“Good morning,” she says, rounding the counter before she takes a seat at the table across from me.
My pulse picks up a nervous rhythm. A million arguments float through my head, but I stop and focus on one: This beautiful distraction in front of me doesn’t belong in this dark, sordid life. It’s not fair to her, and m keeping her here makes me no better than Euan. He didn’t love her, and dammit, I would love her if I could. That is the only reason I take the paper beneath my coffee and flip it from the sports section to the front-page headline of her death and shove it toward her. A wrinkle of confusion pinches her brows. “What did you do?” Her gaze meets mine, accusing and hurt.
“What I had to do.”
Whatever there was between us cracks. Silent moments pass as she goes back to the paper. That broken expression on her face slowly changes. Her cheeks redden, her nostrils flare, and this time, when she looks up at me, there’s a firestorm of outrage in her eyes. “You don’t think you should have asked me first?”
“I don’t need your permission for shit, Tor.” I reach for my cigarettes, and just as I pull one from the pack, she swats it from my hand, then pushes to her feet.
“You know what? Fuck you, Jude. You’ve ruined my life.”
Now that comment pisses me the hell off. Anger bleeds from my fingers, spreading out across my chest. I’ve done a number of unsavory things for her, but she can’t see it. “I saved your fucking life.”
“Save me your chivalrous bullshit. This is to protect you, not me, Jude.” She snatches the paper from the table and shoves it against my chest. “You did this. You took any hope I had of ever having my life back, of ever getting out of here, and destroyed it. I hate you!”
Never have words cut that deep, and I hate myself all the more for getting to a place where I’m weak for her. The paper falls to the floor, and tears build in her eyes. “Say something.”
“I did it to protect you from Tom. Just deal with it, Tor.” No sooner do the words leave my lips than her palm hits the side of my face. Heat floods my cheek, stinging like a motherfucker.
“Deal with it? Deal with it!” She grabs my mug from the table. Coffee splatters everywhere when she chucks it against the wall. “Sure, I’ll just deal with the thought of my sister crying over a closed casket with a body inside that isn’t mine.”
Nothing about this is easy or fair. Some people earn their lot in life, and others get screwed. Tor didn’t earn this. The only sin on her hands is that she dated the wrong guy and got caught in the crosshairs of my shit.
She takes dishes from the counter and smashes them on the floor, then grabs a glass and launches it at me but misses. “I’ll deal with losing the career I killed myself for!” She throws the fruit bowl. “I had published research and papers, and it’s all just...gone. Dead.”
She moves from the kitchen to the living room, ripping paintings from the wall. Eventually, she runs out of things to break and grabs the cushions from the sofa, giving them an exaggerated throw in my direction before she slumps to the floor. Small and broken, and damn does it break my heart.
“What now, Jude? What am I supposed to do?”
And this is the shittiest part... I push up from the chair and take the ID from the table, crossing the room and holding it out when I stop in front of her. “You leave.”
16
Victoria
Leave. One word that should feel like freedom, but for whatever screwed up reason, feels like nothing short of rejection. I snatch the ID from Jude’s hand, refusing to look at him as I push to my feet.
“Go pack whatever you want,” he says. “I’m taking you tonight.”
I want to shove him, hit him, but instead, I brush past him without any acknowledgment. Emotions eat away at me as I climb the stairs to his room, telling myself I’m insane that I’m more upset that Jude is casting me out than I am that my entire life is gone. Maybe that’s because I had already come to terms with that, and because for the past, however long I’ve been here, Jude has become my constant.
I slam the door to his room and toss the ID to the dresser, wanting to scream. My entire life, I busted my ass. I worked hard and studied. I did everything by the book. Didn’t stay out too late. Didn’t talk to strangers. And yet, here I am. Kidnapped. Tortured. Fucked in the head. And now dead.