The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

“I’m very happy to be here, to be safe with you. And I’m very much happy to be an aunt. I promise I won’t feed the kid whisky or beer.”

“Strictly acid?” she deadpanned.

I smiled. And it was a real one. Not even a grimace or anything.

“I love you,” I murmured.

“I love you too, my little bug,” she replied, squeezing my hand. And then there was a nice sensation on my forehead as she kissed it and brushed the hair away.

“I love Keltan too,” I sighed.

“Oh, you might want to wait until the morning until you commit to that,” she said, smile in her voice.

“No, I know it all now. Even though I can’t properly love anymore because I’m all ruined. I’ve got you guys.”

There was a silence that may have meant more, meant a lot more if I was sober. But I wasn’t, so I just sighed again and promptly passed out.

* * *

“Good morning, sunshine,” someone screamed in my ear.

I flinched but kept my eyes closed.

“Ugh,” I said in response, even the small noise causing pain to radiate throughout my skull.

My mouth tasted like something had died inside of it, and my stomach felt like I’d eaten something dead and decomposed.

But no, just whisky.

On an empty stomach and a broken heart.

“Hold your hand out,” Lucy yelled.

Or maybe she didn’t yell and maybe it just seemed like it because breathing was the equivalent of a dull roar radiating from my lungs to my throbbing brain.

I weakly did so, my eyes squeezed shut.

Two small objects landed in my palm.

“Put them in your mouth,” Lucy commanded. “Not something I’d ever thought I’d say to my baby sister,” she added on what was supposed to be a murmur but worked as a screech.

I closed my hands around the pills. “What are they?”

There was a pause where I imagined my sister grinning.

“Honestly, Polly, since when have you asked what something was before taking it?”

“Since I saw purple butterflies talking to me at our kitchen table,” I shot back honestly. It was enough to keep me off hard-core hallucinogenics for life.

“Well, this will stop the razorblades cutting at your eyeballs right now,” she replied. “No butterflies.”

Lucy would know. Where I didn’t drink on the regular, she loved cocktails and partying. Which meant she had experience with hangovers. I had experience seeing her hungover and teasing her and generally riding around on my high horse.

That horse had thrown me off, left me in the mud and I was never going to get on it again.

I trusted my sister with my life, which was good since it felt like I was fricking dying.

I put the pills in my mouth.

Cool glass settled on my lips and I drank the precious water Lucy was offering to me. I suddenly realized my mouth was the Sahara. My fingers settled around the glass and I gulped until it was empty.

“You might not want to…” Lucy trailed off as the water reached my empty and protesting stomach.

I groaned at the pain of the liquid hitting it, seriously concerned about it coming right back up. If the sound of Lucy’s heels retreating on the hardwood floors were anything to go by, she thought so too.

But I managed not to empty my stomach, more out of sheer force of will than anything else. There was a pause where I willed the world to stop spinning, and spearing me with flaming swords.

“You didn’t barf, impressive,” Lucy commented. “Though, I guess you’ve got an iron stomach after gallivanting through Europe for a year eating god knows what.”

The thought of food both disgusted and hungered me.

“It’s Europe, Luce,” I said, my voice little more than a groan. “They’re kind of famous for their cuisine.”

“Yes, but in the nice restaurants with tablecloths, wine menus and free bread. You likely were eating street food with hippies.”

I pursed my lips.

She wasn’t exactly wrong.

I wasn’t the restaurant type of girl. I immersed myself in the culture, I ate where the locals ate, and it wasn’t at places with pictures on the menu an English translations and rude waiters.

“Speaking of,” she continued, snatching the glass from me. I imagined a scowl on her face while my eyes stayed firmly closed. “How is it that my little hippy sister did not inform me that she was coming home?” A pause. And I knew Lucy well enough this was more of an inhale before the screech. “Oh, right! How about the fact she didn’t inform me that she was motherfucking leaving in the first place?” she yelled.

And I knew she properly yelled this time since it felt like my ears were bleeding on the outside and not just the inside.

I didn’t speak, a little because I feared I might vomit if I opened my mouth, or my eyes for that matter, but mostly because I knew Lucy was not done. The sound of her heels pacing the floor in front of me told me that. She only paced when she was super pissed.