Bait

He grunts. “You’re just fucking saying that to make me feel better.”

But I’m not. I shake my head. “Think what you want, Jake. It’s the truth.”

“Why did you take her from me, then?” he asks. “Why you and not me?”

“Because she had a darkness behind her eyes,” I admit. “She needed the chase. The hunt. The thrill. She needed it to feel alive, that’s what she told me.”

“I’d have given her a fucking thrill, Leo. Me.”

“Well, I guess I didn’t give you the chance. I regret that, but she was right there, too. She made that call along with me. Probably earlier than I did. That girl didn’t get swayed by anything other than the things she wanted, and you know it as well as I do.” I sigh. “I regret ever ending up with Mariana. I regret being the one who took a wild young girl and turned her into a bitter crazy woman. I regret being the one who pushed her far enough to lose her mind.” I pause. “But I don’t regret Cameron, and I don’t even care anymore whether he’s yours or mine. It wouldn’t make any difference. I’d love him all the same.”

His eyes flash with pain. “I love that fucking boy, too. You took him from me!”

I shake my head. “You think this is really anything to do with a fucking paternity test, Jake? You think I don’t know you were fucking her that whole fucking summer before she fell pregnant? I always knew there was a chance he might not be mine. I didn’t care, I loved him anyway.”

“Then why?!” he snarls. “Why fucking take him from me!”

I gesture around me. “Because you’re sick, Jake. You’re a fucking drunk with a death wish. Cameron doesn’t need your kind of fucking crazy in his life. His mother’s dead and he wets the bed at night. He’s barely spoken since she passed, and you know it. Why spring a load more shit on him? He’s taken enough already.”

I sigh again. “Seriously, Jake, if you want to burn this place, you’d better get on with it. Serena knows we’re here, she’ll call the police if she doesn’t hear from me soon. She won’t be able to stop herself.”

“Shut up,” he snarls.

“I’m ready,” I say. “I said my piece. I swear to God I did everything I could to pull Mariana out of here. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t curse myself for letting her go that night. There’s not a single day I don’t think about her and blame myself for what went wrong.” I take a breath. “You want to kill us both for that, then go ahead. I’m done.”

His voice is so low I barely hear him.

Just a grunt in the darkness as he drops himself to the floor.

“Go.”

I step closer. “Sorry?”

“Go,” he says again. “Go back to Cam. Tell Serena I love her.”

My heart fucking pounds. “What?”

“You heard me,” he says. “Get the fuck outta here.”

I know I’m as crazy as he is when I don’t move a muscle. “Wait,” I say, and I’m sneering. “You just made me dowse myself in fucking kerosene and follow you up here, just to tell me to leave?” I gawp at him. “You said this was my fault, Jake. That I’m the one who’s to blame.”

“Leo, please!” Abigail calls. “Please, let’s go!”

But I can’t.

Call me fucking insane but I fucking can’t.

Because my brother isn’t out to fucking kill me, and I know it. It’s not hate for me that’s in his eyes as he stares up at me, but hate for himself.

“Something happened, didn’t it? What happened, Jake? What triggered all this crazy? It wasn’t just not being able to see Cam, was it? There’s something else.”

He shrugs. “Just go, Leo.”

“Yes, Leo, please!” Abigail cries.

Jake smirks and gestures in her direction. “She’s a lively one. I wasn’t gonna fucking hurt her, Leo. You know that, right? Just wanted to shake her up. Wanted her to hate both of us.”

“Why?” The question is so obvious. “Why did you want her to hate me?”

“Because I wanted you to know what it feels like to love someone with all your fucking soul and not have them love you back!”

I smile. “Wow, Jake. That’s such bullshit. This thing with Mariana, it was you she wanted at the end, not me. She was seeing you the whole fucking time she was with me, you admitted it yourself! You think that’s what happens when someone loves you?! Mariana never loved me, if I’m honest I don’t think she ever really loved Cameron, either.” I can’t stop. Can’t hold back. I’m stinking with kerosene and still I’m fucking talking. “Mariana loved herself,” I say. “Herself more than anything else in the whole fucking world. Herself, and you.”

When my brother laughs it’s a terrible sound. It cuts right through my fucking soul.