AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I got a postcard from Phoenix, then some calls on a prepaid phone when he moved to Chicago. When that line went dead, I wrote to the PO box he’d given me as his address there, only to get a reply from him from Nashville when that letter was forwarded to his new post box.
And those were the last few times we were in touch. It wasn’t as often as I wanted, and I kept asking him when I could just hop on a bus and at least visit him, if not stay. But Finn was convinced the dealer from LA was still looking for him, and he said he wouldn’t let me put myself in that kind of danger.
Now, I wonder how much of that fear was real, and how much of it was drug-induced paranoia.
Just under two years ago, we talked for the last time. He told me he was moving to New York, and I pretended not to be freaked out at how erratic and unstable he sounded.
I got one postcard from New York once he landed here.
Then nothing.
Eventually, danger or not, I hopped on a bus and came across the country to find him.
And all for nothing, it would seem. Just like I’ve done all of these horrible things for Apostle, fornothing.
There was no gun pointed at Finn’s head, ready to end his life.
He’d already done it himself with a needle.
All this is to say that yes, in many ways, I lost my brother years ago. But it still hurts to hear that he’s dead. And I still can’t do anything but wallow in the guest room Cillian’s left me in.
Or rather, that he’slockedme in.
On a somewhat regular schedule, food arrives at my door, or sometimes he brings it in. There are new, clean, clothes that are my size in the dresser. Toiletries in the ensuite bathroom. But I’ve still barely moved from the bed.
One afternoon, on day number who-even-knows, the door opens a crack. My back is turned to it, lying on the bed, and I wait for the sound of him putting food on the table by the window and telling me to eat it in that firm, authoritarian, tyrant way he has.
But there’s nothing. Suddenly, I hear a tiny pattering sound. Then I startle as a light weight lands on the bed.
Something warm and furry nuzzles at the back of my head, and my heart jumps into my throat.
“Bones!”
I scream so loud that I almost scare him away before I manage to snatch him up and pull him into a huge hug, just as the door to the room shuts softly.
Tears fill my eyes as I hold the cat, nuzzling him for a good few seconds before pulling away to check him out. After all, I’ve been gone fordays. The poor guy must be starving—
My brow furrows. Or…not.
Because he looks well fed…actually, he looks plumper than perhaps I’ve ever seen him. And when I peer closer and sniff, I can literally smell cat food on his breath—the good kind, too. The fancy expensive kind.
“Sooo… You’re doing well, I see.”
Bones meows, squirming out of my arms and meandering over to the other pillow, which he proceeds to knead.
“Well, at least I’ve got you here.”
He turns in a circle three times and then sits on the pillow. Yep, that’s his now.
* * *
It’s maybean hour or two later when the door opens again—withouta knock, as per usual. I stiffen as Cillian steps in, those preternaturally green eyes of his sweeping over me.
As if I’m not dealing with enough, this is myotherreality: I’m apparentlymarryingthis man.
A powerful, wrathful tyrant. A lethally psychotic killer.
Part of me wants to say who fucking cares. What do I even have to live for anymore, anyway? But the fighter in me won’t let me. The fighter in me won’t let me capitulate and be his pawn.
