Page 26 of Shattered Souls

“She’ll get used to it.”

“Wow,” I move the water bottle a few more times until it sits exactly where I want it. “You sound so sure of her mental capabilities to handle the things we do.”

“I can see the same darkness in her eyes.” His hands move with such a grace from using this as his primary language for the last twenty years. “One that’s very familiar in the mirror.”

“Doesn’t mean she’ll ever allow it to happen before her eyes. You know we wouldn’t have. No matter how many years we had the fantasies. If we never saw a dead body, those fantasies would never have become reality.” I remind him.

“Yes, but ours wasn’t from seeing a body. It was from how that body came to be in front of us like that.” We both go quiet.

I crack my knuckles and try to rid my mind of the exact memory I know plays through Hyde’s mind as well. The amount of blood on my hands, the blood splattered across my brother's face—and even the last time I heard his voice.

I try not to think of that night as much as possible. But when it was the turning point of your life, and the reason that you can’t use your birth name on any piece of paper, it’s almost impossible not to think about it as you lie awake at night.

Hyde swallows thickly beside me.

“I touched her,” His eyes avoid mine.

“You told me. You washed her.” I remind him.

“No,” His cheeks deepen with color. “I touched her bare pussy, and she let me.” My cock grows with his admission. But I’m focused on the words he utters.

He touched her?

Hyde has had a problem with intimacy since we were teenagers. While I’ve had companions, never lovers, he has taken none.

I want to say something to encourage him or make him feel better about this thing that is obviously bothering him. I’m unsure if it’s the fact that he touched her—or the fact that his body most likely enjoyed it as well.

“You know—” Both of us snap our heads towards the sound of soft knocks on the wall. The knocks are soft and almost pleading instead of panicked and angry.

Maybe that’s the only reason I push off the couch and walk over to her door.

I swing the door open and am immediately greeted by a small and trembling version of our little scarecrow. She has her arms wrapped tightly around her body and her eyes glued to the ground.

“I can’t do it,” She whimpers between sniffles. “I need to come out and breathe—please.”

I look back at Hyde, not wanting her to spoil the surprise we’re twins. He tries to peer over my shoulder to see her broken frame.

“Please, Seek.” She slowly, oh, so slowly, raises her reddened eyes to me. “Just a few minutes.” Well, guess I don’t need to worry about the twin thing.

“Get me the cuffs, Hyde.” He grunts and rolls his shoulder, the one that this little scarecrow here mistook as her meal. Her swollen eyes follow his movement. She doesn’t panic at the sight of doubles. Instead, to my surprise, she holds her hands out for the cuffs.

He walks over and closes each wrist inside the metal before gripping the middle of them and guides her to the couch.

Her chest releases a trapped breath the moment the soft fabric of the couch hits her bare legs. I let my eyes roam over the jack-o-lantern pajamas that are unevenly buttoned on her torso.

She doesn’t waste any time before laying her head down and curling into a ball. Not running from us, not begging to be released, nothing—just laying there. Hyde comes over to stand beside me as we both watch this strange woman before us.

“You’re not going to run?” I taunt.

“I haven’t slept since you shoved me in that room,” She mumbles. “I’m going to take advantage of this kindness—and sleep.”

Hyde and I look at one another for a moment before he shrugs his shoulders and leaves the room, leaving me to deal with this broken ghost. I move around the coffee table and plop myself on the couch at her feet. I take my phone out and aimlessly scroll, listening for a sign she’s fallen asleep.

I cannot say exactly why I let her sleep there instead of taunting her more or yelling at her to get some sort of fire under her ass. I chalk it up to my mind being so exhausted from taking care of that body solo and then my run in with Maverick.

Her breathing finally settles into a deep and calm lull. I peer over at her face and see her eyes roaming the room. They bounce from the door that she’s been behind to the kitchen, slurping up each and every detail with a form of admiration painted across her delicate features.

“I’m not sure how I missed the fact you were twins.” She says into the empty air. I don’t respond. Instead, I lean back and let my greedy eyes loiter on the curve of her ass in the jack-o-lantern pajamas I picked out for her. I can smell the peach scented shampoo clinging to her shiny hair.