Page 209 of The Monster and the Masochist

Cass had peppered me with a few more questions about Samwell as we got dressed. She’d wanted to know how our paths had even crossed in the first place. When I explained that he wasn’t actually Reverend Elias Sterling, but Father Emanuel Samwell, I knew I’d given her another eureka moment.

“That’s why Vox can’t find anything on the prick from before he started that fucked up church…” she’d mumbled as she tapped away on her phone.

When I asked her what Vox had to do with it, she’d just grinned and waved an inconsequential hand at me, telling me to ‘stop procrastinating.’

She was right.

I was procrastinating.

I owed both my brother and his fiancé an apology. I knew I did… It just… Ugh, I felt like shit about the way I’d acted, and I was ashamed. I wasn’t looking forward to taking responsibility for my actions.

But it was the right thing to do, so I slipped out of the guestroom Cass had sequestered us to, wearing the suit pants and crewneck from the night before.

Hopefully, I still had a pair of sneakers in the guesthouse somewhere. There was no way I was putting Cassandra’s Louboutins back on.

Part of me wanted to burn the fucking things, but… That was a problem for a later date.

I found Ryan in his office, getting paperwork ready for a viewing they had planned for the following day.

He was chatting out loud to what I assumed was the spirit of the dead man that would be the star of tomorrow’s service.

“Your brother insisted on the blue suit; there’s not much I can do about it.” Ryan sighed, absently shuffling through his papers, and I smirked, amused at how frustrated he seemed.

“Listen, my hands are tied. I can’t very well tell them that you spoke to me beyond the grave about your outfit preferences. This is something you should have discussed with them when you were alive.”

I bit my knuckle as Ryan waited for the ghost to respond. It was entertaining to watch. I couldn’t see or hear the person he was talking to at all, so it really just seemed like my brother was talking to himself the whole time.

Whatever the ghost said seemed to upset my brother, and his expression flooded with remorse.

“Okay, okay. Yes, you’re right. That was insensitive of me. Obviously, you didn’t know you were going to die… Someone needs to do a fucking PSA or something about the importance of keeping up with wills.”

He pinched his nose.

“It’s not your fault.”

I knocked lightly on the doorframe, leaning against it and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Am I interrupting?” I asked, and Ryan glanced up at me, his cheeks turning pink.

I’d always suspected he could speak to the dead, but it wasn’t until after we saved Cal from Apex that he admitted it to me. He still got a little awkward and flustered when someone caught him in the act.

“No. We’re done here.” He gave a random spot in the room a stern look before dismissing the spirit with a wave of his hand. “Could you give us some privacy? I need to talk to my sister.”

I waited until Ryan turned his attention to me, indicating that we were now alone.

His amber eyes rolled over my form, and I didn’t miss how his gaze lingered on the bandages wrapped around my bare feet.

He somehow looked concerned and amused at the same time.

“I guess masochism is a Fairview family trait,” he observed dryly, and I huffed out a laugh.

“Maybe that’s why we’ve found ourselves so entangled with the Walkers. Sadism and Masochism go hand in hand,” I mused, and Ryan let out an awkward chuckle.

Much like his sister, Cal was a sadist, and I’d seen Ryan sport many marks and bruises from whatever rough sexcapades I was sure they regularly had, so I wasn’t worried about him judging me. It was just a weird topic to discuss between siblings.

“Mmm. Maybe the sadistic streak skipped a generation with Naomi,” Ryan replied as he leaned back in his chair, grinning.

“I don’t know about that. She’s terrifyingly accurate with a handgun. You’ve seen her at the range.”