Chapter 9 #2
‘That’s what they say,’ I murmur noncommittally.
I hear chatter from over my shoulder. Someone’s coming. I incrementally let out the breath I was holding so they don’t know I was scared.
‘Well,’ I say with false brightness, ‘see you around!’
I turn on my heel and walk toward the noises of other people. My knees sting and I try not to give them the satisfaction of seeing me limping, keeping my gait smooth despite the pain and the fact that my legs feel like Jell-o.
When I get into Grinder, Lu greets me with a smile that quickly leaves her face.
‘What happened?’ she demands .
‘Just fell,’ I say, not wanting her to worry.
She makes a sympathetic noise. ‘Come to the back, let’s get you cleaned up. You can’t be noticeably injured before the first battle of the year even starts!’
I chuckle in spite of how I’m feeling, the anxiety twisting through me. What would those guys have done to me if no one had walked by?
My shift is normal, and I’m thankful there’s no more drama. Lu even puts on some classical music, which she knows puts me at ease, and by the time we’re ready to close up, I’m feeling much more like myself.
I thought I was looking forward to the battle, but she is absolutely buzzing with excitement as we get ready. She makes sure my outfit follows all the Dagorhir rules, dressing me in the clothes she brought: a pair of brown leggings with my black boots and a long, medieval-style tunic with hood that I refuse to let her put up. Then, she thrusts a foam sword in my hands and surveys me like a piece of art.
‘Fuck yeah,’ she mutters, putting on her helmet, making sure her tall boots are tied tightly, and grabbing her axe. ‘Ready for some fun?’
Shade
I’m walking through campus when I hear it, the sounds of yelling coming from the playing fields by the woods. I already know it’s that group of students who dress up and carry around foam swords and shit. I can never remember the name, but I’ve seen them around campus battling with each other.
I stop for a minute with the rest of the student body who are watching the scene, just because I have a little time to kill. There are about fifteen people fighting in the grass, and three or four ‘bodies’ lying on the ground. I’m about to leave when my eyes catch on a girl with brown hair who looks familiar. She swings a sword, slicing someone’s stomach, and they go down with a dramatic death cry, falling flat on the ground. Another girl swings an axe at her, hitting her arm.
She stops the sword and puts her hand behind her back, laughing loudly as she takes the axe in the stomach and clutches herself. She falls into the grass, and I realize I’m smiling.
When there’s only one member standing, the battle ends and I’m just about to leave when the girl I was watching stands up and turns toward me, a huge smile on her face and I freeze.
Daisy?
Another girl gives her a hug and I watch as she tenses for a second and then returns it. My mouth falls open.
I’ve never seen her like this, I realize. She’s so ... carefree. Happy . She giggles when her friend says something, and I just stand there as they trudge past me, trying to match this Daisy up with the one I know.
Daisy’s too busy talking animatedly to her friend to notice me, but I see the girl she’s with do a double take when she sees me, and her eyes narrow.
‘Oh, shit! I lost my keys,’ she exclaims.
‘Do you want me to help you find them?’ Daisy asks.
‘No, you go with the others to the coffee shop. I think I know where I dropped them. I’ll just go grab them, and I’ll be there in a minute.’
Daisy keeps walking and I tilt my head at the friend, who stays where she is until Daisy’s out of sight before she turns to me.
‘Shade, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, putting my hands in my pockets and stonily staring down at her in her weird costume .
But she doesn’t seem intimidated by me at all. She points at me with her double-sided foam axe, which looks remarkably realistic now that I can see it close-up.
‘I need to talk to you.’
I snort. ‘About what?’
‘About Daisy.’
My eyes narrow. ‘You’re the friend I heard about.’
‘Lu,’ she nods. ‘I work with her at Grinder.’
I take my hands out of my pockets and fold them over my chest. ‘What about her? You have a problem with her, or something?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, of course not. She’s great.’
It seems like this girl really is Daisy’s friend.
‘What is it then?’
‘Have you heard what people say about her? The rumors about the thing that happened? She told me?—’
So that’s what this is about.
‘Look,’ I interrupt, ‘everyone knows already. It was a decade ago. I’m not about to be blackmailed for?—’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ she asks, looking genuinely perplexed. ‘I’m trying to tell you if you’ll shut up for a minute that I think your step-sister is in danger.’
My laugh is immediate and she scowls.
‘That’s really good,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘Your acting skills are on-point, but, come on, Daisy’s in danger ? From what? Being bludgeoned with a foam axe?’
Lu crosses her arms over her axe and regards me with a stare until I stop laughing.
‘I’m not kidding. People say nasty shit to her every day, but that’s not all. Did you know that someone yelled that she was a killer and threw hot coffee all over her the other week?’
‘No,’ I say a little stiffly.
‘There have been other things, too. She came in for her shift today covered in bloody scrapes. She said she fell, but I don’t believe her.’
‘She might have just fallen like she said,’ I tell Lu. ‘She can be really clumsy.’
I step closer. ‘You know it’s all true, right? The rumors. She killed a kid. Did she tell you?’
Lu’s scoffs at me. ‘Wow. With family like you, who’d need enemies, right? Yeah, she did tell me, actually. But she was a kid, too and she paid her debt. She’s my friend and I’m trying to look out for her. Look, Shade, everybody here knows your family is into some shifty shit. You need to make sure she’s okay. You didn’t see her when she came in after she fell. She was scared, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen her like that. It’s getting worse. They put notes in at the coffee shop. Threats. Be a fucking brother, or whatever you are to her and make sure she has protection.’
‘Fine,’ I grate out. ‘I’ll look into it.’
Lu gives me one final, scathing look and walks off in the direction of the Quad.
I stare after her, more concerned than I should be considering I was the one who divulged Daisy’s past to Laurie and told her to spread it around.
I message the pledges as I walk to my car, telling them to meet me in the games room later. If the stuff Lu said is true, then they will have seen it happening, since we require them to trail around after Daisy as part of their hazing duties. I think Blake even made them a spreadsheet to log her movements, but I haven’t looked at it.
I leave the campus, driving the twenty minutes over to the club, located in the heart of Richmond proper. I park down the alley where my usual spot is and go in through the side door.
It’s closed until ten, so it’s quiet when I slip inside. The staff are restocking the bar and getting stuff ready for tonight, but we don’t open for a few hours yet.
I go upstairs and sit at the desk in the office to go over the revenues. It’s easier to do it here where there aren’t so many distractions ... mostly in the form of my stepsister.
I’ve been at this for hours. I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is Daisy, and what Lu said was happening.
She has to go. She has to. She’s not ready to be out in the real world anyway, especially if she’s being targeted. Because of me.
My sigh is long.
When I saw her earlier messing around with her friends ... I liked it. Seeing her laughing and having a good time was amazing. She was never like that at home. I thought it was because she couldn’t be happy, but now I wonder if maybe it was because she just wasn’t happy.
I mean, I understand. I don’t think any of us were anywhere near content in that house, but I got to go out. I did sports after school. I went to my friends’ houses. She never got to do that stuff. My dad wouldn’t let her. He barely wanted her to go to school with the other kids. Her mom was the one who made that happen. It might have been the only time April got her way during the decade she was a Novelle.
She still has to go.
I brush away the thoughts and try to focus, only to get a message from the sophomores asking about the Halloween party thirty seconds later.
I roll my eyes. Like I give a shit.
They’re still in that world, I remind myself. They have three more years, whereas Mav, Blake, and I are almost done here .
I look down from the two-way mirror that makes up one of the office walls, watching our employees for a second.
Focus!
I turn my attention back to the numbers and start making Pivot charts so I can show the others everything with colorful visuals. Blake especially appreciates that.
The numbers surprise me. They’re not bad. Better than I expected after the shit that’s been going on anyway. We’re definitely growing.
I sit back, doing some quick calculations. If things keep going on as they are, we’ll have the seed money to set up and fund our own lab in two years. It’s longer than we’d originally planned, but maybe we can make it work. I just need to keep my father and my brother in the dark until then.
I finish up and go downstairs.
‘Shade.’
I turn to find Dom, the club’s manager and Mav’s older brother, sauntering toward me. ‘I heard some chatter. Think there’s gonna be a raid soon.’
‘Just what I need right now,’ I sigh. ‘Make sure there’s nothing for them to find.’
‘Already done. You and my baby bro any closer to a breakthrough?’
‘Getting there. I’m hoping before Christmas. No more problems with Chris and his brother’s guys?’
‘I spoke to the brother.’ Dom shrugs. ‘So long as Sark gets what was promised, he says they’ll stay out of this part of town for now, and they won’t make any problems for you at the college.’
‘Good. The last thing we need after last year is more trouble that will put us in the sights of law enforcement. Anyway,’ I turn away and start walking, ‘I gotta get back.’
‘You here tonight? ’
I shake my head. ‘One of the others maybe, but call me if anything happens.’
‘Will do, boss.’
I leave through the side door and get in the Jag. It only takes twenty minutes or so to get from the club to the KIP house, and on the way I try not to think about the lab and the problems we’re having getting the levels right.
It’s only a matter of time. I know that. It’s just that I thought this would be done by now, and Sark is getting antsy. I’m conscious that someone could figure out what we’re doing and blab to my father for a pat on the head. It’s unlikely. We keep everything secured and only a handful of people are even allowed in there. We outsource nothing. Only Applegate knows the truth, and he’s all in for his own reasons, so I know he’s not going to rat us out.
But it’s been setback after setback for weeks. And then Daisy arrived and she’s been a pain in my ass since she got here.
Which reminds me, she’s due payback for almost starting a fire in the kitchen. I wouldn’t usually care, but we have too much riding on this year to have her here. She needs to be somewhere where she’ll be safe, especially if the stuff Lu said wasn’t exaggerated nonsense.
I thought she’d be long gone by now, but she’s stronger than I thought ... than I remember her being.
The original plan isn’t going to work. It was riding on her breaking quickly and publicly, and then me being able to tattle on her. But it’s been a month and we’re out of time.
If she suspects anything and she goes to my father, that’s it. I’ll be financially dependent on that asshole until his dying day, and if there’s anything I know, it’s that the people who deserve to die live to ripe old ages and good people pass away too soon. People like my mom and April.
But it’s not just me. Mav and Blake don’t come from money. If this goes badly, neither of them have the funds for Grad School. Blake is here on a wrestling scholarship, for God’s sake. He hates it, but it’s the only way for him.
If John Novelle finds out anything before we’re ready for him to, my best friends will end up as high school science teachers or working in some obscure lab testing water . This is their only ticket to the big leagues.
I pull up to the house and go inside.
The nights are creeping in. There’s no one in the kitchen, but I hear someone shooting pool. There’s low talking coming from the other room and I know the pledges will be waiting like I told them to be.
I grab a beer and go in. All twenty of them are in there. They straighten as I go in.
‘Good, you’re all here. You know you’ve all been trailing Daisy around. Have any of you seen anyone saying mean stuff to her, following her, throwing stuff at her?’
The guys look around at each other.
‘Nope,’ one of them says. ‘We’ve been doing exactly what you said, Admiral. I haven’t noticed anything like that.’
Others mutter the same.
‘Okay,’ I mutter, cursing the drama queen friend. ‘You’re all to keep an eye on her and let us know if that changes.’
I leave to a chorus of, ‘Yes, sirs’ with a roll of my eyes.
I head upstairs and hear the guys in Mav’s room, talking in low voices. My foot makes a board creek and their chatter stops immediately.
I frown in the darkness of the hall. The bathroom door is closed, and I hear the shower.
I walk into my friend’s room. ‘You turned the hot water back on, huh? I thought we agreed to leave it off until next week.’
‘It’s getting cold out. We all need hot water,’ Mav says with a shrug .
‘Plus, Marcus and those two other assholes left her outside for a half hour in the rain the other night.’
Mav’s look is sharp. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘I dealt with it,’ he mutters.
My frown deepens. Since when do they care about the guys locking Daisy out? They’ve been doing it all month.
‘You added her keycard to the system?’ Mav asks.
Blake nods. ‘She won’t be stuck out there again.’
‘Why bother?’ I ask, looking from one to the other and trying to figure out what I’ve missed. ‘She’s leaving as soon as we can make it happen. And who gives a shit if they leave her on the doorstep and she gets a little cold?’
‘She was shivering when I let her in,’ Blake says, standing up and looking a little pissed off. ‘Her skin was freezing. It took her at least an hour to warm up. She’s gonna get sick.’
With every sentence Blake utters, I feel my eyebrows lifting. ‘So, you let her in, and you stayed with her for over an hour and you were touching her.’
What is that feeling deep inside me? No. It is NOT jealousy.
They look at each other and I feel my fists clenching hard.
‘We need to talk,’ Mav says. ‘About Daisy.’
‘What about her?’ I grind out.
Why does everyone want to talk to me about Freaking Daisy all of a sudden? What’s this about? Jesus, what if she attacked someone again? Is there another kid lying in a pool of their own blood somewhere?
‘You should sit down.’
‘What did she do? Did she hurt someone?’ I can’t stop my voice from trembling.
They look at each other again.
‘Stop fucking doing that and answer me!’
‘No, she didn’t hurt anyone,’ Mav says, looking confused .
My body unclenches and I let out a sigh of relief. I hear the shower stop and my eyes narrow at them both.
‘If you two fucks won’t help me get her sent away, I’ll do it my damn self,’ I say, striding from the room and into Daisy’s.
‘Where are you going? Shade?’
They follow me and she comes in wrapped in a towel a moment later, stopping just inside the room when she sees us.
‘We were just leaving,’ Blake says, trying to push me out the door.
I level him with a warning look that makes him swear under his breath.
‘We’re not going anywhere.’ My dark gaze lands on Daisy, who’s looking guileless and innocent as usual.
But I remember how she was that first day. I remember her little act for my father.
‘Take off the towel.’
‘Sorry?’ she asks, eyes widening as she takes a step back.
‘Shade,’ Mav mutters. ‘I don’t think you should be?—’
‘Shut up or get out,’ I say. ‘This is happening.’
Her lip quivers a little. ‘What’s happening?’
‘You almost set the house on fire with those Pop Tarts!’ I thunder and am gratified by her flinch. ‘I know you did it to get back at us. The pledges were cleaning up the water for hours. It’s going to cost thousands to fix the water damage. The house got charged five grand already because the firehouse had to send a truck. They’re automatically called when the smoke detectors go off. Did you know that?’
She shakes her head.
‘Do you have five grand, Daisy?’
Another small shake.
‘Then you’ll have to pay the price for what you did another way. ’
Her expression shutters immediately.
‘We don’t need to do this now,’ Mav tries, but I put up my hand to quiet him.
‘Yes, we do. Give me the towel, Daisy.’
She doesn’t move and I smirk.
‘Nothing we haven’t seen every day for the past month.’
‘W-what do you mean?’ she asks in a small voice.
‘Didn’t the guys tell you? We have cameras all through the house. In this room. We have videos of you, Daisy. A ton of them. We’ve seen you sleeping, getting dressed. Everything. The nights are getting colder, you know? Maybe you should get some pajamas, huh? But then I guess the rest of the guys in the house would rather see you sleeping naked. Right, Blake?’ I smile darkly. ‘Blake showed them to some of the guys a couple nights ago. They?—’
‘Stop it, Jack,’ she says.
The color has drained from her face. Her eyes dart to Blake. He shakes his head.
‘That’s not true. No one’s seen them but us three.’
‘Maybe I’m lying. Maybe I’m not.’
She stares at me, and when I think she’s about to burst into tears, she says the one thing that she knows I can’t bear to hear.
‘You sound like your father,’ she whispers.
I’m in front of her before I even realize I’ve moved, a snarl on my face that she doesn’t even have the sense to cower from. I rip the towel away from her and take her by her wet hair. She lets out a squeal as I bend her forward over her empty desk and slap her hard on her ass with my palm.
‘Shade, stop!’ Mav says, trying to pull me off her, but I push him away.
‘Fuck you!’ I snarl at her, giving her another smack that propels her forward. ‘I’m nothing like him! Did he ever punish you like this? Did he? ’
‘No,’ she says, her voice breaking.
‘Apologize for costing the house thousands of dollars!’
‘I’m sorry!’ she squeals as my palm connects with her ass cheek again, but her head swivels and she looks back at me. ‘But I’m not!’ she spits with tears on her cheeks.
I slap her again and this time she bites her lip, no sound escaping at all past a small gasp.
She’s shuddering under my arm that’s across her back to keep her over the desk. I notice large bruises yellowing on her back and I realize they must be from when she jumped into the river.
‘What about the river?’ I snarl. ‘Are you sorry for that? Jumping in? You could have capsized us, you selfish little bitch!’
‘I didn’t jump, you asshole!’ she hisses through her clenched teeth. ‘I fell out because you didn’t even tell me what we were doing. I wasn’t wearing the right clothing, and I wasn’t prepared at all. I’ve never even been in a fucking boat before! But you knew all that. You did it on purpose because you’re trying to get rid of me!’
She heaves a breath.
‘I know you hate me,’ she says, the fight seeming to leave her as her head falls gently to the desk. ‘I deserve it, and I was ... am sorry for all of it. But it was a debt I actually paid properly. It’s done. I’m not going back there.’
‘You don’t get to decide that,’ I grind out. ‘You don’t belong out here.’
I don’t know why I do it, but I swipe a finger up her slit. She gasps loudly. For a second I’m frozen in surprise.
‘You’re wet, Daisy,’ I say loudly enough for the others to hear. ‘Are you sorry for that? I’m your fucking brother .’
She snorts. ‘You’re the one who kissed me, remember, brother ? ’
My hands leave her and she scrambles to her feet, whirling on me, not bothering to hide her body.
‘What the fuck?’ I hear Blake mutter behind me.
I turn around and follow his eyes to her knees. Both of them are grazed badly and one of her shins is as well. There’s a dark bruise on her chest over her heart.
I grab her hands almost without thinking and find them cut up as well.
‘Those weren’t there before,’ Blake mutters.
I cast a look at my friend, silently promising him that he will be telling me what he did with Daisy.
‘What happened?’
‘My stepbrother went psycho!’ she snarls.
‘He means the grazes, Daisy,’ Mav says in a soothing voice.
‘Tripped.’ She levels me with a stare that lasts for a few seconds longer than usual before her eyes move away again. ‘You know how clumsy I am.’
My words to her friend are flung back in my face, though Daisy couldn’t know about our conversation because I doubt Lu would have mentioned it. She didn’t seem to want Daisy to know she was speaking to me. If there’s more going on, wouldn’t the pledges have said something when I asked?
I belatedly grab the towel off the floor and hand it to her. She snatches it and puts it in front of herself.
What the hell am I doing?
‘I’m sorry,’ I murmur. ‘But we can’t have you here. I’m ... going to tell my father that you did something.’
‘Did what?’ she asks.
‘I’ll make something up,’ I say quietly, wondering why I didn’t just do that before.
Maybe I wanted her to have a chance on some level.
I see her eyes narrow even as they glisten with new tears.
‘Piss off, Jack,’ she whispers. ‘You’re such a hypocrite. ’
‘Jesus fuck!’ Blake snarls. ‘She’s not going anywhere. We need her.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Mav, show him.’
Mav leaves the room, casting worried glances at me and at Daisy as he does.
I stand and stare at Blake who’s watching Daisy closely.
‘Mav said you can’t talk when you’re upset,’ he says quietly.
She nods, not looking at me. ‘Sometimes.’
‘But you can now?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Even after ... that?’
She glances at me and sniffs. ‘It’s different with him. It always was. Probably because he makes me so angry.’
I snort.
Blake’s face is as blank as hers is. ‘Right.’
Mav comes back into the room holding a folder. He thrusts it at me before going to Daisy.
‘Are you okay?’
She nods stiffly, shying away from his touch as he urges her over to the bed and she sits down with a small wince that makes me feel like even more of an asshole. She was right, I think as I open the folder, I am acting like John.
‘What is this?’
‘The first are the formulas that Marcus did; the reason the tests didn’t have the results we thought. The second are the correct ones.’
‘Fucking Marcus,’ I whisper. I take a look at the second, corrected paper. ‘I don’t recognize the writing. Who did this? Did Applegate finally find us an assistant?’
‘It’s mine,’ Daisy says from her seat on the bed, ‘and before you say I’m trying to trick you, I was in the lab and so was Mav. He can tell you I didn’t cheat somehow. I’m your new assistant. Congrats.’
Mav nods.
‘B-but,’ I splutter. ‘You ... why were you in the lab?’
‘I went to see Applegate. I switched majors to Chem and Physics.’
‘Marguerite, you ... can’t do even one major like that; it’s too much for you, let alone two. Blake is the only one of us who ... This is insane.’
‘I had the credits. Your dad put me in English because he knew I hadn’t done hardly any classes like that. He did it on purpose. He wanted me to fail.’
That does sound like something he would do. He wouldn’t even need a real reason past spite.
‘And Applegate just made you our ... Oh!’ I put my hand to my forehead with a chuckle. ‘I see what happened. Applegate recognized your last name. He must have seen Novelle and just assumed?—’
‘Well, that would be a neat trick,’ Daisy spits at me, ‘considering I’m not a Novelle. I’m Evans here. That’s how John enrolled me at Richmond. Only a couple of people know John is my stepfather and Applegate isn’t one of them.’
My mouth opens and then closes.
‘You didn’t do well when we were in school together,’ I accuse, ‘and now you’re suddenly what? A genius?’
‘I don’t know what my grades were in school,’ Daisy says quietly. ‘I never saw any report cards. Your dad was the one who told me ... and you and Mom that I was failing. Maybe I was. It wasn’t ... a good time in my life.’
‘What do you want, Daisy?’ I ask quietly.
‘I just want to stay. I want to finish and get my degree. I want to work in the lab. I?—’
‘I can’t let you do that!’ I snap, running my hands through my hair in frustration .
‘Why not?’ Mav asks. ‘She’s better than the others and we need an assistant. Plus, she’s nothing like what you told us.’
‘You don’t know her,’ I mutter.
‘Neither do you,’ Blake says, stepping between us. ‘I’m sick of listening to you when it comes to her. You’re biased. Your dad told you a ton of shit that clearly wasn’t true or else how could she have?—’
‘She fucking killed a kid!’
The guys freeze, their eyes on Daisy.
She winces. ‘I was a kid, too, Shade.’ She glances over at the others. ‘I don’t have anything I can say except that it was a long time ago, and I’m sorry for it. I spent ten years in the clinic because of what I did, and I’ve never done anything like that since. Please believe me.’
‘Even so,’ I say after a moment, wanting so badly to believe her. ‘You know that what we’re working on is a?—’
‘A drug.’
My angry eyes find the others. ‘You told her!’ I accuse
They shake their heads. ‘No, of course not!’
‘Actually it was obvious from the formulas,’ she says. ‘I already know it’s a drug and it behaves like an opiate, though it isn’t one. Revolutionary ... if you could get it right.’
‘Jesus Christ. I had no idea she could figure it out from what we gave her.’ Mav looks like he’s going to throw up. ‘Marcus never did. He had no clue.’
‘You can’t tell anyone, Daisy,’ Blake mutters, looking worried.
‘I won’t,’ she says, looking back at us through wide, naive eyes that are at odds with her words. ‘Provided you keep me as a lab assistant.’ She looks at me and her gaze sharpens. ‘And you never do that again ... And you all stop being horrible to me all the time. It’s not very nice. And the cameras have to go.’
I draw myself up tall and find I don’t like the way she leans back as if she’s afraid I’m going to do something. ‘Fine. You can be our assistant provided you can do the work.’
‘I’ve already proven–’ she begins.
I shake my head. ‘Not to me you haven’t and this is my project, Daisy.’
She shrugs.
‘We’ll all stop being nasty to you, too, okay? But the cams stay. They’re for your protection, and Blake never showed anyone anything. I was being an asshole,’ I mutter.
She doesn’t look happy, but I hear the other guys leave the room and begin talking quietly out in the hallway.
Fuck. This is going to take some damage control to fix, for them ... and Daisy.
‘And the hitting?’ she asks.
‘The spanking I gave you...’ I regard her thoughtfully. ‘I won’t do it again unless I have your consent.’
She frowns. ‘Why would I ever agree to you doing that?’
I remember how wet she felt after I was done and suppress a shiver. It’s too much, too soon. For both of us.
‘You might be surprised,’ I say quietly, and I can practically see the cogs in her head turning as she tries to figure it out.
She seems so worldly sometimes, but at times like these, I can see the gaps in her adolescent education from the years she spent at that place. There’s stuff she just doesn’t know that other people our age do.
‘We’ll get the pledges to back off as well,’ I say as I move toward the door. ‘And Blake has fixed your keycard so that you can get in and out of the house by yourself.’
She nods a little absently.
‘Come down with us for dinner?’ I ask, trying to give her an olive branch after being such a dick.
‘Maybe,’ she says noncommittally, and I make a mental note to bring her something later if she doesn’t come downstairs.
I go out into the hall and see the other two waiting for me. Before I know what’s hit me, I’m thudding into the wall and my head is ringing. I rub my jaw, feeling it for a break as I scowl at Mav.
‘Relax,’ he snarls at me. ‘I didn’t break it, but if you pull that shit again with her, I will! Regardless of what you said in there, this project is important to all of us and you aren’t putting it and all our futures in jeopardy because of your family issues.’
‘Understood,’ I mutter, turning to go to my room and lick my wounds, but then an unwelcome thought occurs to me and I turn back to face them. ‘Is this just about the project? Or is it about her?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Blake asks quietly.
‘I’ve seen the way you guys look at her.’
‘How do we look at her?’ Blake asks, all wide-eyed and artless.
‘Like she’s a snack,’ I say very quietly.
Mav snorts. ‘You better look in the mirror, Shade, because that’s how you look at her, too.’
‘She’s my sister!’ I hiss.
They both laugh and my brow furrows.
‘Please! She isn’t your sister. She’s your estranged stepsister at most, and she sure as shit doesn’t look at you like you’re her brother.’
‘I— really?’ I shake my head. ‘It doesn’t matter!’
Mav rolls his eyes. ‘Whatever, dude. What do you want for dinner?’
‘I don’t care,’ I mutter. ‘Decide and tell the pledges what to get. I’ll be down in a minute.’
I go into my room and close the door, my mind awash with all the things I ever heard my father say about Daisy. She was stupid. She didn’t apply herself. She needed to make friends with other girls. She needed to smile, stop fighting, stop arguing, stop pretending she was special, be like the other girls. The list went on and on, and although my dad was pretty much the same with Andy and me, I’m kind of thinking now that Daisy got the worst of it.
Where was her mom through all of this? I can remember April being there. She was usually in the room while my dad was going off on his little tirades when Daisy would come home from school, but she never said anything in Daisy’s defense, even when my dad was clearly wrong.
I can see Daisy in my mind’s eye. She’s standing in the middle of the room, not saying a word, not looking at anything except the floor. My dad would invite her to explain her actions or lack thereof, but she never did. When Andy or I did something wrong, he would make us do extra homework or lines in the library, or we’d lose TV and videogame privileges. But he’d get in Daisy’s face and scream at her. He’d make her go to the kitchen to help the staff or to the upstairs bathrooms to clean instead of doing her homework. He’d tell her that was the life she could look forward to if she didn’t try harder. Her mom never stopped him, never spoke up.
At the time, I never even considered how weird it was. I was just a dumb kid with no experience of married couples, but now that I think about it, I don’t get it. My dad could be a real fucker, and Daisy had no one fighting in her corner at all. Why didn’t her mom seem to care?
I lay on my bed for a while, and I realize the guys were right. I don’t actually know Daisy. I did understand her when we were kids, but I actually don’t know the first thing about her these days. She’s staying, at least for now. Maybe it’s time I actually put in the effort to become her friend the way I was ... or thought I was, when we were thirteen. Maybe I need to give her a chance. It’s been ten years since everything happened. She was a child and she’s right. She’s paid her debt.
She’s back and she still has no one to look out for her. No one but me.
I could be that person. I could make sure she’s okay and taken care of the way she should have been in the month since she got here. I mean, I didn’t even ask her if she was okay after April’s funeral, a day that’s seared into my mind. I didn’t even think of Daisy. I just assumed she didn’t have the capacity to care that her mom was dead.
What a self-absorbed prick.
Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I shudder at the thought of being anything like that son of a bitch. There’s no way I’m going to be if I can possibly help it , I think as I get up and go into the hallway. I go to Daisy’s door and knock.
Time to be the person I should have been for her.
The problem is that’s not a brother.