Sneak Attack (Tapped Out 2)

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll give her girl parts a rest.”

Snorting, I elbowed my sister. I still wasn’t at my normal level of angst. It was sort of nice, and more than a little disconcerting.

If this was what it was like to be on the other side of a psychotic break, maybe they weren’t as bad as I’d feared.

Giovanni followed him to the door. “Mia. Carly.” His voice lowered on Carly’s name to the point that I cast a quick side-eye at my sister to see how she was reacting.

She was examining her bright red toenail polish.

Okay then.

The door shut behind them with a firm but definitive click.

“What’s going on with you two?” I couldn’t help asking. Also a side effect of new Mia. Old Mia would’ve demanded and threatened and possibly put chainmail over the door to keep the offending penis safely on the other side.

“Who?” she asked, all innocence.

“You know who, Carly Ann.”

“Ah, there she is.” Carly peeked up at me from under her reddish-gold fringe of bangs. “Faux Mia was freaking me out.”

I laughed and gathered the blanket closer. I was sweating underneath it, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it go. And there was the whole lack-of-pants thing too.

“I’m sorry about last night,” I said after a moment, wanting to go there about as much as I wanted to entertain what might be going on between Gio and Carly. But I had to. This safety bubble I’d hidden in since my ill-advised punch at the club had to pop soon.

I was already sharpening the needle.

“You scared the hell out of me, Ame.” Her chin wobbled and she held her position for a few seconds before launching herself into my lap. She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight. “I love you so much. Don’t scare me like that again. I can’t take it.”

Tears sprang into my eyes and I clung to her, rocking her like our mother had done with us when we were little. When Carly had come along, we’d traded off sharing our mama’s lap until the day we’d decided it was better if we each took a thigh and all cuddled together. I’m not sure our mother had loved it as much as we had, but we’d been in heaven.

Now we just had each other. No matter what, we always had each other.

“I love you too.” I stroked her silky soft hair and rubbed my cheek over the top of her head. “You were better than any doll.”

She sniffled and lifted her head, her big blue eyes luminescent with tears that tugged at my heart. “What?”

“When you came along, I always insisted on pushing your stroller. Screw the dolls. I had a real live kid.” Laughing a little through the tears, I cupped her face between my palms. I’d done everything I could to make sure she was safe. She was my first concern every moment of every day. Even now. “Mama indulged me, because hell, it kept both of us out of her hair.”

“She knew you’d keep me safe.”

“It was all I ever wanted,” I whispered, shutting my eyes against the voice in my head. It was coming back, the soft words piercing the bubble.

You won’t run, because I know where to find your pretty little blonde sister. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Reminds me of my Olivia. So innocent.

See, I hadn’t needed the needle after all. I just needed to wait for reality to catch up with me once again.

But even while trapped in the loop in my head, the name Olivia snagged my attention. Who was she? I’d assumed it was his wife. He’d had one at the time, or he’d had one once. I’d seen the gold band he took off every time he touched me. That was my signal. When the gold band came off, I knew what would happen next.

Maybe it wasn’t a wife. Maybe I’d been too wrapped up in what was happening to me to think clearly.

An ongoing problem, that.

“I want to keep you safe too,” Carly said, burrowing against me. “You were almost catatonic last night, and I didn’t know why. Fox was so scared. Even Gio. It was like you were broken again.”

Not broken, period. Broken again. Because we all knew I’d been broken before. Perhaps all the years in between were a long, slow descent right back to that place.

Unless I fought my way through.