Page 62 of Twins for the Enemy

“Do you think about the fire?” I ask. “About Helena?”

He closes the drawer and twists the knobs on the drawer like he’s testing their tightness. “I think it’s better to leave the past in the past.”

“It seems like the past is chasing us down,” I say. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe we should take responsibility for our choices.”

“Farah, you are torturing yourself.” Neal glances at me but quickly turns to open up the next drawer and starts rolling up his socks. “It’s… it’s not great that woman was there that night, but collateral damage happens. It’s your boss’s fault. If he hadn’t been treating you like shit, this wouldn’t have happened. Sometimes, when you’re taking care of family, your hands get dirty. And I got my hands dirty for you. That was me taking responsibility.”

I look over at the mirror, which has a long crack in it now. One shard of it slightly juts out, but I imagine it could stay like that forever—broken but held together by habit.

I need to leave the city.

I can’t keep saving Neal, and I don’t want to be in a city that has Kieran’s fingerprints all over it—the roads remind me of our night driving when we left the hospital. The foliage reminds me of having sex in his car at the Astasio Botanical Garden. Any sight of the skyscrapers reminds me of the view of the city from the hotel balcony.

Even this parking lot reminds me of how he’d protected me from Samson.

I check out the window. No sign of Kieran yet, but I know it can’t be long. At most, he’s waiting for his moment to leave Helena’s engagement party after I ruined it.

“Kieran may be coming after you,” I say. “He knows about the fire.”

Neal straightens up. “What? How? You told him? Why the fuck would you do that?”

“He figured it out on his own.”

“Bullshit,” he snaps. “What? You were angry at me? You wanted him on your side to keep that piggy bank open? What is it, Farah? Am I not suffering enough for you? Do you want me to overdose so you can run away with your Prince Charming?”

His face is scrunched up in rage, making him look much older. He doesn’t look anything like my brother. His words should make me lash out like him, but seeing how much he’s changed, it just feels like freedom. My foundation has vanished from underneath my feet, and I don’t mind free-falling.

“Get some help, Neal,” I say.

As I turn away, I let out a slow breath. I open the door and step into the hallway. As I walk away, I put my hands back into my pocket. In the left pocket, I run my fingers over the edges of the compass.

I may be falling, but I’ll find where I’m meant to be when I get back on my feet.

Chapter eighteen

~KIERAN~

Ellie looks at me from my armchair in the library, her eyes slightly narrowed like she’s trying to gauge if I’m making excuses or if I’m so full of shit that I wouldn’t be able to dig myself out of it with an excavator.

“You seem certain she’s telling the truth about her brother,” she says.

“She carried the burden of the fire, even when it started to break her. She’s not the type to pass off responsibility.”

“Anybody would pass off responsibility if they saw you coming after them. You’re like a bear on methwhen you’re being protective.” She pauses. “But you did nail her window shut and lock her in a room while threatening to send the whole police force after her, so it appears that threats don’t work on her. Why did she admit it now?”

“I filled in the blanks. If she kept up the act, I would’ve known she was lying.”

She leans forward. She’d taken down one of the mini replicas of Henry’s buildings, and it sits in front of her. She peers through the windows, so close that her eyelashes must touch the wood.

“You know I didn’t do any of this to hurt you,” I say. “When I found out she was pregnant, I just couldn’t punish the twins—”

“Your twins.”

I rub my jaw. “But I didn’t want to reward her in any way. I wanted her to suffer for what she did to you. I don’t know what happened.”

She sits up straight again. “It’s strange. I almost feel sympathetic. Not for you, who, at this point, isbordering on a new level of foolishness, but for her brother.”

My hand slips off my jaw. “What? Neal is a piece of shit. He’s the one who—he’s the arsonist. You nearly just attacked Farah for the same thing.”

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