Page 32 of Bram

I tried to sit up straighter, but my ribs didn’t want to cooperate. When I leaned back, my head thumped the wall hard enough to make stars. I let my eyes close.

“Julie?” Emma again. Her voice was different this time, nervous but steady.

“Yeah.”

She picked at her cuticles, peeled away a flap of skin and watched the bead of blood rise. “When you get out. When we’re out. Are you going back?”

“Back where?”

“To the club. To Bram. To —” she stopped, either out of breath or out of nerve.

I opened my eyes. The light was ugly, showing every line and bruise on her face. “I don’t know if I have a choice,” I said. “I don’t know if he does, either.”

Emma nodded, letting it drop. Then, with no warning, she said, “Are you in love with him?”

The words hit like a baton. I felt my face go hot, and I hated it, hated the way my body always told the truth before I could catch up. I kept my eyes on the far wall. “I don’t know,” I lied. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I exhaled through my mouth, the only way to keep the blood out of my airway. “Yes,” I said, and the admission shocked me. It was so easy, all of a sudden, to say it. “Yeah. I am.”

Emma didn’t tease, didn’t smile. She leaned her head against my shoulder. “That’s good,” she said. “He needs someone to love him. He’s so fucked up, but — I don’t think he knows how to be anything else.”

I blinked hard, then laughed. It hurt, but I didn’t care. “You’re a real therapist now,” I told her.

She snorted, which made her split lip ooze again. “If I was, I’d be charging you for this.”

We sat like that until the air shifted and the next round of boots stopped in front of our door. A key rattled in the lock, and for a second, I braced for the worst. But the handle didn’t turn. They were just making sure we were still here.

“Julie?” Emma whispered, softer now.

I looked down at her. Her eye was open and alert, even swollen shut.

“I have to tell you something. And I don’t want you to freak out.” She looked away. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long and just never found the right opportunity.”

I braced myself, muscles tightening. I needed one more thing to worry about.

“Mom.” Emma inhaled, shallowly. “She’s been with Rusty. For, like, years. He’d come around, and Mom would say it was club business, but they’d talk for hours. Sometimes at the house, sometimes in that car outside the grocery store. I don’t know if Bram knows.”

“Rusty. Bram’s VP?”

Emma nodded.

I felt my world tilt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Emma looked guilty. “I wasn’t supposed to. She made me promise. Said it would get us killed if The Colonel found out.” Her hand trembled in mine, but she didn’t let go. “Gerald’s not my real dad. Rusty is. I figured you should know. In case it matters.”

“I thought…”

Emma shook her head. “The prison never allowed them to be together, alone. She thought you would love me more if you thought we were full sisters.”

“Fuck.”

“I know what your father did to you, Julie. Mom says he would have killed you both if she told anyone.”

I scoffed at that. “Sometimes I wish that he had killed me.” It was my turn to look away. “Dead people don’t wear scars.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”