“I sure as shit don’t want you to lie to me,” I ground out between clenched teeth.
“Then let me finish. This is the only way I can do it.”
“Go on then,” I huffed. “Tell me more about these… cows?”
“Did you know that if you don’t milk a cow, infection can set in and she can actually die? It’s called mastitis. Her udders become engorged and the pain is excruciating. Like getting kicked in the testicles times ten.”
I winced, peeking one eye open while squeezing the other one shut at the thought. “Okay, great. I get the picture. And?”
“Andnot long after that demonstration at the farm, Robbie began sneaking into my room. Told me how people weren’t that different from cows. That sometimes they needed to be milked too.”
“He fucking didn’t…” I tugged myself straighter, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. I didn’t feel guilty about gutting the guy, but I sure as hell felt a lot better about it now. Guess my instincts were right.
“He did. But it was my fault.” She shook her head. “I was older. I shouldn’t have been that naïve.”
“That was not your fucking fault, Jules. You were a fucking kid,”I reminded her.
“So was he. And he was my baby brother. It was myjob to take care of him. And I did. For years. Until I started to question if I was doing something wrong. Because it felt so… wrong, Cain. I knew it was wrong and I kept doing it anyway.”
I reached out a hand to wipe the tears from her face, one palm flat on the floor to keep myself from tipping over. I didn’t have words for her. There was nothing anyone could say that made that shit better.
She shook her head again, and I didn’t know if it was because she was arguing with herself or the version of her brother she saw in her mind. Whether it was victim or villain, I couldn’t tell ya. The brain was funny like that, always trying to make sense of the fucked-up shit that didn’t make sense. Always trying to justify it.
“Robbie insisted it was okay. Told me thatDadsaid it was okay. That he wanted me to do it. All big sisters did it. They just didn’t talk about it. That worked for a while too. See?” She took a deep breath and finally met my gaze. “I wasn’t lying when I said my father made me do it. To me, it was the truth. For a long time, it wasmytruth. I honestly believed I was doing what my parents expected of me. I didn’t like getting in trouble. I never had a rebellious streak. I just wanted them to be proud of me. But that sick feeling never went away. Ever.”
That made two of us.
“So I told Robbie I was going to talk to Dad, ask him if what we were doing was wrong or not. I just needed a little reassurance. To hear it from someone else. Not even twenty-four hours later, my brother tried to hang himself. On Christmas morning. Right in front of the tree, knowing how much I liked to get a peek beforeeveryone else was up. And when I found him, after I cut him down, he said he wouldn’t make it so easy to save him next time. That he’d write a note telling everyone it was my fault for taking advantage of him.”
Jules choked out a sob, and I tried to grab on to her. Tug her close to my chest. She just shrugged me off and scooted farther back on the floor.
“I never brought it up again. Never acknowledged what we did. What we continued to do,afterhe married Natalie. I never spoke about it to anyone. Not even to him. I just shoved it all down as deep as it could go until I didn’t feel bad anymore because I didn’t feel anything anymore. Until you forced it to come back up again in the kitchen that first time.”
“That’s… fucked up.”Fucked updidn’t cover it. But there wasn’t a word for what it was. It was fucking diabolical.
“What’s the difference?” Jules countered. “You were gonna kill me.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a kid anymore.”
“And that makes it better?” She lifted a challenging brow.
“The only thing that separates us from those animals you love so much is the ability to decide which lines you won’t cross. Mine is kids.”
“Mine is killing people,” she mumbled. “In case you didn’t notice, I suck at it. So thank you for doing it for me.” I cocked my head to look at her. She must have sensed my question without me ever having to ask it because she added, “Robbie. He needed to be put down.”
“Yeah, and why’s that?” I wasn’t arguing with her. I was just curious as to her reasoning all of a sudden.
“His wife told him she was pregnant. And my brother… he told her that he hoped they had a little girl who looked just like me,” Jules explained. “You corrected the mistake I made when I cut him down. So, like I said,thank you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HIM
We had a body to take care of, a bathroom that still resembled something out of an episode of CSI, and a duffle bag now full of stolen drugs. Meanwhile, Jules was acting like everything was peaches and fucking cream. Disassociating was a common coping mechanism and this girl was an expert at it.
I wasn’t half bad at it myself. I just wasn’t interested in spending the rest of my life in a jail cell to keep from dealing with my issues.Our issues?I guess they were our issues now, weren’t they?
I scratched my forehead with a knuckle.When the fuck did that happen? When didmebecome a fuckingwe?
