Sin & Fall

Prologue

ZACK

THREE YEARS AGO

“ K at?” I call up to my sister from the bottom of the stairs. She doesn’t answer, again .

Making a point of stomping on each step, so she knows I’m annoyed, I head up to her room.

“Kat, seriously? Dad’s been giving me shit all evening because you skipped class, and you missed dinner again.” Of course, when she misses college, it’s my fault. I’m her twin, so to him, I’m also her keeper.

Lucky for me, he had to leave for work so only had time to verbally abuse me this time. I could do with the breathing room for my bruised rib that he so lovingly gave me last week to heal.

Kat has been acting weird for months—maybe even close to a year by this point.

Fuck do I know. She constantly skips classes, barely acknowledges my existence, and has stopped hanging out with her friends.

It’s not like her. Kat’s always been more of a rebel than I am.

She’s also always been the only person I could truly rely on .

She was the one who convinced me to get my first tattoo in some random guy’s garage at fourteen, and was the one who taught me the best ways to sneak out of the house. I smoked my first joint with her, and she taught me how to steal a car.

But she’s always wanted out of this dump, and despite all the delinquency, she’s made sure to put her education first. Hence why Dad blames me for being the corruptive influence. As long as her grades are good, she can get away with anything.

He’s never hit her. I’m the lucky one who gets the joy of those bonding experiences. But I don’t resent her for that. Kat’s the one who patches me up each time.

About a year ago, I was playing video games on the couch when I caught her sneaking in as the sun was rising.

Thankfully, Dad wasn’t up yet. He would have beaten my ass red if he saw her because, according to him, I should be looking out for her in the first place.

He forgets that she’s the oldest twin by a whole minute and thirty-three seconds. Kat never lets me forget though.

When I followed her up to her room that morning, she looked like death.

She’d been out with her best friend, Alina, the night before and most likely crashed at her place.

I asked her what happened, and she told me I was too young to need to know.

It was like in those few hours since I last saw her, she’d aged way beyond our twenty years.

I chalked it up to her having a fallout with Alina.

The last words she said to me were, “Leave me alone .”

Since then, she’s been completely silent, and she rarely graces us with her presence.

Dad wants her to get professional help. Every time he brings it up, she quietly returns to her room and locks herself away.

That’s not my problem. When I’m not at home—which is most of the time thanks to not wanting to be anywhere near my abusive dickhead of a father—I’m either at college or practicing with my band in my friend’s garage.

So I really don’t have time to deal with whatever drama Kat’s got going on.

I bang on her door now, but there’s no answer. Maybe she’s finally quit with the one-woman pity party and gone out.

Something doesn’t sit right though. There’s a cold prickling sensation at the back of my neck, and a tightness in my chest that’s working its way down to my stomach.

“Kat?” I call out quieter this time as I open the door. Her curtains are finally open from where she’s been living her days in bed in the dark, but it’s empty. The sheets freshly made. “Katherine?”

Everything in here is neat and tidy, way more organized than usual for her.

There’s an envelope on her desk. Bile rises to my throat when I see her handwriting on the front. It’s addressed to me and has today’s date. October sixth.

A videotape is next to it. Taking a closer look, I find it has the same date. Is it from today, or from last year when she came home looking like a ghost? Why do I have a bad feeling that it’s the latter?

I imagine every worst-case scenario for what could be on it. Putting it aside, I pick up the envelope. But I can’t bring myself to open it, so I try her cell first. It rings behind me on the nightstand.

Fuck. That’s not good.

My gut tells me the answer to where Kat’s gone is inside the envelope, but my heart tells me the truth is gonna hurt. With trembling hands, I tear it open and read it .

Zack,

Firstly, I’m sorry that I’m doing this to you. The last thing I want to do is leave you alone with Dad, but I can’t do this anymore.

I needed you, someone, anyone to help me, but I didn’t want to be a burden. Maybe if I wasn’t so stubborn it wouldn’t have to end this way.

The videotape you’ll find with this letter will show you everything that happened to me. I thought about destroying it and writing down what happened instead, but my hand wouldn’t stop shaking every time I picked the pen up to try.

You shouldn’t have to see it firsthand, I couldn’t even tell you the truth myself, but I’d rather you have the answers you need when I’m gone than spend the rest of your life questioning why I left you.

So it’s your choice whether to watch it or not.

You can take it straight to the police and let them deal with it, or you can destroy it. Whatever helps you move on.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I didn’t do either of those things myself. Turns out, I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I couldn’t relive it again. Not when they’re always haunting me. They never leave. Every time I close my eyes, they’re all I see. I can’t live with them any longer.

Please don’t blame yourself for anything. I know you will, and I won’t be there to knock some sense back into you.

You’re smart enough to get out of this shitty town and have a good life. So finish college, become a famous guitarist, and go viral for doing some cool-yet-dumb shit on stage .

Please remember that I’ll always be sorry for this, and I love you, little brother.

Kat

When I finish reading, I stare blankly at the page.

She’s…she’s killed herself? No. She’d never do something like that. This has to be one of her twisted jokes. Like that one Halloween when she had me convinced she’d actually broken her arm and it wasn’t fake blood all over her costume.

Deep down, I know it’s no joke, and the reason why is on this tape.

It’s not like we have anything to play it on so what am I supposed to do?

I tear at my hair as I pace the room. “What the fuck do I do?”

I have no clue where she’d even go to kill herself.

“Fuck!” I scream through my tears.

Kat’s smiling face haunts me from the nightstand.

I pick up the photo of us at the beach when we were six years old.

I’m crying in it because Kat kicked my sandcastle down.

I remember her making it up to me on the car ride home by giving me the last of her candy.

Mom was still alive then, and Dad wasn’t a drunk.

I’d forgotten how alike we looked. We’re not identical twins, but the resemblance was always uncanny from our shared raven-black hair. I dye it white now so I’m more of my own person, and not her little brother. That tiny rebellion tastes bittersweet.

We’ve never had that twintuition thing when you feel each other’s emotions or crap like that. But if she died, surely I’d feel it .

Tossing the frame onto the bed, I scream again and kick her wardrobe. The door creaks open, and inside it, I see the old VHS player from when we were kids. I didn’t know we still had it.

My stomach drops as I look back at the tape. I have no idea what’s on it, but I’m certain it’s the last thing I want to see. Hopefully, it’ll give me a clue to where she is and I can find her in time.

As quickly as I can, I set up the machine on her television and insert the tape.

Barely thirty seconds in, and I’m throwing up into the waste basket.

The phone rings downstairs, and I quickly turn off the TV.

So Dad doesn’t find the tape, I hide it in my room along with the letter before running downstairs to answer the phone.

“Hello?” I pant out desperately. “Kat?”

“Is this Mr. Vaughn?” a soft female voice asks.

“Yes.” It’s only a half-lie.

“Sir, this is the Sheriff’s department. Is your daughter Katherine Vaughn?”

“Y-yes. Is she alright?”

“Are you able to come down to the station?”

“Just tell me what happened to her!”

“Sir, it’ll be best to do this in person.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me if she’s alright!”

There’s a heavy sigh on the other end.

“I’m so sorry to tell you this. A bystander informed us of seeing who they believed to be your daughter on the bridge at the south of town. We’re currently recovering the body from the water. Sir, we suspect it to be a suicide, and we need you to come down to the station to answer some questions.”

The rest of the phone call is drowned out by the ringing in my head.

I drop to my knees and throw up again.

She’s dead. Kat’s fucking dead, and it’s all because I did nothing to help her.