by K. V. Rose
The blood makes it difficult to see it all, but I find a good angle and clamp the tweezers down, ready to pull. The sliver is tiny, but it can’t stay in there. If it does, I’ll be dealing with more than blood on my hands.
Swiftly, I yank it out, gasping with the relief of it, and holding up the sliver to the light. Tiny, jagged, painful. I go to stand, but the world seems to spin around me. I certainly haven’t lost enough blood to make me dizzy, but I’m dehydrated, and exhausted. I stumble against the counter, setting the tweezers and glass down as I do, catching myself on the marble.
I turn on the sink, splash water on my face, in my mouth.
There are circles under my eyes, which are red and look eerie. The silver of my iris against the veins of my eyes make me look like a monster from a horror movie. I smile at myself.
Good. I want Lucifer to know a monster is coming after him.
I tilt my chin up, take in the state of my throat. The bruises are ugly, splotches of purple and blue. I’ll be damned if anyone else puts their hand around my throat again. Unless I want them to.
“Good morning, Sis.”
Jeremiah’s voice makes me flinch, and I bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Bite it so hard I taste iron.
I glance at him in the mirror. He’s leaning against the frame of the bathroom door, his arms crossed. He’s dressed in a long-sleeve black shirt, and basketball shorts. Sweat has dampened his dark hair.
“Came to visit me after your morning workout?” I ask, keeping my tone even and looking back at myself in the mirror. “I feel special.”
Then I turn to him, leaning against the counter and crossing my arms, mimicking his posture. “Or did you just come to finish what you started last night?”
His pale green eyes don’t falter. He holds my gaze. Nothing about him suggests he feels bad about what he did last night. I still think he probably regrets missing my head.
“If I wanted you dead, Sid, you’d be dead.”
I can’t argue with that. I’m sure it’s true. At the very least, he believes it to be true.
“Then why are you here?”
He glances at the floor, the trail of blood from my foot, which is still bleeding. Band-Aids aren’t my favorite thing, and I’d wanted to shower first.
“What happened?” he asks me, cocking his head.
I want to bash it against the wall. I shrug. “Accident.”
He turns, glancing at the open balcony doors, no doubt seeing the shattered glass outside. He sighs and looks back at me.
“Long night?”
I huff a laugh. “My brother tried to kill me. I got hauled around in a body bag because he doesn’t trust me. And my throat looks like a thunderstorm. So, yeah,” I lift one shoulder in a lazy shrug, “I guess you could say that.”
He smiles. It looks strangely genuine. “A thunderstorm?” he echoes, eyes flicking to my throat.
I swallow. “Yeah. Black and blue with strikes of blinding light, reminding me why it’s best to stay away from storms.”
He’s quiet a moment and then he takes a step toward me, tipping his chin up, looking at the ceiling. He’s going to say something he doesn’t want to say. I wonder if he’s left his guards outside for this very reason. Or maybe they’re in my foyer, hanging onto every word. Wondering how much they’ll be able to rough me up and get away with it now that Jeremiah and I are at odds again.
But we’ve always been at odds.
“Whatever it is you want to say, Brother, spit it out.”
He angles his head down and holds my gaze. “I’m sorry.”
I can’t possibly have heard him right. I frown, shaking my head. “Didn’t quite catch that.”
He slides his hands in his pockets. “I’m not going to say it again, Sid. But last night was too far. It shouldn’t have happened.”
I’m not quite sure my brother isn’t having some sort of seizure. He can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. I shake my head, looking for his angle. Waiting for the next ask. The next thing to make all of this make sense.
But it only gets weirder.
He jerks his head to the edge of the tub.
“Sit,” he says.
“No.”
He rolls his eyes and pushes past me, into the walk-in closet off of my bathroom. “Where are your medical supplies?”
I snort. “Medical supplies? I don’t have those.”
“Band-Aids? Nothing?” he asks, rifling through the cabinet that has normal things like pads and tampons, but no medical supplies. Before I can tell him to fuck off, he finds the box of Band-Aids I must have had tucked away against the wall in the cabinet.
He pulls them out with a smile and then glances around the rest of my closet. It’s not stuffed full of shit, but what’s in there is a plethora of hoodies, jeans, and sneakers.
“Do you need more money?” he asks me, frowning. “These clothes…this is literally all you wear?” He tugs on the sleeve of a bright pink hoodie.
“Fuck off,” I say, relishing in the opportunity.
He clucks his tongue and lets the hoodie go, coming to stand at the tub again.
“Come on, Sid, sit there, please.”
Please.
My brother never says please. I throw up my hands, wondering if maybe his next tactic is to drown me in the tub, and I sit on the edge, extend my bare feet into the empty porcelain.
He slips out of his shoes and socks and steps over me, sitting on the opposite edge, close to the wall. He grabs a washcloth from the ledge and sets the box of Band-Aids down.
“Here,” he says, indicating his thigh. “Put your foot up.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask without moving, leaning against the wall opposite him, my feet firmly planted in the tub. “Are you going to inject some poison into my cut?”
“You really are testing my patience, Sid. Just give me your fucking foot.”
There he is. The real Jeremiah peeking through.
I gingerly lift my foot, examining the dried blood, and the wet blood, still coming from my inner arch. I set my heel on his thigh, and he reaches over to turn on the faucet, testing the temperature of the water as he does so. When it’s sufficiently warm, he puts the washcloth under it, rings it out, and then, carefully, starts to clean my foot.
I never knew my brother could be so careful. I’d never known him to be gentle, ever.
We sit in silence as he works, the white cloth turning red. He rinses it out, rings it, and starts all over again. When the dried blood is taken care of it, he rinses it again, and then holds the cloth to the wound, pressing gently, stopping the blood.
I cross my arms over my chest. Something tight is in my throat, and I swallow it down before I speak.
“Why are you doing this?” I finally manage to ask.
He doesn’t look up from my foot, the cloth still pressed against the wound. “I should’ve taken better care of you,” he says quietly.
I stiffen. He notices, and with one hand still holding the cloth, with the other, he draws circles softly against my ankle, then works his hand up my calf, massaging me. His hand goes back down, then up again, and I slowly relax against his touch.
“I should’ve been better,” he continues. “I should have found you, when we were separated.” He finally meets my gaze. “I went through hell, Sid. But I don’t even know what you went through. Where you went. I tried to find you when I got free. When I found my place with the Unsaints.” I watch him swallow and wonder how much of his lore is true. Had he killed his family? Had they locked him in a cage? For the first time I can remember, my heart hurts for my brother.
“I had been looking for you for a long time. I knew you had somehow made it to North Carolina, too.” He shakes his head at the miracle. He sighs. “I always remembered you liked Halloween, when you were a kid.”
I did. I had begged our mom to take me costume shopping, every single year since I could talk. She never did, but I found shit around the house to be a witch or a cat or anything
that wasn’t me.
“When I found you at the asylum…” He blows out a breath and shakes his head, finally removing the cloth from my foot. The bleeding has stopped, but I don’t move. He keeps a grip on my ankle. “I didn’t know it was you, before then. If I had known…I would have never let you go, Sid. I would have never let Lucifer have you.” The leader of the Unsaint’s name comes out like a growl. “Lucifer was the worst of us. And I was so angry. So goddamn angry that I’d let you get there. That it had taken me so long.”
I bite my lip, tears welling up in my eyes. I brush my hand roughly over my face, trying to hold them back. He had shot a gun just above my head, just last night. I’m looking for the trick in this, because the truth is…I want what he’s saying to be true. I want a big brother. A real one. One that cares. That doesn’t let men like Kristof put their filthy fucking hands on me.
“And I took it all out on you,” he’s saying. “I punished you with the bodies and the death because I was terrified that would be you, if you weren’t careful. I’m terrified they’ll come for you. They never forgive. And I put all that pain I’d felt for you, all that regret I had about you, and I just unleashed it. On you.” His eyes are shining. I’ve never seen my brother cry. I’ve never seen him come close to it. But his green eyes are glittering with tears. He strokes my ankle again, pulling his lip between his teeth before he lets out an unsteady breath.
“I’m sorry, Sid. I don’t want things to be like this.”
I can’t speak. I don’t know what to say. I realize my hands are shaking, and I clench them into fists. I just stare at Jeremiah, trying to find the trick. The nasty surprise. But his face is open, unguarded, probably the only time in his entire fucking life.
He slowly sets my foot down and then he stands, crossing the space in the tub between us. He kneels before me, between my legs, his hands on my thighs. He doesn’t know it, but his hand covers that pearly white scar Lucifer had given me. Maybe he does know it. Maybe he doesn’t want to think about it.
“I love you, Sid. I’ve always loved you. And I missed you every day we were apart.” His hands squeeze my thighs, gently. “I want us to be different.”
I shake my head. “Why?” I croak out. “Why now?”
“Last night I aimed a gun at your head, to teach you a lesson. To show you the monsters that are outside these walls. But I was the fucking monster last night. I’m so sorry, Sid.” He reaches out a hand, puts it gently around the back of my neck and pulls me to him. I press my brow against his, looking down at him.
My beautiful, cold brother. Crying at my feet.
I nod, my lip trembling. “Okay,” I manage to say. “Okay. Let’s do this differently.”
And then I can’t hold back the tears anymore, and for the first time in my life, I cry on my brother’s shoulder.
Jeremiah himself has the glass on the balcony taken care of. And it’s Jeremiah I stand beside when he holds a gun in his hands, pointed at someone else entirely when we are in the meeting room. I usually don’t go in here. Jeremiah calls me after a corpse is created. Before one, he briefs his men here. I have no part in that.
But he had asked me here this morning, after I had taken a shower and bandaged up my foot. He’d called me to watch him take care of someone.
I didn’t know what to expect when I slid into my seat, across from Nicolas at the table. Brooklin sat at the head of the table, one leg crossed over the other, looking bored. But she’d actually bidden me good morning which has never happened once before in the six months we’ve been living under the same enormous roof.
I only inclined my head in response, but it was something. I didn’t know what type of epiphany Jeremiah had had last night, or if Nicolas had said something to him, or if he was on drugs. I liked it, but it made me uneasy. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. Like anything I did slightly wrong would disappoint him and make this all disappear.
And right now, I feel as if I’m holding my breath.
Three guards, Trey included, stand around the room, but Jeremiah is pointing a gun at his best guard.
Kristof.
Kristof is wearing a suit, his own gun at his hip, and he’s holding his massive hands up in submission, shaking his head, darting his eyes to me and back to the gun as he stumbles over excuses.
“I’m sorry,” he’s saying, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. You told me…you told me that she was mine for the night—”
“I didn’t tell you to rape her,” Jeremiah replies coolly. His gaze flicks to mine. “Look at her throat,” he purrs. “Tell me what you see.”
Kristof does. He isn’t surprised, of course. Even in the hoodie I wear now over my jean shorts, the bruises are, unfortunately, visible. I had thought to wrap a scarf around my neck, but then thought the better of. No need to hide war wounds here in this mansion.
“I see…” Kristof trails off, his shoulders sagging, his face scrunching up as he looks back at my brother. “I’m sorry, Rain, I didn’t mean to—”
I roll my eyes. We all know he did, in fact, mean to. We all know he would have finished the job, too, even after I stabbed him, if my brother hadn’t intervened. But I’m not sure what Jeremiah’s next move is. He’s a murderer. If he pulls the trigger, I won’t be all that surprised. But to do it in front of everyone like this…it seems rash.
He sighs, but still aims the gun at Kristof. Everyone in the room seems on edge. Even Nicolas’s thigh is bouncing up and down under the table. The only one who doesn’t seem to care is Brooklin, glancing at her manicured nails as if she can’t wait to get the hell to spin class or a waxing appointment or to trim her pixie cut or some shit.
“Sid, what do you think I should do?” Jeremiah asks me, his eyes trained on Kristof.
I shift in my seat. What the fuck? “I don’t know, Jeremiah. Whatever you think is best.”
His lips twitch into a smile and I see Nicolas bite his lip. “But what do you think is best?”
I consider the question. What do I think is best? Obviously, Kristof is a piece of shit. But so is every single person in this room, for different reasons, me included. None of us are saints. We’re the opposite of saints. We’re all unsainted, whether we’re the spawn of the Society of 6 or not.
I drum my fingers on the table. “Let him live,” I finally say.
Nicolas exhales across from me and nods in my direction, as if I made the right choice. I guess even unsaints have some sort of twisted moral code.
“Really?” Jeremiah asks, sounding surprised. But he still doesn’t look at me. He’s enjoying watching Kristof squirm. I think that letting Kristof live might present a problem for my brother in the future. Kristof will be resentful of this little show. He’ll start to hate Jeremiah, if he doesn’t already. That might not bode well for my brother.
But for now…
“Why not?” I ask. “Let him live. Let’s move on for now.”
I think for a split-second Jeremiah is going to pull the trigger anyway. His mouth is pressed into a thin line as he glares at Kristof, and Kristof actually whimpers, flinching as if he’s getting ready to die.
But then Jeremiah lowers the gun.
“For now,” he agrees, tucking the weapon away. “But if you touch my sister again”—he looks around the room now as he speaks—“if any of you touch my sister, I will fucking blow your head off.”
Silence greets his words.
I smile. “Let’s get started?” I ask, cocking my head. Surely there’s something else we all came here for.
Jeremiah nods, and tosses a smile my way. Then he sits down opposite Brooklin, at the other end of the table. Kristof tries to get his composure back, tugging on his blazer as he takes up his position on the wall. He looks down at his feet.
“Let’s get started,” Jeremiah echoes. He looks to me. “I’ve got another job for you, before your big Halloween night. If you want it.”
I stop drumming my fingers, place my palms flat on the table. “Oh?” I ask, trying to keep my exp
ression bored. Disinterested. But something twists in my gut. Something is warning me I’m not going to like what my brother has to say next.
Jeremiah nods, rubs his hands together. “One of our guys was killed this morning.” He gives that information without a hint of emotion.
“Which guy?” I ask.
He shakes his head. Clearly someone I don’t know. “Doesn’t matter. A runner.” For drugs. “And the shipment was stolen, over the border.” Mexico. I don’t know much about Jeremiah’s jobs, outside of the ones he showed me the result of, but I know what those words mean. They mean war.
“Who did it?” I ask
He flashes me a smile. “Lucifer. The Unsaints.”
My heart sinks. But I had seen Lucifer last night. And while neither Nicolas nor my brother had bothered to ask me where I had gone when I snuck off, I’m sure they might have had an idea.
“Lucifer himself?” I press. “Which one?”
Jeremiah shakes his head. “One of the devils,” he replies easily. “One of their people.”
I swallow. “Okay,” I say. “What do you want me to do?”
Jeremiah exchanges a look with Nicolas. “Find his baby. Find his girl.”
I wait, holding my breath.
“Kill the girl. Kill all of the fucking Unsaints if you find them, too.”
This motherfucker. No wonder he’d played the big brother card earlier. No wonder he’d held a gun to Kristof’s head. He wanted to show me he’d do anything for me, and in turn, I should be willing to do anything for him. But what he doesn’t know, what he doesn’t seem to get, is that I’m as fucked up as he is. As ruthless.
“Okay,” I say, lifting one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Tell me where they are.”
Silence greets those words. Even Brooklin’s mouth drops open, and I see the bright pink gum on her tongue. But she doesn’t dare say a word.
Jeremiah, for his part, looks impressed. He nods, as if confirming something to himself. “You’ll meet with Nicolas around noon, he’ll give you all the information.”