Page 50 of The Cruelest Chaos
“And he didn’t wake up when you…left?”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t been sleeping well. He’s used to it.”
I grip the edge of the island, trying to keep myself upright, blinking past my high and my exhaustion. I’d like nothing more than to sink into the couch at my back in the living room, but I tell myself I need to focus.
Is she having regrets, about what we did? I haven’t slept well either since Pammie, but it has nothing to do with the hammer that was covered in her brain matter after we were done. Before we burnt that place to the fucking ground. Even with Ella as a nice distraction, I still can’t get my father’s sins out of my head.
And Malachi has been back in there, too.
Brooklin.
Jeremiah bleeding out in that smoke-filled warehouse.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “But doesn’t he like, track you? GPS?” I mean, it’s not the end of the world if he finds out she’s here. But…he might try to punch me or something, and I don’t want to deal with his bullshit this late.
“I don’t have a microchip,” she counters, but in a way that suggests she wouldn’t be surprised if shedidhave one. “I left my phone at the house.”
I wink at her. “Smart,” I say, pointing her way.
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she mutters, glancing at the floor. “He’s something else.” She whispers those last words mostly to herself.
“Yeah.” I let my own eyes fall closed. I can hear the steady beat of my heart in my ears, soft and slow. “He can be a little much,” I agree, aware that maybe I should shut up and not talk about my brother when he isn’t here, especially not with his wife. But I’m too high to care, and yet sober enough to remember something is wrong with Sid.
Something is wrong with Sid.Does she know about the girl in Lucifer’s room? With Ezra? Before I can say anything about that, though, she starts speaking again, and her words sound angry.
“He’s more than a little much. He’s…overbearing.”
I crack open my eyes, and she’s staring at me. “Is this about Pammie?”
She shakes her head, and I realize we didn’t really talk much, aside from our conversation afterward. Beforehand, we were all adrenaline and nerves. Afterward, we were…I don’t know what we were.
“Explain.”
“I don’t have a car,” she bites out. “He won’t take me to get my license.” What she doesn’t say is that we both know damn well he could afford to buy her an entire fleet of cars. “He won’t let me out of his sight. He hasn’t wanted to go to Council. He’s worried something will happen to me. He has the guards stayinsidethe house when he’s away. I can’t breathe. I can’t… I can’t do anything without him knowing about it. And because Jeremiah—” Her voice cracks on his name, and my fists clench tighter, but I don’t say anything.
She closes her eyes again, just for a second, taking a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “Because he’s alive…Lucifer thinks he’s going to come for me at any moment, and he…he can’t stand the thought of it.” She chews her lip, her eyes on the floor as she thinks about what to say next. I don’t interrupt her. “I stopped writing, because…I couldn’t write anything without thinking abouthim.”I know she isn’t talking about Luce. I know it, and I know maybe I should be angry about it on my brother’s behalf, but I’m not. For some reason—maybe the marijuana or maybe because this is finally the chance for me to be there for my sister in ways I never could be before—I can’t say anything in Luce’s defense.
“I cancelled the publishing contract.” She shrugs, still looking at the floor. “It wasn’t worth much anyway, in terms of money. Just a small indie press, and besides, it’s not like I need the money. What I do need is privacy, and even with a pen name, I didn’t feel safe putting it out there. And Lucifer…he knew what every poem was about. He knew the words about him. The words about you guys. The words about what I saw in the warehouse.” Her shoulders sag. “The words about Jeremiah.” She nearly chokes on his name again.
I think about telling her I write poetry too. I think about telling her I wouldn’t mind exchanging work with her, for no one else to see. Just so she could feel safe writing anything she wanted, knowing someone saw it. Someone sawher.I wouldn’t mind if someone sawmeand my work, and until this moment, I didn’t think I’deverlet anyone see it. But I think about making that offer with her.
Before I can though, she keeps talking, as if she’s been dying to tell someone all of this shit for the past month. I feel a little twinge of guilt that I haven’t checked in on her. That I didn’t take the time we had away for our little murder to discuss this. That I haven’t tried to be there for her, because I’ve been running away from what we did. From what I didn’t do to help her when she was a child. From my conflicted feelings toward her.
“He’s a little…unhinged,” she continues in a whisper. “He’s paranoid. And he’s…scaring me.”
I tense, picking my head up, my entire body going rigid. “Has he hurt you?” I try to keep my tone even, and fail miserably.
She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t do anything but stare at her feet, her arms crossed around her frail body, shoulders hunched.
“Sid.Why didn’t you tell me any of this on New Year’s Eve?”
She meets my gaze.
“Hashe hurt you?”The cocoon of my high is bursting, cold air seeping in from my fog, waking me up in the path of my rising anger.
She shakes her head. “No.”
I breathe a small sigh of relief, but it still doesn’t really explain what’s going on with them, and why she looks like she wants to say something right now, but she bites her tongue instead. It’s not like Sid to hold her tongue. Ever.
