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Chapter 20
JADE
I anxiously stalk up the hollow staircase of the apartment complex Ace told me Roman’s been hiding out in. After he gave me the address two nights ago, I stared at the piece of cardstock for hours debating whether or not I should come, and if I should do it alone or ask Scarlett, Sebastian, or even Stella to come with me. We all know how that went. Here I am alone, on the outskirts of Hillcrest, in a pretty decent looking building, walking toward the apartment the guy downstairs, who reeked of cigarettes, told me he was staying in. I thought maybe he’d used a fake name or an alias but when I described him to the guy at the front desk, he called him by his name. Roman Wolfe. Just hearing it out loud after years gave me goosebumps and a tight feeling in my gut. Then to make matters worse, the guy went on raving about how Roman was one of his favorite tenants, always bringing him something to eat from the diner when he came back or helping him out with all the maintenance. I have to say that sounds nothing like the guy I once knew. Nothing like the man I saw, for the first time in years, just a few weeks ago. I brace myself for the worst as I arrive at room 222.
My stomach twists in knots as my fist reaches the top of the oak wood door, resting beside the golden numbers mounted on the top. My hand trembles as I raise it to knock softly before freezing midway. “I can’t do this,” I whisper softly to myself, shaking my head and stepping back slowly. But before I can turn around and head back down, a deep, monotone voice makes me freeze in place.
“Jade” he utters, almost in disbelief, as if he's unsure if it really is me who is standing here and not just the illusion of his little sister. My body refuses to turn around, my mind urging it to somehow find a way to vanish into thin air or teleport to another planet, anything to get away from here, away from him, What was I thinking showing up here? I have no plan. I have no escape route. My brother is a criminal, a murderer. He killed my father and who knows what other unthinkable things he’s done, and now here I am before him, alone, unarmed, and so goddamn vulnerable.
“Jade, what are you doing here?” he asks, his tone of voice now composed and seemingly gritty.
I quickly turn and rush past him, “This was a mistake,” I mumble, but don’t get far before his hand reaches for me, grabbing my wrist and jolting me to face him.
“Wait Jade, don’t leave,” he mutters, nervously running his free hand through his tousled hair.
I look up at him and see a glimpse of familiarity in the distinctive shade of light green of his eyes that resembles mine, as he watches me intently awaiting my reaction. Panic courses through my veins, but not because of what I fear he’s capable of, instead because of what I am afraid will happen to me if I stay here any longer. Just two seconds with him and my emotions are flooding me, threatening to drown me in a pool of despair. Where the fuck do all these feelings keep coming from? It’s like they’re appearing out of thin air, suffocating me, and threatening to consume every part of me. My sanity is crumbling, my anxiety is crippling me, and the chaos my life has become in just mere weeks is inconceivable. To make matters worse, now I’m here before my brother facing yet another one of my petrifying fears.
Finding out the reason he left me behind.
For years, since the moment Roman walked out of my life, I’ve fallen asleep to the same three haunting questions.
Why did he leave me behind?
What did I do to make him hate me?
Would he ever come back for me?
All these years, those questions have gone unanswered, haunting my dreams and nightmares, tormenting me in the most horrifying ways every waking moment. I’d fall asleep to visions of him standing before my frail body covered in bruises and laughing at me for being the pathetic little girl that I was. I’d wake up screaming his name, calling out for him to come and save me, to take me out of the hell I was living, forced to live with a woman who felt joy out of my suffering, but he never came. The only thing that gave me any hope, that shed light on the fact that he was alive, were the envelopes of money that would appear in our mailbox monthly. They came with no note, no return address, and no explanation. Just a wad of cash, which if I’m being honest I never once believed was from an honest job he had found at only sixteen years old. I knew it was blood money or drug money, but I didn’t care. It was a stepping stone, a branch that got me one step closer to escaping the hell Scarlett and I were facing living with her mother Lilith and my father. Until she took it and with it any and all of my false hope.
Roman’s tightening grip shocks me out of my memory, bringing me back to the pressing moment at hand. The fear in my eyes, like a plea begging him to let me go, forces him to do just that as he releases me. His eyes roam over me, taking in my daunting appearance. I’ve lost weight, that much I'm sure of. How could I not if everything I eat regurgitates out of me. My jeans don’t fit as snug as they used to, my collarbones and hip bones are even more protruding than they already were, and the muscle of my toned abdomen is slowly fading away. At least my ass is still perky. But standing here swimming in my school uniform, with dark circles around my eyes, I must look like I’ve been through hell and dragged back out of it kicking and screaming.
Not such a far-fetched lie.
“I’m sorry Jade,” he mutters, after a moment of staring blankly at one another, but I’m unsure what he’s apologizing for. The next words spew out of my mouth like word vomit, carrying with them every one of my unspoken and unanswered thoughts.
“Sorry for leaving me five years ago, sorry for murdering my father, sorry for hiding the fact that you're back if you ever were really gone, or sorry for conspiring behind my back with my sister and my friends.” My heart is racing, pumping fiercely in my chest, felt in temples and throat, as I step forward meeting his now furious glare. His white sleeveless T-shirt shows off every one of his tattoos that cover the entirety of his arms, neck, and torso, while his dark tattered jeans make his whole aesthetic reek of a wannabe bad boy. Like a duller, carbon copy of the Horsemen, less privileged, with nonexistent power, and a convoluted purpose.
“For all of it Jade,” he mumbles, under his breath. “For walking away from you when you needed me the most. For abandoning you to a fate much worse than anything I could have ever imagined.” The depth of his voice and the genuineness of his apology make my mind reel with inconceivable thoughts. He moves closer to me reaching out for me once more, his eyes showing a softness like nothing I’ve ever seen in him before. “Let’s go inside, I have so much I need to clear up, that I need to come clean about,”
“Stop,” I shout, backing up and smacking away his hand. “I don’t need you to clear anything up. I don’t want to hear what you’ve done or how you got here,” I shake my head, a sharp chuckle escaping me and I know I must sound like I’m losing it. “I’ve seen enough.” I push past him heading down the hall toward the staircase with him closely following behind me.
“Jade, come on please, let's just go inside. I’ve missed you Gia,” he says, calling me by the nickname he gave me after not being able to say my name when I was born. The nickname I haven’t heard in years stops me in my tracks.
“You don’t get to call me that, you lost that right when you left me. When you left me to fend for myself, with an alcoholic and neglectful father and his sociopathic and abusive girlfriend. You don’t get to act like you’ve spent these years caring what became of me, you lost every right...”
“I know I did Jade; you think I don’t hate what I did to you. You think I don’t wake up every morning cursing the day I turned my back on you hoping I could do anything to take it all back.” His eyes show a pain that I have never seen in him before either. Even as a troubled adolescent he never once showed a semblance of emotion. I honestly thought at one point we were broken, that my bloodline was cursed. Cursed with the inability to feel, the absence of emotion, and worst of all a hollowed heart. Afterall my father was a husk of a man who only ever felt rage, my brother was as indifferent as they came, and me, well I turned off any and all feelings with the flip of a switch. It was the only way I managed to survive. The only one I never was able to escape was anger. I was angry at everyone and everything for so long, using sarcasm and dark humor to deflect the pain coursing through me. I hid behind my cloak of recklessness and impulsivity becoming just another cliche bad girl with an abysmal attitude problem and a promiscuity complex. An imposter of the worst kind.
“Everything I did was because I hated myself for leaving you behind. But I couldn’t take you with me Jade, I couldn’t…” his voice fades out as he anxiously tugs his hair in between his fingers. “Fuck!” he shouts out, startling me.
“I just came by to see if it was really you,” I chuckle to myself and the absurdity of my thoughts, “For a moment I thought maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. My mind is always playing tricks on me. I thought this might be just another one of them, but I see it wasn’t an illusion and the worst part is I feel no better knowing the truth.” I turn and walk away from him not able to stand here and take another one of his false claims and pathetic excuses. But this time he doesn’t bother following me.
I reach the end of the hall about to step down onto the staircase when a door behind me opens. I turn around startled by the noise and see a familiar face, one I never imagined seeing here.
“Drake?” I ask in surprise, not really expecting an answer as it’s obvious it’s him, except he’s shirtless, freshly showered, and slightly out of breath.
“Jade,” he mutters nervously, looking behind him before closing the door. He looks to my right, his left, and sees Roman still standing at the edge of the railing watching us.
“Is that your brother?” he asks, acting as if he doesn’t already know.
