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“While we’re talking about that night,” Fia says, and her voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming from miles away. It sounds like she’s here, now, in this room. “I seem to recall you saying you’d like to kiss me but you needed to get through a couple more drinks before you could let yourself. Have you had enough time to down them?”
James laughs; their laughs are a matching set. It makes me feel small and alone. Jealous. I’m jealous of James Keane. Why can he make her laugh like a real person? I’ve been taking care of her all this time and I was barely keeping her alive. He’s one of them!
“I think,” he says, “if I kept up my end of that promise, Annie here would take your place in bashing my brains out.”
“I already called dibs on it. She would never dare.” She’s teasing him. She sounds like the old Fia. He swoops in here, talking about bashing in heads and drinking, and draws her out? Why would she come out for him but not for her own sister?
“Excellent. I’d hate for anyone else to have the honor. Now. Since I’ve got you here, I have a proposal.”
“Too young to get married. Besides, Annie loathes you and everyone else would be too frightened to be my maid of honor. I have a bit of a reputation.” She whispers “reputation” exaggeratedly. How can she flirt with him about this?
“Oh, that is a problem. In that case, I have a different proposal. How would you like to go on a vacation? Sort of a study abroad. I think you’ve been locked up in this school for too long. It isn’t healthy, you know. Some would say it’ll drive you crazy.”
“When?” she asks, and her voice is breathless and hopeful. I’m drowning. I’m losing her, and I don’t know how or why.
“How soon can you pack?”
She jumps up with a squeal and I hear her run out of the room. “Just the basics,” James yells. “We can buy anything you need.”
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“What you can’t.” I hear him stand. He walks closer to me, puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to make her better.”
I shrug his hand off, glare up at his voice. “How? By making sick jokes about things no one should ever have to remember? And why do you want her ‘better’? So you can use her again? You saw how well that turned out for the last person in charge here.”
“Careful there, Annabelle. You can’t pretend to not care about what Fia did. You’ve either got to really not care at all, or you’ve got to care. She knows you’re somewhere in between, and her own guilt is already more than she can handle.”
“Don’t act like you know her! She’s my sister!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, you lost your claim to her as soon as you accepted the Keane Foundation’s generosity. She’s not yours. After your desperate call to my father, he decided to give me a bigger role in his work. She’s my responsibility now. Don’t worry. I take my responsibilities very seriously.”
It can’t be my fault that he’s here. That’s not what I wanted when I talked to his horrible father. “I won’t let you have her.”
“You don’t have any choice.” He sounds almost sorry when he says this. He is a liar.
“If you touch her—if you so much as touch her—” I am trembling with rage. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare ever forget how young she is or how broken she is.”
His voice isn’t sorry anymore. “How could I? And how could she, with such a kind sister to remind her that she is hopelessly broken.”
“I’m ready!” Her voice is bright. I hear something thunk to the ground. Her bag.
I whip around. “Don’t go! You can’t go!”
“Aren’t you coming?” she asks.
“I’m sorry,” James says, and he walks away from me. Is he touching her? Is he touching her? “But my father would only agree to let me take you if Annie stayed here and kept up her studies. And she needs to be here in case they have a breakthrough for her eye treatments.”
“Oh.” There’s a pause, and then her voice…oh, her voice is dead again, it’s coming from somewhere so deep inside and far away I can barely tell it’s hers. “I guess I’ll stay then.”
“No.” I choke on the word, paste a smile on my face, glad I can’t see what she looks like, wishing she couldn’t see me, either. She’ll know I’m lying. She always knows when I’m lying. So she knows I’m lying every time I tell her that what she did doesn’t matter, that we’re going to be okay, that we’re going to get out of here eventually. Please, Fia, believe this lie. “You should go. You’ve earned a vacation. Just bring me back a present. Besides, I’ll have Eden.”
“Afraid not,” James says. “She’s coming, too.”
Alone. He’s stealing my sister and my only friend. I’m going to be here all alone. I force my smile even bigger. “Well, then they’ll both owe me a present.”
“Are you sure?” Fia asks.
I am not sure. I don’t trust James. I think he’s even more dangerous than his father because he is bright and handsome and funny. I’m trying to draw her out with love and hope, but this place kills those. His voice has those extra layers, that anger simmering under the surface. I know Fia connects to it. I know it draws her in and comforts her in a way I never can. If I let her walk out that door with him, I’m worried I’ll never get her back.
