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That information dropped like a bomb between us.
“And why didn’t you?” I questioned, feeling something close to jealousy stirring in my gut.
“I didn’t want to,” she admitted. “I was a virgin. There were only so many things left that Tara hadn’t ruined when it came to my life. And that was one of them. I just…couldn’t do it.”
“Why did she want it done?” I asked curiously.
I’d always wondered what was in it for Rome.
I mean, when she left after Matias got so sick that his death was imminent, she hadn’t demanded anything, which wasn’t her normal operating procedure. Over the years that Tara had been in my life thanks to Rome, I’d not seen one second of time where she wasn’t calculating her next move. Where she wasn’t demanding something of Rome.
“My sister is, by definition, a sociopath.”
That tidbit dropped like a lead balloon in between us.
“What?”
She nodded. “My sister is an expert at her craft. She shows zero emotion, and honestly doesn’t even have a conscience. However, she does have an innate ability to put on a good show. And she enjoys making people think that she has one.”
“You were talking about an experiment,” I found myself saying. “What kind of experiments?”
She blew out a breath and dropped her head to her knees for a few seconds before picking her head back up.
“She wanted to cover all her bases. If she wasn’t able to carry to term, or if Matias somehow passed away, she’d always have a backup…me.” She smiled sadly at her lap. “Artificial insemination. Tara found the absolute perfect donor. God, she had to have it planned months in advance to have gone to such lengths.” She shook her head. “I have never prayed as hard as I did for a baby of my sister’s to live.” She looked up then. “And I feel horrible, because the moment that baby did live, and Rome knew of him, I prayed for his death.”
I stiffened.
“I prayed that either he went to live with his father, or that the little boy would die because I didn’t want him to have to live the life I lived,” she whispered. “Rome might’ve been aware…but he might not have. My brother, Tyson, lived next to me for fifteen years, and he never once knew that anything bad was happening to me. Never once knew that every night since she was ten, Tara would lock me in the closet and leave me there all night. Or that she would knock me out with whatever household chemical she could find that would do the job long enough for me to be unconscious. I’d wake up, and I’d be in the dark again.”
I was going to be sick.
“Rome wouldn’t have been able to protect that boy from harm,” she whispered. “And I knew it. I couldn’t even say a thing because I was stuck in here.”
“And the times that you were able to get out? I remember you covering for her at least once,” I said softly. “The funeral, I was sure that was for just you.”
She smiled then. “She threatened Tyson and Linnie. I’d do anything for Tyson and Linnie. Even spend a few hours pretending I was her soulless self so she could do God knows what.” She paused. “I spent a total of forty-nine hours with that kid, at different times. And he knew when it was me. I’m not sure how, but he knew.”
I remembered the way he spoke of his mother, and there toward the end, Matias had explained that Tara wasn’t all bad.
But sociopaths were all bad. There wasn’t a single thing about them that was redeeming.
“I’m not sure that she was as bad as you think…”
Theo burst out laughing.
It wasn’t a nice kind of laugh, either. It was one that hurt physically to hear.
“Why do you think she ran experiments on me?” she asked quietly.
My stomach clenched and my back stiffened.
All of a sudden her ‘experiments’ started to make sense.
“She needed to know how to react in any given situation,” she said softly. “From the age of about ten, she started. She wanted to know what made me tick. Why I cried. Why I was pissed. What made me pissed. How to manipulate people with emotions. How to put on a good act. Trust me when I say, she became an expert all because of me.”
I closed my eyes as realization dawned.
“I’ll spare you the gory details, but any time that you think that Tara has an emotion or is feeling something?” she whispered softly. “That’s probably because she’s used me as a guinea pig to show her how to react.”
I swallowed hard, and a line of lightning streaked across the sky.
“My brother, though not soulless like Tara, wasn’t much better. He could definitely feel, but that was where that ended. Nothing made him ‘care’ at all. Not unless you triggered him into caring. And trust me when I say there wasn’t a single thing that I would ever want my brother caring about.” She paused. “At least not when it came to me.”
