Chapter Twenty-Two

“You were supposed to be here last night to look after your sister,” Mom yells the second I walk through the door.

Thank God I convinced Nok to stay in his truck. At least he won’t get to witness this dysfunctional family at its best.

I need my uniform; I can’t really go to school without it.

“I texted her this morning, she’s fine.”

“She loses her will to live when you’re not around.”

“And you,” I grumble, brushing past her.

“What was that?”

I turn to face her and stare into her frozen gray eyes that look so much like my own. “I said, and you. It’s not fair that I’m constantly expected to be here. I’m eighteen, I have a life, I do everything for this family.”

“You don’t do enough. Your sister is sick…”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to enjoy myself.”

“But who knows how long she’ll be with us?”

I rub my eyes with the heels of my palms. “Mom. Please. I’m always here when I can be. I’m doing this for her, remember?”

“Are you?” she spits back. “Because she’s fading away, you’re not around, and you seem to be shacking up with the guy you promised her.”

“I’ll find her someone else,” I hiss and exit the kitchen, slamming the door behind me.

I head upstairs and don my uniform, grateful that it has been washed, dried, and hung up since the day before yesterday.

“Hey, I heard you and Mom fighting.”

I sigh when I hear my sister’s voice and turn to face her. She really does look deathly pale. “Oh… Christ. Are you okay? What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m fine. I just miss you.”

“Yeah,” I agree, zipping up my school skirt at the side. “I miss you too.”

“I heard what you said to Mom.”

I look at her and hesitate. This is my sister. My twin. My life. My best friend. “Can we talk about this later? I have to get to school.”

“You don’t have to get anywhere,” she bites back, sounding and looking angry.

“Look,” I say firmly. “I promised four weeks; it hasn’t even been two. Both of you get off my fucking back.”

“Five days,” she answers petulantly. “I’m not waiting anymore. I’m giving you five days.”

“What?” I breathe, feeling angry and shaky. “Do you think this is a fucking game, Willow? This that you’re making me do.”

“I’m not making you do anything!”

“YOU ARE BECAUSE IF I DON’T YOU JUST DO IT ANYWAY!”

We stare at each other, glaring, until she breaks down crying and falls to her knees. She’s wheezing, she’s weak and I immediately feel guilty. I move to her side and pull her frail body into my arms as she struggles for breath.

“MOM!” I yell. “MOM!”

Mom doesn’t come. Of course she fucking doesn’t I bet she’s gone already.

“Fuck.” I help my sister get in her bed and tuck her in, placing her mask over her nose and mouth. “I’ll be back, okay?”

“Okay,” she rasps, holding the mask for dear life.

I race down the stairs and slip on my shoes, crushing the back of them under my heel. I yank open the door and run to the truck where Nok is waiting patiently.

“I’m sorry, Nok,” I say after opening the door. “I have to stay with my sister. She’s ill and my mom just fucking bailed.”

He looks concerned. “You want me to stay with you?”

“NO!” I panic, feeling my heart race but when I see a flash of hurt in his eyes I quickly calm myself. “My sister doesn’t like new people. You’ll just distress her. You’re hot and she’d hate for you to see her like she is.”

“Okay.” He climbs from the truck and pulls me into his chest. “I’ll see you later?”

I nod and push him against the truck so I can kiss him. “Maybe. If not, it’ll be tomorrow.”

“Damn, I was really hoping for more of this morning,” he jokes and grabs my ass with his hands. “I’ll call you later.”

I step back and give him a wave as he climbs back into his car. Then I head upstairs after searching the house for my absent dickhead of a mother and sink into bed with my sister.

“I’m all yours,” I whisper, and we face each other. “What do you want to do?”

“Let’s watch horror movies?”

“My life is one massive horror movie,” I mumble and her smile fades.

“Seriously?”

“No, I’m kidding… kind of. But… I guess I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

She frowns, her dark blonde brows pull together. “You know we don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice.”

“Maybe we can stay.”

“No, we have to keep moving… Mom…”

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. “Mom can go fuck herself.”

“We need her. I need her.”

“No, we can get you help…”

“I’m beyond fucking help, Lilith, I’m dying, remember? Do you want me to spend the rest of my days locked away? You promised.”

“But… we can’t keep doing this. It weighs so heavily on me.”

She glares at me and sits up, pulling the blanket from my body and letting it fall from hers. “We have to. I have to. And I’m not leaving Mom.”

“Mom doesn’t want to be here,” I grit, climbing from the bed and stomping to the window. “We’re tying her down. She’s shackled to us and she’s miserable.”

She doesn’t respond, because she knows it’s true.

After a moment though, she sniffles, and I turn away from the rain-splattered window to find her crying.

“Hey,” I murmur softly and rush back over to her. “What is it? Why are you sad?”

“You’re going to leave me soon, for him, aren’t you?”

I stare into her eyes, so full of longing, love, and sadness. “What?”

“You’re falling for him. I can tell. I can feel it.”

I roll my eyes and laugh a little bit, until her scowl forces me to stop. “I’m not falling for him. I hardly know him.”

“But you want to stay,” she points out, pouting petulantly.

Growling, I move back to the window and stare out across the street. “I’m fucking tired, tired of moving, tired of life, tired of school, tired of helping you do what you do.”

“I need it. You know I do.”

“You don’t need it,” I snarl, gripping the window frame. “We need friends. We need our lives back. You need to get out of this fucking house again and experience it all.”

“I’m not ready.”

“You never are,” I reply softly. “Not until you do what you do and I just… I don’t know how you find the strength.”

“It’s the only thing that keeps me going.” My heart sinks at her admission until she adds, “Apart from you of course. You’re the number one thing that keeps me going. But I need it.”

“You don’t need it. You’re just angry. Understandably so.”

She picks at the little lint balls on her quilt. “Fine… I’ll try, for you. But you have to spend more time with me.”

“Okay.”

“You will?”

I smile. “I will. Maybe you want to meet Nok? We could all hang out together?”

“No,” she snarls, sounding more animal than human. “No. No boys. I’m not ready for that.”

“Okay. One step at a time.”

“I don’t know how you can be. After what happened.”

I shrug my shoulders and scan the street below. It’s empty. Everybody has either gone to work or school. “I don’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t feel real to me anymore.”

“Feels real to me.”

“Because it happened to you.”

“It happened to you too,” she whispers, so quiet I hardly heard her.

I daren’t tell her I don’t remember, that I think what Nokosi did with his truck caused damage to my head that scattered all my memories. I checked it out online, and apparently, it’s common with a concussion which I had.

It’ll right itself. My brain will unscramble, and I’ll be better.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” I whisper more to myself than to anyone else.

We stay like this for a while until my phone starts ringing, I expect it to be school, but instead it’s a private number. I ignore it and climb back into bed with my coughing sister.

“We’ll be okay,” she assures me. “I promise. I’ll get better and we’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“We just have to keep moving. We can’t stop. Not for anyone. Especially not for a guy.”



***



Willow

I look at Lilith sleeping beside me, having taken one of my pills to help her fall under, and then brush her pastel pink hair from her face. Even though we’re twins I always considered Lilith to be the prettier of the two of us and I still think that today. Especially while I’m so fucking weak.

I pad to the window she was staring out of earlier. The sky is black and the street dark and deserted. I stare at the space where her boyfriend’s truck pulled up after school to try and convince her to go out with him. She refused. He returned an hour later with food and they ate it in the bed of his truck as the sun set.

He’s going to take her from me. She’s going to stay here and leave me to die alone with our vacant mother and the ghost of our dad looming over my head.

I’ve been patient, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy, but the urge is there. The thirst. The anger that consumes me.

What happened to me and Lilith was unimaginable, incomprehensible. Sick, twisted, vile…

I’ll protect her until I can’t anymore. I’ll protect her until my last breath leaves my body. I’ll protect her like I couldn’t that night. The night I let them into our house. The night we were no longer sixteen-year-old girls, singing crappy duets and dreaming of a happy future.

The night they defiled us, forced themselves upon us, took their turns on our screaming virginal bodies, passed us around like a bag of chips and then left us for dead.

Men, boys… arrogant, preppy, jockey, fucking popular schoolboys. They’re dangerous. All of them.

I can’t let her get lured into his charm. He’s not a good guy, he’s not.

How can she be so blind?

How can she ask me to stay knowing it’s because she wants to be with him?

“I’ll protect you,” I whisper, kissing her temple. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

I climb from my bed and cover her with the blanket. I get dressed and move to the mirror to adjust and brush my brown hair. It’s a mess so I braid it and add a bit of gloss to my lips. I don’t bother with other makeup, not anymore. I don’t have the time or energy.