Page 62 of The Reveal
“You can’t be here,” he’s muttering, like I didn’t speak. Or like he’s hallucinating me. “How did this ...?”
Augie jerks his head around, peering down the long row of cells. Then he whips his head back at me, looking something like panicked.
I’m not afraid of getting into range of his hands through the bars. I’m not afraid ofhim. I never have been, even when he was at his most erratic and out of his mind. I would go and stand there, right in his face, and dare him to hurt me.
Gran used to warn me that just because he never did that didn’t mean hewouldn’t.
But I didn’t believe it then. I don’t believe it now.
I step closer, pushing myself up against the bars so that I can reach through and touch him, to make sure he’s real and this isn’t some vampire trick. I put my hand on his arm and he’s warm. Real.Alive.
Once again, I have to fight back the urge to cry. This time I succeed.
It’s not until this moment that I understand that I didn’t know which thing to be more terrified about. That maybe they had alreadyturned him into a vampire, and this is all a sick little game, so he would be cold. Or maybe that this is some mask or something and he’ll still feel sickly and fragile, strung out and leathery like he used to.
But what he feels like is Augie.
I never thought I’d get to feel him like this again. The circumstances might not be ideal, sure, but he’shim. For this brief moment, anyway, he’shimand he’shere.
“Why do you seemnormal?” I demand, pitching my voice to stay lower than that moaning beetle thing.
“I’m not fuckingnormal,” my twin tells me. He’s blinking down at my hand on him as if he’s not sure how he feels about this either. But I know him. So I know that what he’s feeling matches what I feel. He’s just spent years doing his best not to feel anything at all. “I’m chained to a floor, bare-ass naked in a vampire cell. In case you missed that.”
“An upsetting situation,” I agree, still with my hand on him, like he’s a battery and I need his energy. Oh, how I need it. “But also a bit of an upgrade from some of your previous circumstances. I’m just saying.”
I expect him to shake off my hand, but he doesn’t. He stares at it. Then lifts his gaze to mine again, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to yell. Tell me to fuck off, like he has a thousand times. Say hurtful, hateful things to drive me away.
I’ve heard them all.
I brace myself, but he doesn’t do it. Instead, he blows out a breath and then he moves closer, leaning his head against the bars.
I don’t think. I do the same thing. When our foreheads touch, I feel his free hand move to my other arm.
Once again, we are one.
And I never thought that I would feel this again. I never thought I’d find him. I never thought he’dlive. I was sure that either the drugs or the monsters got him, and all I’ve wanted, all this time, was simply what peace there might be in knowing how he left us.
I have no place to put what’s happening now. His warm hand gripping me. Mine gripping him.
Our foreheads touching the way we used to do when we were little, to soothe each other.
“You can’t be here, Winter.” His voice is barely a whisper.
“We’re past that,” I tell him in the same voice. “Way past that. What I need to know is why you’re here. What they want.”
He pulls his head back, and again, he’s him. My beautiful, sensitive marvel of a twin brother. My best friend. My heart.
“You’re still wearing the medallion.” He reaches over and touches it. “That’s good. Don’t take it off.”
“If it’s some kind of talisman, maybe you should be wearing it.” I frown at him when he shakes his head. “You’re the one in vampire jail.”
“You have to know there’s almost no way you’re walking out of here.” He’s looking at me in a way I can read too easily. Greedy for the sight of his twin, but scared. Delighted to see me, but furious it’shere. “I don’t understand how you got in.”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
His eyes are indigo like mine and clearer than I’ve seen them in years. But wary now. “It’s not safe.”
“What is?” I counter.
