Chapter 46
“What do you want from me?”
The rain clawed at the windows, streaking the glass in jagged lines. Xanthy sat on the edge of the couch like she was trying to disappear into it, the phone clutched to her chest as if it could shield her. My gun hung heavy at my side, an extension of my hand, and a silent fucking promise.
She looked so small. So breakable. Her knuckles were white, and her lips trembled. The smell of steel and oil was thick in the air between us.
“You know what I want,” I said, my voice low and calm. The kind of calm that made her flinch.
“Carrington…please…” Her voice cracked and broke, a sound I hadn’t heard from her since we were kids, when Father beat me in front of her.
I stepped closer to her, my boots thudding softly against the warped floorboards of the apartment. I didn’t need to shout. My presence alone bent her spine, made her breathe as if she were drowning.
Just wait.
“Don’t please me,” I said. “Say it exactly. No hesitation. No stammering. One wrong word and you’ll wish you had listened better.”
She blinked up at me, wide-eyed. “But…you’re my brother. You’re not like this…”
“I was always like this,” I told her, tilting my head so she could see my eyes in the dim light. “You just liked the mask I wore better. That mask isn’t here tonight, sister.”
Her hands shook as she fumbled with the phone, and I crouched down, bringing my face level with hers. The tremor in her fingers and the tear tracks down her cheek were perfect. Fear was the edge I needed.
My little puppets with strings taut, ready to sever at my orchestrated hand.
“You’re going to do exactly what I told you,” I whispered. “Call him. Say the words. Make him believe every syllable. Let me hear the panic. Make him think you’re falling apart. That’s the only way this works. If not...”
She hesitated, her eyes darting to the gun. “And…if I don’t?”
Ah. The defiance. Maybe this is the single shred that made my Shiloh tolerate her this long, however, to me. It’s simply annoying.
I dropped the pretenses I held every fucking day. I let my voice drop to my usual dark register. I slumped and watched my eyes reflected in the windows as they grew void of emotion.
I let her feel it.
I let the edge slip into my tone.
“Then he gets hurt,” I said softly. “Or you do. Maybe both. Do you really want to test me and find out?”
Her throat bobbed. “No…”
“Good girl,” I murmured.
She dialed with shaking fingers. I stood perfectly still, just watching. Her voice trembled, and tears were falling free, adding weight to the spiral I’d set in motion.
Perfect.
Shiloh answered and immediately started screaming at her.
I couldn’t help but snicker silently.
My pushy sister seemed to push Sunshine too far, and now she was paying for it with a tongue-lashing about patience, something Alexandra Harding would never know.
“Shiloh…please…please. Just listen,” she whispered into the phone, her voice small and trembling. “I need you to go back to where it began. Please…for me.”
I leaned back against the wall, letting her words roll into the room.
Perfect. Exactly perfect.
My sister’s fear would reach him, and the beautiful little hero would come running.
Every note of her voice would lock into him and make him panic, make him understand how serious I fucking was.
Make him see what he had lost, and what he had abandoned before they both lived happily never fucking after.
She started to say more, and I frowned, lifting the gun and shooting the phone out of her grip.
“What the fuck!”
I saw her collapse slightly, curling further into herself, shivering, letting the sobs come in waves as she sank to the floor by the couch.
I didn’t move toward her, not yet.
My hand rested lightly on the armchair, my thumb brushing the material as if to remind her that every word had consequences.
“You understand why you did this, don’t you?” I said, circling her slowly. “Because if you didn’t, he would get hurt. You don’t want him hurt, do you?”
She shook her head, her voice a ragged whisper. “I…I don’t…”
“Good,” I repeated.
She pressed her palm to her forehead, trying to steady herself. “Carrington…he’s going to be okay, right. You’re just…drunk and acting crazy right now?”
I tilted my head, watching her.
“That depends on him,” I said softly. “And you.”
My thumb brushed the cool metal of the gun, slowly. I let the words sink into her like stones pressing down.
She swallowed, shivering. The rain drummed harder against the window, a low, steady roar that mirrored my pain.
I tuned out her sobs that filled the apartment.
Instead, I breathed in slowly, patiently…
waiting. Shiloh was already spiraling, likely drunk, terrified, and on the road. He had nowhere to hide now.
When he saw my gift, the mask, the blood, the proof of his mistake, he would understand not just that he’d been hunted. Not just that he’d been manipulated, but I had always been in control.
The sound of the rain grew heavier outside, filling the apartment like white noise, a static that lulled me. Xanthy sat frozen on the couch, her hands intertwined, and her eyes on the bullet hole in the phone, as if it could pull her out of this room.
Sorry, dear sister. We are all a little mad, and tonight, this version of me you can’t escape.
I watched her for a long time, silent and calculating.
She didn’t recognize me anymore.
That much was clear.
She kept flicking her eyes toward the gun in my hand. I let her, making sure it glinted in the dim lighting.
Fear was a language, one I had been fluent in for years.
I finally turned from her and walked toward the old storage trunk against the far wall. My boots creaked against the floor, and she flinched at every sound.
I crouched down, flipped the latch, and opened the lid. Inside, everything was exactly where I’d left it—a plastic bag, gloves, and the mask I’d used back then.
The smiley face stared up at me with its crude black cut-out grin, a grotesque joke against the rain-streaked halo. I pulled it out slowly, feeling the weight of it in my hands.
“Do you remember this?” I said to her without turning.
I could hear the tinkle of her earrings as she shook her head quickly. “No…I don’t—”
“Yes. You do,” I said, my voice low. “You saw it that night. We both did. It’s where all of this began.”
I reached into the bag again, pulling out the small vial of rabbit blood I’d mixed earlier. His favorite. I uncapped it and let the thick red liquid drip over the mask, speckling the plastic like rust.
Xanthy gasped softly behind me. “Carrington…what are you doing?”
I turned the mask over in my hands, letting the blood pool in the corners of the grin. “Reminding him,” I said.
“Reminding him of what?” she whispered.
“Of what happens when you take what’s mine.”
The words came out colder than I expected. For a second, even I felt the chill.
I set the mask on the table and tugged on a pair of gloves. My movements were deliberate and slow. I’d learned long ago that control was everything. The slower I moved, the more she shook. The more she shook, the more she obeyed.
I own you both.
“You still think I’m the same brother who used to sneak you candy from the store,” I said, glancing at her. “But you can’t be so dull as to believe that truly. You know deep down I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time.”
Her lips trembled. “Then why…why involve me? Why make me do this?”
“Because he believes you. He always has. That’s why you’re useful. That’s why you’re here. The blinding light he clings to.”
Her breath hitched, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.
“You’re scaring me. Carrington let me go,” she whispered.
“Good.” I tilted my head, staring at the bloody mask. “Fear allows one to tell the truth.”
She started crying harder then, quiet and shaky. I ignored it.
I walked to the window, lifting the edge of the curtain, and peering out into the rain. My car sat across the street, the engine was off, just waiting. Everything was in place. The counterpart to the mask in my hand would be waiting when he got home. Missing its pair, lost without its equal.
He would see it, and he would know.
“Carrington…please stop this,” Xanthy whispered to me. “You’re scaring me so bad. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
I turned then, slow enough to make her feel the cold truth I set her with. “I told you already,” I said softly. “I’m exactly who I’ve always been. You just never looked close enough.”
Her sob caught in her throat.
I stepped closer to her, letting a smile curl my lips, the mask dangling from my fingertips like a taunt.
“This isn’t about you, Xanthy. Don’t let your ego swell too much. This is about him. He has to come back to where it began. He has to face what he’s done. And you’re going to help me make sure of it.”
She shook her head violently. “I don’t understand what you’re saying—”
“You don’t have to,” I cut her off. “You just have to trust me.”
She blinked at me through her tears. “You’re my brother. I’m trying to—but you’re really unstable. Please let me get you help, Care.”
I crouched in front of her then, close enough for her to see the tremor in my jaw, the faint tremble in my hand where it held the mask.
“We’re all a little broken, Alexandra,” I said quietly. “Do exactly what I tell you, and maybe Shiloh walks out of this alive.”
Her breathing hitched, her eyes darting between me and the mask. “You’re not going to…hurt him, are you? I thought you said you were helping him!”
I smiled faintly. “That depends on him.”
I straightened up and pulled my coat on, slipping the mask into my bag. “Stay here,” I told her. “Enjoy the rain. Don’t ruin it.”
She stared at me like she didn’t recognize me at all. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe I wasn’t any part of the old me at all.
I moved toward the door, the bag heavy in my hand. Outside, the storm was waiting, cold and jarring. I opened the door and paused, looking back at her one last time.
“You always said you’d do anything for me,” I said. “I took beatings for you and far worse than your pretty little head could imagine. You owe me this.”
Her shoulders shook violently, but after a moment, she nodded, sobbing quietly. “Y-Yes…Carrington…yes.”
Good.
Now I would let her rest. Not too long. Just enough to let her remember that even as a family, obedience was mandatory.
As Hardings, we were programmed for control from the beginning. It’s about time Alexandra Harding paid the piper.
I let my mind wander outside, somewhere in the rain, and continued to spiral. Shiloh was already drunk and unsteady. He had received Xanthy’s message and had begun the descent I had been planning for months. Every heartbeat and second of fear was mine to guide.
I would wait.
Wait to watch him choose once and for all.
Snuff out your fucking light or feel the darkness.