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“Toby, wait,” she calls, but I don’t stop. I also don’t take the lift down to the next floor for fear of being trapped in an enclosed space with her. I really don’t need that intense level of interrogation right now.
I’m halfway down the stairs when she finally catches up with me.
“Toby, for fuck’s sake,” she hisses, her fingers wrapping around my upper arm to stop me. “I don’t care about any of that,” she says softer.
I pause, my chest heaving with frustration, my head swirling with confusion.
She’s right, I used to be the nice one. As nice as it’s possible to be when you’re trained to maim, kill, and torture people from as young as you can remember, and you’ve lived a life full of stifling abuse.
I fought it. The darkness.
Everyone around me dove headfirst into the depravity we’re surrounded by until they were swimming in it.
But every day, this life, my experiences have destroyed a little more of the lightness in my soul. And this is the outcome: a man hell-bent on revenge on the man who tried to ruin everything around him, no matter the cost.
“You should,” I spit, tugging my arm from her grip and continuing forward.
She doesn’t say anything else, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. I know she’s still following me instead of heading for her and Seb’s flat.
I let myself in, leaving the door open for her.
“This life doesn’t scare me, Toby. You don’t scare me.”
I turn to her, my nostrils flaring as I take in her blue eyes. Eyes so much like my fucking own. I have no clue how I didn’t suspect something sooner. My breathing is erratic as she silently challenges me to talk, to let go of some of the anger that’s eating away at my insides.
“He tried to fucking kill you,” I boom, her small frame flinching at the volume of it.
“But he didn’t win, Toby. We’re all here. We all survived.”
“Barely,” I scoff.
“He’s the only one suffering now. He—”
“Really? That’s what you think?” I ask. “I might as well be locked in that fucking cell with him,” I confess, although quietly.
“I know you’re hurting,” she breathes, taking a step closer, albeit hesitantly. “You have every right to be. All that shit with—” She cuts herself off before his name passes her lips. “It was fucked up. Everything has changed, and trust me, I know how hard that can be.
“But I hate this. I hate seeing you drowning. Refusing to really talk to anyone.”
Lifting my hands to my hair, I tip my head back to look at the ceiling.
“I can’t, Stella. If I talk—” I’ll explain my plans, and you’ll all see the monster I really am.
“It doesn’t have to be one of us. Anyone. Please, Toby.”
Releasing a breath and some of my anger with it, I step up to her and wrap my arms around her shoulders.
Things were weird for quite a while for me after discovering Stella and I were actually related. I played it off, scared that if I freaked out too badly about how I was feeling before that huge bomb was dropped, I would scare her off. And I needed her.
From the moment she turned up at Knight’s Ridge, she was like a shining ray of light. I knew in my heart that she’d been sent for me. I just never could have guessed it was because she was my fucking sister. Something I really wish I’d known about before both jerking off to thoughts of her. And then kissing her.
Jesus, I’m just as screwed up as the rest of them.
Her arms slip around my waist as she rests her head on my chest. Her warmth seeps into my bones and I sigh in contentment as her strength surrounds me.
“Everything is going to be okay, Toby,” she whispers, squeezing me tighter.
I grit my teeth as the words hit my ears. I fucking hate it when people say that, especially when they have no idea what the fuck I’m going through.
