Page 17 of The Final Deal

Renewed tears flow over my crumpled face. I have to look away from them; the concern on their faces only makes it worse.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

God, he’s got the voice of an angel.

A vehicle pulls into the driveway. Robbie parks behind my car and hops out.

Adrian swipes the warm pad of his thumb across my cheek, silently begging me to tell him what’s going on. “Steph?”

“It’s all because of me,” I break. The dam breaks, and I hide my face as I wail. “It’s all my fucking fault. And I didn’t even do anything!”

Adrian pulls me into his embrace, hugging me so tight that it cuts off my sobs. “What’s going on?”

Footsteps pound the pavement before coming to a halt beside me. “Y’all remember how we used to joke that our parents must’ve made a deal with the devil to have NYB rival Ozzfest?”

Tension seizes the air and sucks all the oxygen from around us. Adrian stiffening around me worsens the sensation.

“Don’t fucking tell me…”

“Yeah. Turns out that wasn’t a joke.”

Zak sighs heavily and scrubs a hand over his face; Adrian holds me tighter. “So you mind tellin’ us why you’re both here?”

I sniffle, whispering, “She gave me to the devil.”

The strained silence makes me peer up at the twins. The complete, utter shock drains the blood from their faces and mutes their normal glow.

“My own mother sold me to the devil before I was born.”

Adrian’s skin is so hot against mine. I didn’t realize I had started crying again until he shakes from the tremors quaking through my body.

“They said she’s safest here,” Robbie says. “That your mom must have protection shit still working that’ll keep her safe.”

“Yeah, but I’m guessing they don’t know about theotherproblem,” Adrian says exasperatedly.

“I’m not as concerned about that with you around.”

Adrian fully faces my brother. “You weren’t here the other night when she decided having a sleepover with him was a great idea,” he begins with a raised voice, gesturing toward Zak. “And it’s a good fucking thing because he’d be dead, too, if you did.”

Robbie glares at him. “Fuck did you do now?”

“I pushed him too far,” I jump in. The fierce stare Adrian pins on me stings, but I continue anyway. “Zak wanted to stop, but I told him to keep going.”

My brother grimaces in disgust. “Jesus fuck, I don’t need to know that.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you’re trying to make her move in with,” Adrian says. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“Neither is her being literally anywhere else,” Robbie says, his tone defeated. “Look, even our parents said she’s safest here on y’all’s property. We can set her up in the studio so they’re separated. But I’m not letting her stay at our parents’ anymore, Dree—I won’t do it. I-I’d take her, but our place is too tight as it is.”

They stare at each other in a stand-off that feels neverending until Adrian gives the slightest nod.

Robbie eyeballs Zak with the warning loaded. “You start feelin’ snackish again, and I’ll make good on the promise I made when you first asked her out: I’ll kill you if you hurt her. Comprende?”

Zak’s jaw tics as he glowers right back at my brother. He leans over to pick up the box from the floor. “Yeah.”

We start to move my shit in through the house and to the studio, but as I start to make the first pass, I pause in the middle of the foyer and peer down the left hallway, where Zak’s room is, and then to the right toward Adrian’s room. I’m not choosing either of them—and I can’t even stay inside the house with them—but it hits me that, eventually, I have to choose which of their beds I’m going to take up residence in.

“Whatever doesn’t fit in the studio goes in my room,” Adrian instructs, answering a question no one asked.

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