Page 135 of Chaotic Curse

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Falcon exhales hard.“I’ll call Mom.”

“Tell her he wants her,” I say.“He does.He can’t help it.But he also doesn’t want her to see him like this.”

He scrunches his eyebrows.“She’s already seen him like this.”

“I know.But give him a minute to rest.”I sigh.“Let him think what he needs to think.He needs that much, at least.”

“Yeah.”

Falcon steps back into the hall to make the call.

I turn back to my brother.He twitches in his sleep, and the line on the monitor bumps and then smooths.

Injected.By force.

The words keep rolling over and over in my mind, whirling every which way as I try to make sense of them.

Reyes can wait.The safe can wait.Everything can wait because this changes the game.This isn’t a relapse.This is an attack.On my little brother, the one I strove for years to keep safe.

My phone vibrates in my pocket.I don’t pull it out.Not yet.Not while he’s asleep and I’m finally exactly where I should have been two nights ago.

I settle deeper in the chair and let the hate simmer under my ribs where it belongs, low and controlled.Plenty of time to let it boil.

For now, I count each breath Eagle takes.

One.Two.Three.

I’m here, little brother.

I’m here.

42

DANIELA

Raven’s on one phone.Vinnie’s on another.

Same clipped tone.Same questions.Same hold music bleeding through the house like static.

I can’t listen.

I can’t breathe.

I stare at the paper in my hands.

Belinda’s note.

It’s clearly from her printer.But the voice on this page?It’s not hers.

I’m sorry.Thank you for everything, but I have to go.

Maybe she was trying to sound older.Serious.Grown.

Except dinner plays back in my head in bright, stupid color.

Cheese-ball stories.Gwen’s slide.Glitter nails.That is not a kid plotting an escape.That’s a kid planning her next sleepover.

My skin goes tight.

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