Chapter 26 #3
He doesn’t answer me again. Instead, he plays with my almost hair, and I let him.
I let him, because this doesn’t sound like a monster I can kill. This sounds like a monster he’ll have to kill from the inside.
I sigh against his chest. My chest hurts as I lean to sit up.
“What are you gonna do about my pants?” I ask, doing my best to act like the wobble in my voice didn’t happen. There is a hole along the seam that attaches the two legs together.
He stares at me. Frustration brings his brows together as he searches through the console with his right hand, his left still wrapped around me.
He gazes back at me like a wounded puppy. Like he’s the one who failed.
“It’s okay,” I say. I’m in fix it mode, despite knowing he’s trying to push me away. I– I don’t know if I can let him but I also don’t know if I can… push him.
Pushing him is too close to forcing him. At that point I’m no better then literally everyone else in his life and I want to be good.
I want to be good for him. Good to him.
“Take me home please.” I know I have to let him go.
“It’s the least you could do.” I can’t help but spit that out at him as I climb over to the passenger seat.
I attempt to adjust my pants so I’m sitting directly on cold leather, crossing my legs as I stare out the window.
Letting the tears slide down my face, this will be the first and last time I cry today.
Crying over a man, I scoff. The phantom feeling of his eyes on me I refuse to meet his gaze.
“You don’t want me that’s–” I say, my gaze trailing back to him. He shakes his head, quick to cut me off.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Well you’re… you’re–” The words can’t even fathom out of my mouth so I snap my lips closed.
“I have to fix this mess.” He says pulling my hand from my lap, the one with the healing scar on the back.
“Why can’t you let me fix it with you?”
“It’s not your’s to fix,” His words sound off in my mind like a repeated echo. I turn back to the window as he puts the car in drive, still holding my hand like the selfish bastard he is.
But he's my selfish bastard.
And I won’t let anyone take him from me. Not even himself.
I walk through the door of Juliet’s and my apartment, setting my keys down, even though I’ll be heading out soon.
The secondary lights are on, meaning Juliet is home.
She hates the overhead lights and prefers warm lamps and candles for lighting, which is fine with me.
It’s more visually pleasing, so I let her do whatever she wants.
“Dee! Hey,” Juliet warmly says as she pops out of her room, seemingly listening for my arrival. She wears a long fuzzy cardigan, and I smile at seeing her so at ease. I watch as the sun set in the window and wonder how long I have before she falls into the darkest parts of her mind.
Yara Holding is Juliet’s ex-girlfriend, lawyer turned politician, who will do anything to build connections and climb up the government ladder.
She wanted to become the most powerful woman in government—the senate majority leader.
While I could admire her ambition, I’ll admire the light draining from her deep brown eyes as I kill her.
“Dee, why don’t we have a girls’ night? We could order in, watch a movie, paint our nails—”
“I can’t tonight, Juliet. I have plans,” is a sentence I never thought I’d say. She was always the one with plans. She was the popular girl, the kind girl, the one everyone liked and got along with, even if she was incredibly shy.
I never minded being her shadow, her darkness. I loved it. I still do. Killing Yara Holding is me being her darkness. She won’t need to hold on to her darkness from that night after I’m done. Yara isn’t the last on my list, but I crave her death more than the others.
“Plans? Again? With Elliot?” She’s taken aback as her eyes stray from my face. She reaches for my hands to aid her pleading, and before I can yank them away from her, I feel her fingertips drag along the healing wound on my hand.
“Dee, are you gonna tell me what happened to your hand?” she asks. Despair at the lie waiting on my tongue fills my throat.
Her worried eyes shoot up to meet mine before she sighs and gently lets go of my hand.
“It’s nothing. I scraped it,” I say, trying to put my hand with the wound in my pants pocket without flinching.
“Did… did Elliot do this? Diora, you have to tell me if something is going on.” Juliet’s worry raises my hackles, and I try to dim her worry with a smile.
“No, he didn’t. He scraped his hand, too. We were moving boxes at work and a sharp end got the backs of our hands. I promise.”
“You promise?” She’s watching every move of mine now, searching for the lie she’ll never find.
“I promise,” I confirm, walking away from her and toward my room. “I have to get ready for my date with Elliot.”
“Can I help you?” she meekly asks, and I break. I wanna say no, since I’m not really getting ready for a date, but I can’t say no to her. Not when she’s like this.
Not when I can sense her night fritz is coming on.
I can see the tension in her shoulders build as her posture becomes impossibly straighter. Her eyes hold back tears that never drop. It’s like her eyes glass over permanently, but I know it’ll disappear by morning.
“Please,” I say and wait for her to follow me to my room.
“Dee, are you hiding something from me?” Her voice is desperate, and it sends a thrill of fear down my spine.
Few things scare me. I can list the things that scare me on one hand, and Juliet’s voice right now is on it.
Disappointment, fear, her desperation, are scary to me.
I’m her sister; I never want to hear her voice in this tone. It sets my brain on alert.
I turn to face her. There’s a tremble in her fingers and her lips shake, but I don’t think she notices. I try to soften my smile, my eyes, as I grasp her hands in mine firmly. Grounding her the best way I can.
“No, Juliet,” I lie, leading her into my room. I sit on the stool before my vanity. “Help me with my hair, please.”
“I know you’re hiding something. I don’t know what, and I won’t pry beyond this, but whatever it is, Dee, I’m your big sister. I can help you,” she says as she picks up a spray bottle and a hairbrush.
“Not with this one,” I mutter while picking up my phone. Now that Elliot and I made up, I hope he sticks to tonight’s plan. I pull up his contact and type out a quick message before Juliet can see over my shoulder.
Diora
R u still coming?
I wait for a response, a ring or vibration, something. I need something, a confirmation that he is going.
There is a chill I haven’t been able to get rid of since I got home, and I watch Juliet from the mirror.
She’s fritzing as she brushes my hair, freezing and jerking the brush, and I let her.
There is a lot of pressure for tonight to go right.
Maybe that’s why I am so… off. Why is Elliot still acting so weird?
I don’t know. I should stay here with Juliet tonight, but I don’t know if I’ll get another chance to kill Holdings.
Am I rushing this? Too many questions and not enough answers. There is only one thing I’m sure of.
Elliot doesn’t answer my text.
Something is wrong.