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“Jesus, Mason . . .” she breathes, but he doesn’t say anything, stepping past her and bringing me a glass of water.
Come to think of it. Almost getting strangled to deathdidmake me thirsty. It could also be the animosity in the room.
“Is that . . .?” Savannah starts, but when Mason fixes her with a hard stare, her lips clamp shut.
Oh. So his familyreallydoesn’t like me.
Way to fuck it up for the rest of us, Missy.
“Drink. “ Mason hands me the water and I take a sip, wincing as it slips down my sore throat.
“Thank you . . .” I’m so surprised by my own raspy voice that I shut down completely. Mason lifts a finger to my lips, silencing me before stepping back. Two new people step through the back door—I guess my house is just the place to be at two in the morning on a Saturday night— and they make their way over to me.
“These people are going to look at your throat. I need to have a conversation with Prince, but I’ll be back in a minute.”
I nod, wincing when I realize it freaking hurts and he goes, leaving me alone with Savannah, Thing One, and Thing Two, the first of which looks at me like I am the cause of all that is wrong in the world.
Fuck. So much for making peace.
She’s quiet while the two . . . I don’t know, secret service EMTs check me over, watching me from across the room. Savannah has always been known to be cold and ruthless, but I’ve always admired her and assumed they were just rumors. That stare, though . . . she and Mason may as well be twins.
Finally, once they’ve given me a clean bill of health and told me I’ll be sore for a few days, the two fancy EMTs say goodbye, leaving me alone with just Savannah. The crazy guy is gone—more people in black, unmarked uniforms came and carted him off ten minutes ago—and Mason stepped out with Logan, as I’ve learned, to talk about God only knows what.
Is he cautioning Mason away from me? Warning him that I’m just like my sister and I’m just as much to blame for all the crimes she’s committed as she is? People see twins and don’t think that they can be polar opposites.
Well, Missy and I, as much as everyone wants to omit that fact, have grown to be polar opposites. I could never sit by and watch innocent people be hurt. Raped. Murdered. I couldn’t turn a blind eye for love because love shouldn’t make you have to hide it from the rest of the world. It shouldn’t tear apart families. It shouldn’t breed addiction and dementedness.
It should be warm. A place where you can go when the world is threatening to swallow you whole. Where everything makes sense and you don’t have to worry about the consequences of giving your all to another person and praying they hold it as closely to their heart as you do with theirs.
There are good parts of Missy and even if they can’t erase the bad, they’re still there and they’re what I think about when I get sick to my stomach with hate at all the terrible things she’s done.
Missy’s strong. Really strong. She could handle Mom’s CIA-like punishments in stride where I nearly had a mental breakdown. She’s powerful, sure of herself, and mostimportantly, she’s determined. Determined to get away from Mom and start a life of her own, no matter how much I disagree with how she did it.
I’m nowhere near as tough as she is.
“What do you want with my brother?”
I pause, my entire body freezing under the weight of Savannah Carpenter’s blue-steel stare.
“I don’t want anything from him.”
She regards me coldly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the wall.
“I remember you, you know?” she says after a long moment. “Always side by side with your sister, two peas in a pod. Hard to believe the apple fell far from the tree.”
“Yes,” I mutter, just as frigidly. I don’t have the will to be polite. Not tonight and certainly not here. This is my house. “Very hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Her eyes narrow and she takes a step forward, stopping just in front of my coffee table.
“Mason may, but I don’t trust you. Your sister ripped our family apart and we’re just now putting it back together.”
“Did it ever occur to you that your familyalsoripped your family to shreds? Or did that not come to you somewhere in between your self-righteousness and pity party?”
I stand, albeit unsteadily from the couch, biting back the grimace from the tenderness in my neck. It’s not as bad as it was, but it’s sore and right now, all I want to do is go to bed, but I can’t.
I can’t stay here.
“You know,” I start. The plan was to walk away before I said something heinous, but she’s pissed me off. In my own home. Where I didn’t invite her. “I always admired you, Savannah.We never really spoke, but I thought you could see the good in people and not hold people accountable for the actions of their families. My sister may be a bad person, but she’s my sister.” She doesn’t say anything, but there’s this little moment when her eyes get wider where I know the reality of what I’d said sinks in.
