40. Trying To Break Free #2
“But you caused it, didn’t you? You weren’t home that night. Or so you said, but no one even checked that out, did they?”
“They saw what they needed to see,” Sean said. “They saw me coming back down the street. I gave the name of the party I was at. People would have said I was there and wouldn’t have paid attention to when or if I left and came back. And trust me, the police checked.”
“Not well enough. Did you really kill our parents?”
How the hell could any of this be true right now?
“I hated them,” Sean said, his tone the same as if he were at a bar and ordering a beer. He said before that his actions didn’t show anger but his words were still there. She could see it now. “That night, I was sick and tired of everything. But that wasn’t the plan. It’d never been the plan.”
“What was the plan? How was this an accident then?”
And was it the fact that she came back doubting it that triggered even more? Did she cause any of this?
She’d never believed what they’d told her years ago. But no one listened to her.
And recently, when they listened to her, she’d been wrong.
“I came home,” Sean said. “I stole one of Mom’s cigarettes. Just out of spite. She freaking guarded those things like they were the crown jewels. Did you know, I took one from her years prior and she caught me smoking it?”
“No.”
“That scar right there on my forearm. That was Mom.”
“What?” She remembered seeing the scab one day. Nasty looking and wouldn’t heal, then blistered and finally scarred.
“She burned me with her cigarette and said the next time it’d be worse if I took another. I was fourteen. I went to fight back, but Dad came in and saw me shove her. Then he had some fun knocking me around. But never you. You never saw that side of things.”
“That’s not true. I had to deal with it just as much, but I didn’t fight back. I obeyed whatever they said so I wouldn’t get hit.”
“You did things your way and I did them mine. And that night, they were snoring away in their room and I took one of her cigarettes. Then while I puffed on it, I went to the kitchen and through the mail. There was a note from the school. They said I was failing, they were trying to get in touch, but Mom and Dad weren’t returning their calls. ”
Because her parents just never cared enough.
“And what did you do?”
“I lit it on fire to destroy it. I wasn’t paying attention and it landed on the carpet and caught, then it started to spread to all the other shit in the house and I panicked.”
“It never occurred to you to wake us up? To put it out?”
He shrugged. “I did what I’ve always had to do. I took care of myself. I considered it fate. If it was meant, then everyone would get out.”
This just made her so ill.
But what didn’t make sense though was why the fires started just now.
“Was seeing me again a reason to do what you’ve been doing? Starting all those fires? First in the cars, then the buildings?”
“You’re thinking too highly of yourself. That first fire happened before I even saw you in town.”
“Then why do it?”
“Don’t you want to take notes for your next big story? Make sure you get it all out there?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’d never been about that for me, but it was for you.”
“Come on now, Skye. We made a great team when we were kids.” He was almost mocking her.
That voice that she’d tried to forget in her youth was right there again, flooding her bones with the fear she’d lived with in that house.
It was all coming back again. He was coming back. He was just so sick in the head.
“What kind of team was that?”
“You know. You’d taunt me, I’d taunt you back. You’d tattle on me and Mom wouldn’t do anything, but you didn’t care, because you always came back for more. You wanted that attention, regardless of how it was dished out. Or even who dished it out.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We were kids. You were a bully. And you treated me the same as you did others. I fought you back and it didn’t matter.
I went to Mom and Dad and it didn’t matter.
Nothing did. But we were all the other had.
And sometimes, I just thought maybe you needed the attention and if I gave it to you another way, you’d stop being so mean. ”
Why did she remember none of this until now? Any of it.
That she and Sean didn’t talk after they were in high school because she couldn’t really stand him.
Not the way he treated her or anyone else.
All that bound them was blood.
“You tell yourself one story, but I know the truth.”
She’d come this far.
“Then tell me your truth. Tell me exactly what happened with the first fire and why. All of it. You want your story? I’ll give it to you.”
She pulled her phone out and slapped it on the table, and hit record. Not that she needed to because this whole thing was being recorded and all the people she loved and who loved her were in another room witnessing it.
“Guess you want to play after all. Why not? That first fire, it was an accident. Just like I said. Sara was pissing me off hinting at an engagement ring again. I’d gotten off work and rather than go home, I was driving around.
I stopped by that run-down car. No reason for it, but it looked like a good spot to disconnect.
I just lit a cigarette and tried to be alone. ”
“That’s it? That car accidentally caught on fire? You expect people to believe that?”
“Unlike Mom, I wasn’t greedy enough to suck it down to the filter.
I flicked it away when I was done and it went into the grille of the car.
I searched around to see if I could get it out and saw it, but my fingers couldn’t reach.
I had a receipt in my jacket pocket and thought I could push it out and it caught fire, then hit the oil and shit in there and it was too late. ”
“You didn’t think to call for help or anything?”
“And get in trouble? It was just a broken-down car. I left. But as I was walking away and it caught more, I remembered the house fire and I thought maybe I’d just watch this one this time.
Just to see, you know. See it to the end.
And when I did. It just felt… freeing. I was me again.
Not this meek asshole not showing the world who I wanted to be. ”
All an act.
For years. And no one saw it.
“You’ve had no urges prior to this?”
He shook his head. “I told you that was an accident. It was. I don’t know what I thought.
That you’d wake up and be fine and get out, or get Mom and Dad.
Fate. I left it up to fate. I didn’t want to be blamed for the house being destroyed.
I saw you when I returned home and just figured that happened and everyone was watching it burn. ”
“But it didn’t because two people died.”
“You can’t even call them Mom and Dad anymore, can you? Just admit it. You hated them as much as me.”
“No. I didn’t. Or maybe I did at times but not the same as you. I hated what they did, but not them.”
“Don’t lie to yourself, Skye. Let your new family know what you’re really like.”
Sean turned to look at the window in the room where they were being watched.
“They know who the real me is,” she said. “You never will. So that’s it, you watched it burn and then had to do it again after that car fire?”
“It was kind of addicting. It let me be me again with no one knowing. No one judging or getting on my case. My little secret. And then it got boring doing that. But you wrote an article. And then another. And I saw the crowds building and the panic set in around town. And every fire that happened, you were there to see if there was a story. I decided to change it up when I saw there were other ways to make them burn bigger and faster. I liked knowing I was causing all of this. There was power in that.”
“That’s why you burned down the house Corbin was building?”
His laugh felt like spiders racing up her spine. “That one was sweet. And that was personal. Because you all needed to know what it was like when it touched your family. Everyone needed to feel what I did. But Sara, she got nosy. She stopped the big one.”
Skye gulped. “What was the big one?”
“Oh, your new family home. That was supposed to go up with your new parents in it too. But that took more planning.”
“No!” she screamed, standing up. “None of us needed to feel that and I’ll be damned if I let you drag me down with your sick mind.”
The officer opened the door to the sound of Sean’s laughter.
He was ill. The realization hit Skye that her brother was mentally ill.
Something in him had to have snapped, but it wasn’t for her to say or even care.
Ash was right there waiting for her, pulling her into his arms.
“Shhh. I’ve got you. Let it out.”
“I can’t cry for him anymore. For any of this. I have to be done.”
“It’s done,” Tate said. “He’s going away for a long time. All because of you and the confession you got out of him.”
“That isn’t why I did it,” she argued.
“We know,” her mother said. Her real mother in her eyes. Both Carrie and Jim pulled her out of Ash’s arms and hugged her together. “You did it for you. You’ve always had to do what you needed.”
“And you let me. You never fought me on it and I didn’t realize that until now.”
“We never will,” her mother said. “You know what you need. You always have.”
She looked at her brothers’ faces there. Even Brenna must have rushed in.
Then her eyes landed on Ash’s. “Yeah, what I need is this.” She moved into his arms and held him tight.
Her past was staying in the past. Even if her parents’ friends or anyone else reached out, she was moving on. It just had to be that way.
Ash squeezed her so hard and picked her up. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
“I hope you like hearing it because I’ll be doing it for a long time.”