Page 122 of The Next Lie

I slide the door shut and turn back to Delia.

Her eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”

“Removing the innocent.”

She snorts. “Orange cats are never innocent.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

She exhales through her nose and pinches the bridge. “Reva.”

“No.” I walk toward her. “You do not get to come out here, stab me with I’m not your sister anymore, and then say my name like you’re the one being reasonable.”

Her chin lifts.

Mine does too.

We are closer now. Too close, probably. I can see a faint scar near her left eyebrow where she must have been cut at some point. I want to ask who did it. I want to know if she cried. I want to know who held her afterward.

I hate that I want anything from her.

“You need to go home,” she says.

“I don’t have a home!” I don’t mean to scream the words at her but they wrest themselves from my throat, angry and raw. “You were my home! You and Mom and Dad! My home is gone.”

Something flickers across her face.

“You made a new one,” she says. “You had a home in Chicago; it was a good one.”

I shake my head. “Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel better? That was a life built on lies.”

“You had Cal.”

“Like you had Deacon?”

Her jaw tightens.

Oh. She doesn’t like that.

“Is that what this is about?” I ask. “You’re mad I showed up and now everyone has to rearrange their secrets?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You keep saying that, and yet no one seems interested in informing me.”

“We’re trying to fucking keep you alive.”

I laugh. “God, you really are one of them.”

She steps toward me. “You think this is a game because you survived one bad night and grew up somewhere safe.”

“One bad night?”

The words come out too quiet.

Delia hears it. Her eyes change, but she does not take it back.

My hands curl at my sides. “Our parents were murdered.”