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I toss my phone onto the table, another wave breaking over me. You know what? I’m done with this. I’m done with the silent treatment and avoiding the real problem, which is men telling me what to do.
Leo wants to talk about all this. Fine. We can talk.
I stomp down the stairs into the bedroom, sweep past my desk, and go out into Leo’s giant hallway. It glows with moonlight coming in from his courtyard and low lights. The plush carpeting makes it impossible to stomp, so I give that up. I can act out my righteous anger with soft footsteps. My guest suite is at the opposite corner of the house from his bedroom. I don’t see anyone on the way there, which isn’t surprising. It’s late. Too late to be doing this. I storm past a moment of hesitation. It would be better in the morning. It would be smartest to sleep on it and go down and talk to him at breakfast. But I don’t feel good, and I don’t feel smart. I’m at my wits’ end being this pissed off.
Leo’s bedroom door appears quicker than I thought it would. I take a deep breath and let it out. Anger got me here, but it will get me nowhere with my brother.
His door opens softly. It’s not locked. Light angles in from behind me. “Leo?”
The sound reaches me at the same time the light reaches his bed. Something like a gasp.
Someone else is in his bed.
It’s not Leo.
Leo doesn’t have scars like that. There are so many I can’t tell one from the next. Even in this half-light they’re red and glaring, almost like burns. I catch a glimpse of Haley’s hair. Someone must have gotten in. Someone is attacking her, right in front of me.
I try to scream, but the sound comes out terrified and garbled. What was I going to say? I don’t know, I don’t know. She doesn’t need a warning. She needs Leo to be here, to fight off whoever this is—
The man picks up his head from where it had been, at the side of her neck, I think.
“What the hell, Daphne? You throw a tantrum for days and now you want to talk in the middle of the night? Get out.”
It’s him. I can see his face now, his eyes. Frustration burns there, hot and unfiltered. I can’t move. Leo blinks. The anger’s gone, but it’s been replaced by something else—the same shock and horror I feel right now.
“Jesus. Daphne—”
I don’t wait to hear what he says. I force myself to go. To run. All the way to the opposite side of the house, my gut churning and my skin gone cold. It looked so bad. It looked so, so bad. Something terrible happened to him. His skin. It must have been so awful. I throw myself through the door of my bedroom and stumble to the desk. Drop into the seat.
The tears come fast, one after another. I fold my arms on the smooth wood and rest my head and cry.
Jesus Christ.
It’s so bad.
I don’t know how much later it is when the door glides across the carpet. “Daphne.”
Leo.
I pick up my head from my arms and watch him come into the center of the room. He’s dressed now. Soft black pants. A soft black shirt. My chest hurts.
“Who did that to you?” The question feels like a sore throat. “Was it Dad?”
Because if it was, because if our father did that…
Leo folds his arms over his chest, and it strikes me how tired he looks. It’s late, but there’s more to it than that. Shadows under his eyes. Something near my spine goes numb and buzzing.
“There are some things it’s easier not to know,” he says, his voice tight.
“Who was it?” I might as well be breathing through a straw. “And what—what—”
My brother takes a deep breath. He looks past me, into the corner of the room. Pain is a ghost light in his eyes. He uncrosses his arms and puts his hands in his pockets. “It was Caroline Constantine. With a whip.”
It sinks in slowly. So, so slowly. Horror like a boulder. Confusion like a heavy chain. She did that to him. All those wounds. One by one. The time it must have taken. “Why?”
“A long time ago, I got involved with her.”
“Involved?”
