Page 72 of Stag

“You don’t need to see it.”

“Don’t baby me, dammit! She’s my twin, she knows I’ll see it. I have to see it.” I glared at him, expecting him to back down like he always did, because he never enforced his will on me, but this time he just shook his head again.

“No. It’s not for your eyes.”

He kept me in front of him while he pulled his phone out again, obviously answering a call.

“Yeah. No, she’s scratched words into the paintwork. It’s clearly that bitch.”

I took advantage of his distraction and darted around the other side of him as he turned to try and catch me.

“I have to see it!”

He was right though. I didn’t need to see this. How could she?

The words on this side said simply ‘she’s your problem now’.

I’m his problem? As in I was her problem? As in she was passing the buck, so she could be free? That’s how she saw me? Not as her sister, or twin, but as a problem? A burden? As Stag tugged me around the back, I caught something else scratched into the paintwork.

‘Phoenix pussy’.

Why would she do this? I know she was pissed at me, but why do criminal damage to his motorcycle? Stag followed my line of sight, and I saw his fist clench around the phone, before he wrapped his arm around me and tugged me away from it.

“What will you do?” I asked, even though I knew he was still on the phone. He tapped my shoulder so I’d look at him before he spoke.

“I’m pressing charges, sorry. This isn’t cool. That’s expensive to fix, and I think she needs a wakeup call. Rocket’ll be pissed, that’s his hard work and he’ll have to redo the lot.”

I hated that it was my twin doing this to him, that she was so out of control that vandalism seemed to be her only option in her mind. I still wondered if we could talk it out, if it could be resolved by counselling, was there even such a thing as twin counselling? Was it because we were twins, and somehow our bond was making her crazy?

Another tap on my arm lifted my eyes to Stag again.

“We’re going back inside, love. Let’s get you a stiff drink while we wait.” While we wait for the police, for my boyfriend to press charges against my own twin sister for a crime. An actual crime.

“This is crazy. How could she do this… are you sure it was her? Oh god, of course it’s her, who else would it be, right?”

Stag cupped my face in both palms, his skin warm against my chilled flesh, chilled by the situation, and the horrors in my head.

“She was caught on camera, Claudia, she’s guilty. I don’t want to cause trouble for the two of you, but I feel like this needs to be addressed, because otherwise she could escalate. What if she’s caused damage to the ride, and we get injured? What if she tried to get us killed?”

Oh god. I pressed my palm over my mouth as I pulled away from him. Killed? Did my own twin just try to kill me?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

What a fucking night. It took another hour of waiting for someone to come out and look at the damage, and it was that cop who used to partner up with Jamie, PC Evers. He’s become somewhat Phoenix friendly, so he listened patiently, and took all the info, snapped pics of the damage on his phone, and left us with a fucking incident number. If they were heading off to arrest her, I had no idea, but I wanted to get Claudia home. I wasn’t risking taking her on the ride until it’d been checked out for any sabotage to the actual vehicle, so I had to leave the keys with Grimm for Harley to collect, and we took a damn taxi to Henley’s place.

I was fucking furious, but Claudia looked worse than me. Not as much angry or upset. She looked fucking heartbroken. Defeated. I wish I’d fucking denied her a chance to meet with that bitch. Not that it was my right, but that it was clearly bad for her emotional health. I didn’t want to assist that bitch in hurting her, but I felt like that’s what I’d done.

“I want to take a bath,” Claudia said quietly, and I nodded, guiding her upstairs to wait beside the bath while I set it running, tossing in a dollop of some fancy looking bubble stuff. If that shit was Henley’s I’d never let him live it down, although if it gave her comfort, maybe I’d keep my mouth shut altogether.

“I’ll make a cuppa, and sit with you,” I said when I tipped Claudia’s chin up so she could watch me speak. She nodded slowly, sliding down to sit against the bath while it filled.

Fuck me, I didn’t want to leave her, but I also wanted to give her that calming experience of a hot bubbly bath, with a nice drink, and whatever else she wanted to make her feel pampered.

I dug out my phone and did a search on bath accompaniments, but that just showed me a bunch of shit it was too late to buy. Fuck. I dug out some chocolate from the cupboard and took that upstairs with two mugs of tea, arriving just in time to stop the water before it reached too high, since Claudia was morosely staring at nothing while her mind probably raced with awful thoughts.

I stepped into her line of sight so I wouldn’t scare her, and crouched after I set the drinks and chocolate down. Her eyes lifted to mine, and my heart clenched in my chest at the sorrow I saw swimming there.

“Oh baby. I wish I could make you feel better.” Her eyes followed my lips as I spoke. “Let’s get you into the bath, yeah? It’ll help soothe you.”