Kill Switch (Devil's Night 3)

She was starting to look like other girls. Girls who were old enough for guys to do things to. She felt like the girls I went out with.

“Damon,” she suddenly said, awake. “It’s Banks.”

I guessed I stirred her when I touched her. She probably thought I was thinking she was someone else.

Opening my eyes, I clenched my jaw and yanked away from her. “Yeah, I know who it is.”

I threw off the covers and got up out of bed, grabbing my cell phone off its charger. “I thought I told you to wrap yourself up,” I mumble, unlocking my screen and scrolling through my notifications.

She didn’t say anything, but I heard her scoot up to a sitting position. “When

I sleep, too?” she whined. “It’s like a corset, Damon. I can’t breathe.”

You’ll get used to it.

After thumbing through a couple messages from Will and some comments on posts, I tossed the phone down onto my desk and started some music on the computer. Walking to the closet, I grabbed some slacks and a white shirt and then stopped, staring at a pair of jeans hanging next to my black hoodie. Devil’s Night was next week, and a familiar rush skated through my veins.

I grabbed the jeans, too, and headed for the bathroom to my left. I had a craving.

“Maybe…” I heard Banks say from the bed. “Maybe I shouldn’t sleep here anymore, you know?”

I stopped, narrowing my eyes as I turned to look at her.

Her gaze instantly dropped. She knew I didn’t want to talk about this.

Banks was my father’s daughter, but she was mine and had been from the day she came to live here. Her mom was some lowlife slut, one of the many my father had kept on the payroll, and if her mother hadn’t banged down our door for money four years ago, I probably never would have known Banks existed. My father certainly never acknowledged her and still barely did.

That was fine, though. She wasn’t his. No one could take her from me.

After the first time we met, I spent days scrounging and stealing all the money I could find around the house and any valuables my mother wouldn’t know were missing. It was thousands of dollars, and Banks’ drug addict mom put on a show of struggling with the decision for a full twelve seconds before taking the cash and jewelry and giving Banks to me. I brought her home and no one fought me on it. My mother, when she still lived here, didn’t let anything penetrate her happy, little dream world, and my father allowed anything that kept me happy.

Banks stayed in my room, she took care of me, and I provided for and protected her. She had her own mattress up in the little hideaway in the tower adjoining my room, but she’d barely ever slept there.

“Just in this bed, I mean,” she clarified. “In… your bed. Maybe I should start sleeping in my cubbie again. We’re not twelve and thirteen anymore. You’re bigger. You need more room.”

I cocked an eyebrow, angry and knowing I had no good reason to be. There was a reason I kept her a secret. A reason I didn’t let any other girl in my room and forced her to wear my old clothes, bind her body, and would never tell my friends my sister was the only woman who would ever sleep in my bed.

I knew I was fucked up.

I just didn’t care. As long as I was happy, I didn’t explain myself to anyone.

When she turned away, I knew she’d given up the argument, and I continued into the bathroom. Turning on the shower, I stripped out of my pajama pants and climbed in, washing and shampooing. I rinsed under the hot spray, bending my head forward and letting the water run down the back of my neck.

I closed my eyes, my fingers pressing into the wall. It’s only a matter of time, though. My senior year just started last month, but it was my last year at home. Next summer, I’d be leaving for college, and Banks wouldn’t be going with me. I should let her set up her own room. Get us both used to the space. We had plenty of empty bedrooms for her to choose from, after all.

And I had no doubt she’d adjust easily and even love having her own room.

No, the problem was me. She was mine. She was the only person who knew everything, but we were growing up, and I knew she was going to leave me eventually.

I dug my fingers into the wall, feeling a face—anyone’s face—fill my hand as I tried to crush it in my fist. The familiar burn crawled up the back of my neck, into my head, and I could feel heat rush through my dick, every inch of my skin begging not to feel anything I was feeling right now.

I needed to get out of here.

Finishing rinsing, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel off the shelf to my left. I dried off, pulled on my jeans and T-shirt, and walked back into the bedroom, drying my hair on the way.

“I did the math problems and updated your research log,” Banks told me, sifting through papers on a desk I never used and slipping folders into my bag. “You need to recopy the math in your handwriting, though, and don’t forget to do the reading in Physics for your test today. At least absorb enough to pass.”

I tossed the towel down and picked up my black hoodie, sliding my arms through. “I always pass. Ever notice that?” I shot her a look before pulling the hoodie over my head. “I could piss all over that test and still pass.”