Page 100 of Dual
“What?” the face in the mirror says back, Anna’s softer expression briefly overtaking mine. “You would have done it if you’d thought of it first.”
“You whore.” I slap her—slap us—feeling a sharp sting across my cheek. Then wince at the pain.
“Why are you hitting yourself?” she asks in a childish voice, mocking me.
I slap her again, harder this time, ignoring the fresh burst of pain. My palm leaves an angry red imprint on our cheek.
“Oh, stop it,” she says, impatience creeping into her tone. “Punishing me doesn’t do anything but hurt you. Get over it. We’ve got to work together.”
I laugh without amusement, the sound harsh and brittle in the steamy bathroom. “Burn in hell, bitch.”
“We’re not alone in here,” she says suddenly, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “I met another alter.”
That stops me cold. “What?” I bite out, my fingers curling around the edge of the sink.
“You went away, and another alter came out. I think someone came to the house and tried to hurt us. She...” Anna’s face in the mirror blinks and looks down, a flicker of genuine fear crossing her features. “She—the new alter—killed them.”
I feel my eyebrows lift, genuine surprise replacing anger. “No shit?”
Anna glares back at me in the mirror, her expression both disgusted and frightened. “No shit. She calls herself Red, and apparently, she killed some guy and chopped him up into tiny pieces. She used Domhn’s power tools, for Christ’s sake. God knows what she did with the body.”
“Hopefully she’s smart enough to hide it where no one will find it,” I muse, mind already calculating probabilities and contingencies. “Was she sloppy?”
Anna breathes out in frustration, but shakes her head tightly. “No. The opposite. Cold and calculated.”
I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face. “Sounds like my kind of girl.”
“She’s a murderer,” Anna says, her voice trembling with righteous indignation.
I shrug, droplets of water sliding down my bare shoulders. “Not if she was being attacked. And we wouldn’t have even been in that position if you hadn’t been such a fucking idiot and gone back to where we had a giant target painted on us.” My voice rises slightly before I force it back down, conscious of Domhnall sleeping just beyond the door. “I was taking care of business and getting us out of there. It was just a matter of time before someone else from the past tracked us down. Frankly, I’m surprised there haven’t been more.”
“Why do you think we’re out here in the middle of nowhere on a ‘surprise early honeymoon?’” She makes air quotes, her mouth twisting bitterly.
“At least you did one thing right. Well, two things,” I concede grudgingly. “You’ve been trying to get me back, haven’t you?”
She nods sourly, crossing our arms over our naked chest, goosebumps rising on our skin as the heat from the shower begins to dissipate.
“Well, now I’m here. And we’ve got to run like we should have in the first place.”
She drops her arms, her expression shifting to something almost pleading. “Not so fast. We can’t spend our whole lives running. Why don’t we just tell Domhn what’s going on? His whole business is security, he could?—”
“No,” I cut her off, my voice like a knife. “That’s exactly why we can’t involve him. Donny’s gone white hat these days. We can’t drag him back into the black.” I inhale sharply, the weight of what I’m about to say pressing down on me. “If we do this, we do it the right way. You know who the fuck we’re dealing with. There’s not a chance in hell I’m dragging Donny into any of this shit.”
She sighs, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Then nods. “I know you’re right. I just...”
Her eyes in the mirror drift past me to the slight crack in the bathroom door, to where Domhnall sleeps distantly in the bed behind us. In the dim light, his profile is sharp and perfect, one arm still stretched across the empty space where I should be.
He’s beautiful, and so much more than perfect. Everything I never thought I could have. Everything I don’t deserve but somehow got anyway. For a little while.
I have to force a hardness that’s all pretense, because I have to be the strong one. That’s why Anna’s been calling to me and trying to pull me back out of the darkness.
She needs me to be the strong one.
It’s not just my role.
It’s who Iam.
Strong, reckless, mad Madison. The one who gets things done and doesn’t weep about it afterward.
