Page 31 of Jayson
I don’t mean it to sound like an accusation. But it lands like one anyway. Her whole body stiffens. Shoulders tensing, spine straightening. Her fingers tighten around the tray like she’s bracing for something. I have to know what made her come back. Why now? What are the chances, she comes home the weekend her father is murdered?
“I needed a break.”
Lie.Her words spill forth too quickly. The kind of excuse you practice in your head before anyone even asks the question.
I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees. “You haven’t been home in months. Not even once. And then you show up onthe one weekend you definitely weren’t supposed to be here. What brought you back? Why now?”
I let that hang there. Heavy. Ugly. True.
She doesn’t blink as she lifts her eyes and locks them on mine.
“What does it matter?”
“It matters.”
But she gives me nothing. Just that look—cool, unyielding. Like she’s daring me to push. Like she wants the fight, wants to see what I’ll do if she keeps playing silent. And for a breath, I almost give it to her.
Instead, I lean back and swallow her silence, let it burn on the way down. I file it away with the rest of the questions I’ve got stockpiled in my mind.
She’s hiding something. That much is obvious. And I’ll get it out of her. With patience. With presence. With the kind of quiet that unnerves people. The kind that peels you open without ever laying a hand on you.
She won’t see it coming. Because girls like her—they expect monsters to show their teeth. Not to sit still and wait for the truth to bleed on its own. And maybe I should want to break her. It’d be easier. Cleaner. But I don’t. I want to understand her. What makes her tick. What made her come home. What keeps her so damn composed when everything in her world is falling apart.
And that? That might be the most dangerous instinct of all.
Her voice is stillin my head as I climb the stairs.
That calm defiance. That flicker of mistrust she tried to bury beneath silence.
I should be thinking about logistics—food, surveillance,who else might know she was there that night—but all I can hear is her voice. All I can see is the tension in her shoulders when I asked why she came home.
She didn’t answer. But the silence said enough.
I pass the library, hoping to disappear into the dark somewhere and sit with the wreckage inside my own skull.
But my grandmother’s voice stops me.
“Jayson.”
I pause mid-step. Of course she’s waiting. Like always. Like she knows the exact moment the storm rolls back in.
I turn and find her perched in her favorite chair, spine straight, legs crossed like she’s the goddamn queen of this crumbling empire. Which she is. The fire beside her casts long shadows, cutting deep into the creases of her face. But her eyes—those don’t age. They’re still sharp and surgical.
“Come in,” she says, like it’s an order, not an invitation.
I step inside, jaw clenched.
“Is our guest comfortable?” she asks.
“She’s not a guest, she’s a loose end.”
“She’s agirl, Jayson.”
I grit my teeth. “A witness.”
She watches me like she’s dissecting my motives. “And you, too, were once a witness,” she reminds me. She leans forward, eyes narrowing. “You don’t get to keep living like you’re still at war. The fighting’s over, Jayson. The man who made you leave this place is buried six feet under. What exactly are you still punishing yourself for?”
I look away. My hands curl into fists.
