Chapter 29 FINN
FINN
I wasn’t looking forward to an evening with my father, especially when I realized Jade was going to be joining us. She couldn’t leave me well enough alone and it was ruining my vibe. My phone vibrated as I headed up the steps to the front door, a text throwing my entire world upside down.
I’m coming home tonight
Wait, what? They’re letting you out! I’ll be right there.
I’ll come to you.
Excellent. How long?
Not sure. I’ll let you know when I know.
A wild grin spread across my lips, Killian and the others dampening my excitement.
Who the fuck are you texting? Something’s wrong with your phone.
Only right-handed bubbles. God, don’t you know not to double-text?
My brows furrowed as I entered the house, not surprised at the rich aroma of a chuck roast. Dad always liked to overdo things, especially when it came to family discussions. Although, Jade wasn’t family and she shouldn’t be here.
Wait. What do you mean only
right-handed bubbles?
I think Runo is ignoring you.
They were confusing me. If they were trying to bait me into a response, I wouldn’t give them one.
It was already fucked up that I wasn’t the original but Killian toying with me just made all this worse.
I shucked off my shoes and wandered into the dining room, glaring at the woman I thought I could trust. Sitting next to my father, the same worry in his eyes now mirrored in hers, I knew that I couldn’t.
“Lovely to see you, Jade. Truly,” I spat as I plopped into a seat across from her. “Father, you said you wanted to talk but I don’t think this is a conversation for her.” I laid my phone on the table and then leaned back, folding my arms across my chest, waiting for one or both to speak.
My father sighed, ignoring the fully set dinner plates in front of us. My stomach grumbled so I dug in, loving the way the meat fell apart on my tongue. “Son—”
“Yeah, no. You know who I am now. You never thought of me as yours, just some abomination you had to protect. So, it’s Finn.
What’s the point of this dinner?” My words were muffled as I stuffed more meat into my mouth, trying to hide my excitement for my friend returning home.
Tonight, everything would return to normal.
My father wouldn’t like it and Jade would finally meet my true partner in crime.
The troubled look I always hated crossed my father’s face.
“Finn, I never thought you would resurface. Between the meds and the therapy, when you disappeared, I thought you would be able to live normally. Without all of the chaos and dangerous stunts. But now that you’re back, it’s a slippery slope.
You always try to push the envelope and your relationship with Runo—”
I cackled. “You make it sound like Runo and I are dating, which is gross. Second, why is Jade here?” I glared at my ex, waiting for her to speak up. There had to be some god awful reason she hadn’t followed the plan.
Probably because you rejected her this morning.
You were pretty brutal.
It has nothing to do with that.
Killian’s smirk was pissing me off. He knew something.
Jade cleared her throat, trying to muster up a smile and failing. “This morning was a bit of a shock but I didn’t expect much from you. It’s everything else, Finn. You’re obsessed with Runo. It’s not healthy. You were back then and even more so now.”
“So? What’s it to you?”
She shrunk back, my father scooting closer to her as he placed a hand over hers. “Be nice, Finn. We care about you and your health. Runo is not healthy for you and now that he’s getting out… I need you to promise me you won’t have anything to do with him.”
“Fuck you. Both of you. You’re always trying these little interventions. They didn’t work with Killian or me or any of the other alters. Back off.” I stuffed another bite of roast into my mouth, loaded with garlic mashed potatoes. I fucking wish we were eating curry.
Silence filtered between us, my father blinking several times before he addressed me again. “There are others? Finn, you know what happened with your mother. You should have said something!”
I snorted. “HMD isn’t fucking hereditary. Yeah, I have it but it’ll manifest differently than Mom’s. So long as you don’t stuff me into a hospital while I wither away into nothing, we’ll be fine. I get the concern. I was the son you wanted but I turned out like this.”
“You used to be worse,” my father mumbled, causing me to freeze.
What the fuck did that mean? Worse than this unhinged version of myself?
I didn’t even know how that was possible.
“Finn, we just want you to stop rushing into things. You’ve got a new lease on life.
We don’t need to return to how it was. You can still go get that degree and start anew. Jade’s a good girl. She really is.”
She shot me a hopeful smile but I wasn’t convinced. I refused to live a manufactured life like that. “Dinner was excellent. However, I happen to know of a certain person getting released tonight. Don’t wait up.”
Horror bled through my father’s features as I pushed away from the table and stomped toward the front door.
Runo said not to come but I was going to pick him up and take him out to dinner.
He deserved the best. Jade followed on my heels, waving my phone at me.
I snatched it, snarling in her face, hoping to destroy any crazy ideas she had.
“Did you really come to help stage an intervention, Jade?”
“Look at your fucking phone, Finn. Look at all the calls you made to Runo and the texts you’ve sent.”
I stared at my device, scrolling through our conversations. “Why? There’s nothing weird about it.”
She let out an aggravated sigh, her hands fisting at her sides. “Seriously? Fuck, you’re impossible. Do you even know what fucking jail he’s at? No institution in their right mind would be releasing someone like Runo this late at night. Just think about how crazy this is!”
“Crazy?”
“Maybe I should go to the police with everything I have. Maybe then you’ll see the truth.”
I just shook my head. “Jade. Oh, my sweet Jade.” I poured a little extra honey into my words, grinning as her eyes widened with fear.
“You think I wouldn’t have planned for that?
You said it yourself that I always have plans.
Always. Go ahead and run over there, hoping and praying they’ll listen to you.
They’ll pull you into an interrogation room, fingerprint you as is routine and then find out you were there at the scene of Nala’s murder. What? I needed a safety net.”
“How could you?!”
“You could have said no when I texted you but you like a little bit of the darkness. You like my crazy just fine until it became a little too much. That shit is on you, not me. Also, Jade, I would think real hard why all of the crime has gone under the radar for so long. It isn’t because my father is wholly incompetent.
I’m just saying.” I blew her a kiss and then slipped out the door, heading to the car I still hadn’t broken in.
Runo would be absolutely surprised when I arrived.
Where are we going?
Grimrose Penitentiary. It’s just at the edge of Primrose.
I didn’t know how Killian knew but it didn’t matter.
I just wanted to make sure that I was there when Runo stepped out onto free soil so he knew that I would always be there for him.
We were all silent as we focused on arriving in one piece at our destination, emotions riding us high but I needed to see him.
Nearly a half hour later, I was staring at a building that couldn’t have been used in the last fifty years. The stone was in ruins, the night air eerily whistling through the place. This couldn’t be the right jail.
“Are you fucking sure it was here, Killian?”
Pretty sure. He mentioned it enough.
It’s fucking creepy out here.
Can we leave? Runo is obviously not here.
How did I get this so wrong? And where the fuck was Runo?
I returned to the car, scrambling for my phone as I brought up his contact, confused when the number sat empty.
I scrolled through past calls, looking for the unknown numbers, and found nothing.
When I tried the text messages, every single one had been sent me by me, an automatic text sent after message.
Message undeliverable. Phone number not in service. If you believe this is in error, contact your phone provider.
That’s what Daemon and Dark had meant about all those right-handed bubbles. But this was impossible. Runo was so fucking real. He was everything to me.
Our father mentioned that we used to be worse. What did that mean?
“Fuck if I know,” I grumbled. I slipped back into the car, beating the horn a few times to relieve my anger.
It did absolutely nothing, echoing through the empty car lot, a murder of crows flocking into the air.
Well, that wasn’t creepy. I needed to figure all of this shit out.
I had hallucinated my best friend? No wonder Jade was fucking freaked around me.
I sped off back the way I came, warring with my emotions and the unsettling feeling of having lost to my own mental diagnosis.
Maybe my father was right; that I needed help far beyond what any of them could give.
I punched a few numbers into the console, waiting until the dial tone ended.
“Where the fuck is he? Where did you take Runo?”
My father sighed. “Just come home and I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t want shit explained to me. Why did we think it was at Grimrose? Where are his messages? His calls? You fucking deleted everything, didn’t you?” I swerved to the right, tears gathering in my eyes as I tried to focus.
Maybe pull over.
“Fuck that. Tell me where he is.”
My father let out another sigh. “Just come home.”
I hung up on him, swerving again when someone jumped out into the road.
“Runo?” The individual ran around to the passenger side of the car and pulled the door open before sliding into the seat.
“I knew you were fucking real! Why the fuck was everyone messing with me? You’re out.
Why were you just walking around and what are you wearing?
” I stared at clothes that resembled mine but Runo had always had a wildly different style.
He didn’t look like a man who had spent nearly a decade in prison. He looked good, lively, vibrant. When he turned to face me, his smile full of teeth, I tensed. “Finn, I’m not actually here.”
“Bullshit. Stop playing with me. I’ll show them—”
Runo pointed to the rearview mirror and I grunted, choosing to follow his command when the impossible stared back at me. Killian, Dark, and Daemon were seated in that back row, all of us sharing a glance. “I’m not here, Finn. Just as they aren’t. You better turn right.”
“What?”
My head whipped backward as the car crashed into something, the airbag pounded me in the chest and neck.
A grunt tore from my throat as the windshield shattered on impact, my entire body ripped from the car.
I fell hard on asphalt, groaning as pain shot through my side.
When I turned around to check on Runo, he wasn’t there.
“This can’t be happening!” This wasn’t part of the fucking plan.
He’s one of us.
That’s some fucked up shit.
I never said that I was the original. Finn just thought I was because he wasn’t. Runo is and if you thought Finn was a nightmare, Runo is worse.
I don’t understand. He was in jail!
The jail he put himself in. He played all of us.
“I always knew Killian would be the smart one. Finn, I told you to turn right.”