certain of anything now?

“How’s school? How’s debate team?” I asked, because we obviously weren’t going to make any progress on either the family or fucking-older-guys fronts, and Ruth had always been as enthused about her extracurriculars outside the bedroom as she apparently was about the ones inside it.

I listened to her talk about an upcoming competition and felt a rush of love for her. She was still so young, and I suddenly wanted her to stay this way forever — annoying and all.

Someday soon, she’d grow up. She’d realize that no one was as they seemed and everyone was as they seemed.

And it was going to break her heart.

Chapter 18

Daisy

Ilay in bed, listening to the sound of Otis pushing open the window in the living room.

I hadn’t heard it when he’d broken in for the first time two weeks earlier, but my ears were trained to it now, and I’d started to wait for him: the almost-inaudible rattle of the fire escape, the glide of the window opening, his barely there footsteps in the hall.

I hated to admit — even to myself — that I’d come to look forward to his visits, that I had a hard time falling asleep without his protective shadow in the chair against the wall in Cassie’s guest bedroom.

Most of the time we didn’t say much, but every now and then we’d talk through the dark, the intimacy of it allowing for all kinds of stories and confessions. I told him how I’d always felt different from Ruth and Blake, how I’d felt like my dad hadn’t liked me, how I was terrified of the future, which loomed in front of me like an amorphous shadow with no shape or clarity.

He told me that he’d felt different too, not just from his little sisters, who he adored, but from everyone. He told me howhe worried that he wouldn’t amount to much, that his parents would be disappointed in their only son even though they constantly told him they loved him and that nothing mattered to them except his happiness. He told me about Tony Greco, some douchebag in eighth grade who’d made fun of him for being “weird” and how Blake, Wolf, and Otis had beaten the kid up, been suspended because of it.

I hadn’t heard that story before, although I knew Blake had been suspended a few times over the years. It made me miss my brother. We hadn’t been close, especially as teenagers, but I hadn’t realized the comfort his presence had given me until I didn’t have it anymore.

“Hey,” I said softly when Otis entered the room. He closed the door quietly behind him, the way he always did, careful not to wake Cassie even though she knew he visited in the middle of the night.

“Hey.” He crossed the room and lowered himself into the chair. He was quiet, but I felt his presence like a crackle of unseen energy: the spark of electricity when you pulled a plug from the wall, the charge of lightning right before it hit.

A long silence descended between us. It wasn’t awkward — one of the things I loved about Otis was that I never felt the need to talk — but that didn’t mean it wasn’t filled with tension. I looked forward to Otis’s visits, found comfort in them, but there was something else there too, a side effect I hadn’t counted on.

I wanted him. The intimacy of our late-night conversations had added depth to the lust I’d felt for him before my kidnapping, and it was getting harder and harder not to pull him into my bed during the long night.

I fought against it, feeling battle-weary, torn between my desire to have Otis close and the voice of reason that told me it would be smarter to tell him not to come.

“Do you want to lie down?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think about them.

Shit.

“Yes,” he said.

“You can have the other side.” There was no reason for him to be uncomfortable.

He crossed to the other side of the bed and I felt the mattress dip with his weight.

I was lying on my back, but I could see the shadowy outline of his body in my peripheral vision, could feel his gaze on my face.

When I turned my head I saw that he was lying on his side, looking at me.

I swallowed and turned onto my side to face him. His eyes glowed in the half light of the room and I caught the scent of motor oil and sweat that was so uniquely male, so uniquely Otis, that I felt desire blossom to life at my core.

“Are you going to stare at me all night?” I asked.

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