18. Chapter 18
Sebastian
What was worse than a cult member who came for dinner?
One that spent the night.
After dinner, Mason had asked both Sophia and Cameron—so sweetly—if her girlfriend could stay over. And of course, neither one said no. Why would they?
That left me angrily staring at the ceiling in mine and Cameron’s room. The only good part? Mason had allowed Cam to keep Rosie in his room. That meant whenever she woke up, I’d have a little buddy to hang out with.
Somewhat fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, and I was just too sleep-deprived to tell, Rosemary Jane Castillo woke up at ten past midnight. And now, at four a.m., she was still wide awake.
So together we lay on the plush area rug in the living room. I played on my Switch, and she sat inches away, playing with a slew of nesting toys and fabric books.
My eyes burned from the screen, but I enjoyed the company, especially because I could talk to her and she wouldn’t tell a soul.
“So, when your mama had you, she got sick, and I was desperate. So I prayed, which is a terrible thing to do.”
Religion was for the weak, and it did no good for anyone ever. I paused the game and looked over at Rosie.
She stared at me with wide eyes, an open mouth, and a string of drool on her chin.
“Exactly–you get it.”
Rosie inhaled deeply and clapped her hands.
“And anyway. Now I’m stuck. Because if I leave the cult, the bad man is going to get you or your mama or your papa. And I can’t let the only people who’ve ever loved me get hurt because I’m weak.”
My voice softened a little at the end.
Lucian mocked me for not having friends, but who needed them when I had a baby?
Rosie stared for a minute longer, then reached out for me. I moved my Switch and sat her up on my chest, keeping one hand on her back so she wouldn’t fall. She squealed in delight, and I smiled.
“So, if I just hide it forever, no one has to get hurt. And it’s kind of like a punishment for all the bad things Dada used to do.”
The murder. The stalking. The obsession and objectification of Mason. All of it had piled up, and now this was my cosmic payback.
“I used to be a really bad person”—and maybe I still was—“but you still love me, right?”
Rosie’s lips split into a wide grin. She leaned forward, planting her hands on my chest. I puckered my lips, expecting a slobbery kiss, Mason had been teaching her, and it was the cutest thing in the world.
Instead, she latched onto my nose and bit down.
I sucked in a pained breath and lifted her into the air. She laughed with a whole-body giggle, showing off her two bottom teeth. That’s when I noticed two new ones had broken through up top.
Sitting up, I kept my distance and placed her on my lap.
I rubbed my slobber-soaked nose, trying to ease the dull ache.
“You think that’s funny, don’t you?”
Rosie clapped her hands.
My eyes narrowed. “You should be nice to me…”
She grinned wider—if that was even possible—and smacked my leg for good measure. I reached for her wrist and gave it a gentle shake.
“That’s not how we treat people who give us tummy time and snacks and carry our chunky little butts around all day.”
She babbled something that sounded suspiciously like bah bah, which could’ve meant she wanted a bottle, or a stuffed sheep, or maybe she was trying—and failing—to say my name.
I went with the last one. It made me feel better.
I put her back down on the carpet and watched her flop onto her belly and start smacking a plastic cup against the floor.
“Can we go to bed yet?” I yawned, cradling my cheek in my hand.
She didn’t respond, obviously, because she was a baby. Instead, she grunted and screamed into the cup. The plastic muffled the sound, barely.
“Cool. I’m taking that as a no.”
I’d just need a lot of coffee to get through the day. Or crack. I was sure Lucian knew someone.
I scrubbed my eyes and blinked a few times, trying to unstick my eyeballs from the back of my skull.
At some point during our sleep boycott, the sun had started to rise. Golden light bled through the blinds, catching in Rosie’s wild curls and setting the copper ablaze.
She blew a raspberry at me and tossed the cup in my direction. It nearly hit me in the face, but I caught it.
“All right, that’s it. If you want to be a stinky baby, you can be a sleepy baby.”
Rosie had a whole nursery she never used. Mason and Cameron preferred having her with them, which meant we had a ridiculous number of mini cribs.
But if she wanted to hit and bite, I was going to take her happy little butt to her room, rock her until she passed out, and leave her in her own bed. Alone. Until she woke up.
Fuck. I needed to sleep.
Rosie’s eyes widened into chocolatey saucers, and her lower lip quivered like she actually fucking understood me. For a moment, I thought she might cry. Like cry cry, as Mason would put it. Not a tantrum. Not because she didn’t get her way. Real, sad tears.
“No,” I cooed, picking her up under the armpits and raising her to eye level. “You don’t get to weaponize that cute little face.”
She huffed a few whimpery breaths and reached for me with pudgy hands. Slowly, I pulled her toward me. She rested her head on my shoulder. I felt her jaw drop with a yawn so big it warmed my collarbone.
I yawned too.
“All right, munchkin. Let’s get you a nap. Dada needs one too.”
Her hand fisted my shirt as I slowly got to my feet, using my knees to stand.
Together, we stumbled toward her room. She’d sleep in her crib.
I’d nap in the impossibly soft glider Mason insisted we needed but never used.
Everyone would be happy. We wouldn’t disturb anyone.
And I could go to work in like… three hours.
Goddammit.
Three hours. Three goddamn hours until I had to put on clean clothes, pretend I wasn’t half-dead, and go deal with whatever fresh hell the day had in store—probably more grunt work at Lucian’s shop, more cult drama, and, if I was lucky, an iced coffee the size of my head.
Or a sugar-free Red Bull.
Maybe both, seeing as I’d get maybe an hour of sleep.
I pushed open the glass door that separated Rosie’s room from the kitchen. All the windows in her nursery were covered with gauzy white curtains. Between that and the soft twilight, the space felt ethereal.
First, I turned on the white noise machine. Then I grabbed a soft pink blanket on my way to the glider. Finally, I collapsed into the chair and placed Rosie on my chest. She popped her thumb into her mouth, and her long lashes fluttered shut.
I rocked us gently. One hand patted her butt, the other rested on her back. I hummed under my breath, just like Mason did when lulling her to sleep.
Rosie’s breathing evened out almost instantly.
My eyelids burned. I wiped at them with my free hand and, for the first time since I’d started my apprenticeship, I seriously considered calling off.
I mean, part of my job involved handling sharp objects around people’s bodies.
That wasn’t safe on forty-five minutes of sleep.
Lucian could survive without me. I typed out a message telling him exactly that but never hit send.
Somewhere between cuddling Rosie and debating whether to text Lucian, “Don’t fucking wake me up,” I dozed off.
It wasn’t graceful. Or safe. Rosie was still on my chest. But unconsciousness crashed over me mid-breath, like my own body finally said, that’s enough, idiot, and dragged me into blissful sleep.
And that bliss shattered the second I heard a clatter near the front of the house.
I jolted upright, gasping. Rosemary barely stirred, she just grunted, smacked me, and went back to sleep.
My eyes burned from the sudden wake-up. I looked around to make sure I hadn’t dreamt it.
Then came a jingle. Definitely real.
I gently laid Rosie in her crib and crept out of the room.
I expected to see Cameron getting ready for the day. Instead, a small, muscular figure was up near the foyer.
“Goddammit, where are my keys?” Mattie mumbled.
Fuck. Seriously?
She couldn’t sleep in just long enough for me to not feel like death?
I blinked hard, forcing myself to exist again, then cleared my throat.
Mattie jumped, dropping the keys she’d just dug out.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Is there any reason you’re watching me like a creep?”
“Is there any reason you’re sneaking around my house at—” I checked my watch. “—half past five?”
Holy hell. I’d gotten one hour of sleep. How? My body still felt like it was made of lead.
Mattie looked at the floor and shoved her hands into her pockets. Her shoulders hunched, making her already short frame seem even smaller.
“I’m not sneaking around.” Her voice was low, like I’d just stomped on whatever pride she had left. “I just… I wanted to surprise Mason, that’s all.”
Shock smacked me across the face.
No way she actually wanted to surprise Mason. She had to be up to something. But, maybe?
“Surprise her with what, exactly?” I asked, skeptical. “Are you going to kidnap her and chain her in the basement for Dale?”
I hadn’t thought the words through. They came out far more barbed than necessary.
Oh well. I wasn’t going to lose sleep over hurting a cult member’s feelings.
Mattie blinked once. Then twice. Her face twisted between fury and devastation. And I felt a little bad.
Goddammit. I hated having a fucking conscience.
“No, I just— I was going to get her breakfast, okay?” She kicked the ground, like a kid caught sneaking cookies. “Surprise her with breakfast in bed or some shit.”
“And you think I’d trust you around her food?” I scoffed. “Cameron told me all about how your people drugged him the night Dale killed his family.”
Mattie flinched, not like my words hurt, but like she was barely holding back a punch.
“Do not lump me in with them.”
The venom in her tone made me pause. Most cult members talked about their brethren with some kind of twisted admiration. But Mattie didn’t want to be grouped with them.
So… Why did she still go to the meetings?
She turned away, picked up her keys, and pulled on a pair of worn Converse that looked older than the twins.
“Wait,” I said as her hand wrapped around the doorknob.
She sneered over her shoulder. “What? You gonna apologize?”
“No,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”
Mattie offered, or rather insisted, on driving.
But one look at the sleek black sports car she called a vehicle, and my stomach flipped.
There were only two kinds of people who drove cars like that: the ones who had no idea what they were doing, and the ones who really knew what they were doing and drove like they had a death wish.
Either option scared the shit out of me after last November.
So I charmed my way into driving instead, and grabbed Cameron’s truck keys. It was a manual; most people couldn’t drive them anymore. I figured that would be enough to stop her from trying to chauffeur me home.
Cam didn’t like it when I smoked in his truck. But I didn’t like that he was back to eating fast food after swearing he’d cut it out. The man already had high blood pressure—I didn’t need him dying over a fucking carton of fries.
The lit cancer stick dangled from my lips as I split my attention between the road and Mattie, who currently looked like an emo teen on their way to Hot Topic.
Part of me wanted to be offended that Mason considered both this creature and me her type, but then I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror.
Tired eyes. Dark, messy hair. An expression that screamed, I don’t want to be here.
Right now, we were both exactly her type.
I took a long inhale, then pinched the filter between two fingers and tried to aim the smoke out the window.
“Want one?” I mumbled, pulling the pack from my hoodie pocket and dropping it into the cupholder.
Mattie eyed it like it was poison, which, to be fair, it kind of was. Eventually, she reached out, flipped the top open, and took a cigarette. She lit it with practiced ease, the cherry flaring bright, before she clicked the lighter shut and tucked it back into place.
“Menthols fucking suck,” she muttered, rolling her window down.
“They don’t smell as bad,” I said.
Plus, I liked the way the smoke felt—cool, sharp, familiar—filling my lungs.
“Yeah, but they taste like shit.”
I raised a brow at her. “You’re an absolute delight to be around. Has anyone ever told you that?”
She shrugged. “Your girlfriend doesn’t complain.”
… Had I ever come off like this to anyone?
No. No way. I might be broody, sure—but I was otherwise charming. Mattie was just obstinate.
But Mason seemed to like her well enough. And because of that, I couldn’t exactly demand they break up. Even if Mattie was a cultist.
So I’d have to go the classic route: dig up dirt, find something incriminating, and let the truth do the dirty work. Like any normal, concerned boyfriend would.
I cleared my throat, tapping my fingers against the steering wheel. Suddenly, a thought clicked into place.
“Hey,” I said.
Mattie glanced over at me, cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, smoke curling up toward the roof.
“Why don’t you want me lumping you in with the rest of the cult?”