Page 75 of These Monstrous Ties
He lowers my arm but doesn’t let go. Not yet. “I didn’t want you to hate me,” he whispers. In this moment, I believe him. But what he doesn’t know is that I already hate him. Even before tonight, I’d hated him. Even if I loved him before, even if I love him still, I hate him too.
I nod. He lets go of my wrist. I seize that moment and dart away. Someone’s arms come around me.
Lucifer’s.
I can only think about him having to watch. Of those scars on his stomach. Of what he’d tried to do to save me. Of my brother, ruining both of our lives in one night. Of betraying these boys.
“Leave here,” I spit at the four of them, the Order of Rain, meeting each of their eyes. They are sick. They are wrong. We are all unsainted, but they are the worst of us. “Get the fuck out of here and never come back. I don’t want to see any of your faces, ever again.”
My brother shakes his head, struggling to his feet. He looks like he’s going to lose his goddamn mind. He grabs his hair, growling under his breath, his face caked with blood and bruises. “I’m not leaving without you, Sid. You’re my sister. I waited too long to find you.”
“You weren’t looking for me,” I spit.
“He was.” Nicolas. “He was. He had always been. He didn’t know it was you at first, but he thought you were someone familiar.”
“I don’t want to hear you talk,” I snarl at Nicolas.
“You have to believe that, Sid. Even if you hate him. Hate me. He had been looking for you since he escaped. He’d wanted to find you. To keep you safe—”
“Shut.Up.”
“He didn’t know who you were. Not when he first…first found you. He didn’t know. He told me he didn’t know. He told me you didn’t fight back—”
“Because I was nearly unconscious!” I scream.
“Nearly,” Nicolas repeats. He shakes his head. “And besides, he didn’t do it. He didn’t. He almost did, Sid, but he didn’t.”
“You kept this from me.” I want to bury all of their bodies. “You kept this from me, and now you’re fuckingdefending him.”
Jeremiah groans. “I don’t want to be defended. What I did was wrong, Sid. I’m so fucking sorry. It was wrong. It was fucked up. But when I realized you were my own goddamn sister, I stopped, immediately…” He breaks off, and then he sinks to his knees.
My brother.
On his knees.
In a room full of his men, and his enemies.
Everyone is staring at him. Behind me, Lucifer’s chest rises and falls against my shoulders, and he keeps both arms around me, gun trained at the floor. He doesn’t speak, letting me fight this out with my brother for now. None of the Unsaints speak.
Jeremiah starts to crawl,on his knees, to me.
He stops a few inches from my feet and sits back on his heels. He’s wearing a suit, unrumpled but caked in blood. I want him to drown in it.
“Please forgive me, Sid. Please. Don’t go with him. You aren’t safe with him. You aren’t safe with anyone but me. I promise you, Sid. Things will change. I’ll be better. I’ll do better. He burned down Brooklin’s house—”
“She wasn’t in it,” Mayhem snarls from beside me. “We were sending you a message. And I’ll get her back, too. Get the fuck out of here. Your sister is telling you she doesn’t want you. Don’t come back here. If you do, I’ll fucking kill you myself.”
It’s the most words I’ve ever heard Mayhem say.
Jeremiah looks like he wants to jump to his feet. Like he wants to retaliate. But he clenches his jaw together and doesn’t. He looks to me again, but some of the anger is back in his eyes. This is really what Jeremiah is, at the core of him.
Angry.
He’s full of so much anger, he’d burned my entire world down to the ground. In one single night, he had ruined me.
“Sid. I can’t lose you again,” he tries again. “I can’t. Remember, they killed one of our runners—”
“You fucking idiot. We don’t bother with petty cash, motherfucker. Fuck would we want with your druggies?” Ezra growls.
