Page 36 of The Next Lie

REVA

Homer wakes me by landing on my face.

Not beside my face. Not near my face. Directly on it, with the full confidence of a creature who weighs roughly four pounds and believes gravity is for other people. One tiny paw smacks my left eyelid, the other gets tangled in my hair, and then he bites my eyebrow.

“Jesus Pete.”

I come awake swinging, which is unfortunate for both of us because I don’t actually want to punch the kitten, and he doesn’t actually want to die before breakfast. He launches backward with a startled mrrp, hits the pillow, and immediately attacks the corner of the blanket as if that was the plan all along.

I lie there with one hand over my eye, breathing hard. The room comes together slowly. Shiloh’s bedroom. Sunlight behind heavy curtains. Soft sheets twisted around my legs. The faint smell of his cologne on the shirt I’m wearing...and the tiny orange terrorist currently trying to murder expensive bedding.

My body remembers before my brain does. The bath. Shiloh’s hands. His mouth. The way I climbed into his lap because the rest of my life had gone up in flames and apparently my response to emotional devastation is to ride the nearest charming disaster with good cheekbones.

I close my eyes.

Mistake. Delia is there--not in the bed, not in the room, but in the dark behind my lids where every awful thing has organized itself, waiting. Delia standing in Noir Night, alive. Delia recoiling from my hand. Delia saying I shouldn’t have come.

My chest tightens. Nope. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. Homer pounces on my stomach, knocking the air out of me. I grab him around the middle and lift him up. His back legs keep pedaling, furious and useless.

“Sir. We need to talk about boundaries.”

He mews. It sounds suspiciously like a slur.

“Don’t take that tone with me. You attacked my eyelid. I don’t care if it was moving. Eyelids move. That’s not an invitation to commit a hate crime.”

He blinks at me with his sweet dumb face and his little white cross blazing on his orange forehead like he has been personally blessed by the patron saint of menaces. I set him down beside me. He immediately tries to climb onto my face again. I shove a pillow between us.

“Prison.”

He attacks the pillow. Good. We all need goals. For maybe thirty seconds, I let myself stay there, watching the kitten wrestle a pillow with the violent focus of a tiny drunk man outside a bar.

Then the house creaks somewhere below me. My body goes still, and I know. Deacon is here.

Part of me wants the coming confrontation. That part is angry, awake, and wearing steel-toed boots. It wants to march downstairs, plant myself in front of Deacon, and make him bleed answers. It wants to ask him what happened to my sister. Why that rosary tattoo survived in my memory when so much else turned to fog.

The bigger part of me wants to hide in Shiloh’s bed until civilization ends. Because now that the truth is finally close enough to put its hands on me, I’m not sure I can take it.

“You can’t handle the truth,” I mutter, my voice raspy from sleep. “Thank you, Jack Nicholson. Super helpful.”

Homer abandons the pillow and launches himself at my braid. I have to get out of this room. Not downstairs. God, no. Downstairs is where men gather with coffee and secrets and the emotional range of loaded firearms.

Not that I have any room to talk about emotional range. I am well aware that my own emotional range is...empty. Lacking.

But I need to get...out. Away. Somewhere with sun and noise and people who do not know my family tragedy came with its very own surprise ALIVE sister.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand. There are no messages from Cal, which is suspicious and also a blessing because if I see his name right now, I may throw up. Did he know? I don't think I want to know right now.

There is one from Shiloh from sometime early this morning. Still here if you wake up mean.

I stare at it for longer than I should. I wake up mean every day. Be specific.

Three dots appear almost immediately. Good. Wouldn't want last night to damage your brand.

I huff a laugh before I can stop myself. Then I set the phone facedown because if I keep texting Shiloh, I might accidentally feel something, and I am at capacity. My feelings are currently stacked in the hallway like Amazon boxes I refuse to open.

I pull up Sonny’s contact instead. Need rescue. Girls’ day? Food, drinks, books, bad choices, no murder if at all possible.

The response comes so fast I wonder if Sonny sleeps with her phone in her hand. On my way in thirty. Murder optional. Mascara mandatory.