Page 46 of These Monstrous Ties
I wakeup the next morning on the floor of my balcony.
At first, I don’t know where I am. I scramble to my feet, and there’s a sharp ass pang in my foot. I wince, looking down. Shattered glass. I had had more drinks last night, and now, judging by the trail of blood pooling down my foot, I’d just stepped in it.
My face hurts. I touch my jaw, flexing it. I’d slept out here, on the hard concrete of the balcony floor.
The sun is rising, the city just waking up. Or going to bed.
Glass is everywhere. In moments like these, I’m glad my asshole of a brother has an entire staff of housekeepers. Part of me wants to dig my hands into the glass, to see more of my blood paint this balcony. To remind me of Lucifer.
But part of me wants to never think of him again. It’s why I’d drank so much last night, all by myself. That, and the fact that my own brother almost killed me.
I limp into the bedroom, leaving the balcony door open, letting the cool October air rush in. I am, technically,offuntil Halloween night, when Jeremiah wants me to get rid of Lucifer. But I’m not going to be that kind.
Today, I’ll find Julie and the kid.
Today, I’ll remind Lucifer of all those promises he’d made a year ago.
But first, I need to get the glass out of my foot and get dressed. Because Jeremiah is going to have to let me do this my way.
I walk into the bathroom, black marble and bigger than most people’s living rooms. I sit on the edge of the tub after grabbing some tweezers, and I get to work, digging in my skin to find the edge of the sliver I can see glistening in the lights from the bathroom.
The blood makes it difficult to see it all, but I find a good angle and clamp the tweezers down, ready to pull. The sliver is tiny, but it can’t stay in there. If it does, I’ll be dealing with more than blood on my hands.
Swiftly, I yank it out, gasping with the relief of it, and holding up the sliver to the light. Tiny, jagged, painful. I go to stand, but the world seems to spin around me. I certainly haven’t lost enough blood to make me dizzy, but I’m dehydrated, and exhausted. I stumble against the counter, setting the tweezers and glass down as I do, catching myself on the marble.
I turn on the sink, splash water on my face, in my mouth.
There are circles under my eyes, which are red and look eerie. The silver of my iris against the veins of my eyes make me look like a monster from a horror movie. I smile at myself.
Good. I want Lucifer to know a monster is coming after him.
I tilt my chin up, take in the state of my throat. The bruises are ugly, splotches of purple and blue. I’ll be damned if anyone else puts their hand around my throat again. Unless I want them to.
“Good morning, Sis.”
Jeremiah’s voice makes me flinch, and I bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Bite it so hard I taste iron.
I glance at him in the mirror. He’s leaning against the frame of the bathroom door, his arms crossed. He’s dressed in a long-sleeve black shirt, and basketball shorts. Sweat has dampened his dark hair.
“Came to visit me after your morning workout?” I ask, keeping my tone even and looking back at myself in the mirror. “I feel special.”
Then I turn to him, leaning against the counter and crossing my arms, mimicking his posture. “Or did you just come to finish what you started last night?”
His pale green eyes don’t falter. He holds my gaze. Nothing about him suggests he feels bad about what he did last night. I still think he probably regretsmissingmy head.
“If I wanted you dead, Sid, you’d be dead.”
I can’t argue with that. I’m sure it’s true. At the very least, he believes it to be true.
“Then why are you here?”
He glances at the floor, the trail of blood from my foot, which is still bleeding. Band-Aids aren’t my favorite thing, and I’d wanted to shower first.
“What happened?” he asks me, cocking his head.
I want to bash it against the wall. I shrug. “Accident.”
He turns, glancing at the open balcony doors, no doubt seeing the shattered glass outside. He sighs and looks back at me.
