Chapter Twenty-Four #2
but there will be a sink in my cell where I can wash up. It’s all a kind of daze when they fingerprint me and let me change
into what I’m fairly certain is a prison uniform.
I look like shit in orange.
I tell Logan that when he joins me.
“I know that, Lex,” he replies, sounding a little hoarse. “I’m the one looking at you.”
We both laugh at that—okay, it’s hysteria—and we don’t so much as crack a smile again as the police come back in.
They ask me questions I can’t answer—even if Logan would let me talk, which he won’t. I watch my twin brother pull out every
lawyer trick in the book. No one is moved. None of it works. He is forced to leave me once all is said and done.
I spend my first night in jail. I cry into my arms that smell like the bleach they must wash these awful, uncomfortable scrub-like
clothes in, but I don’t have much in me. I pass out pretty quickly, despite where I am.
Another silver lining is that I’m used to sleeping and waking in shitty places. I’ve been doing it all my life.
When I’m finally asleep, I dream about the rock.
It’s a pretty upsetting dream, but the really nice thing about jail, I discover, is that you can’t sleepwalk through steel bars someone else locked up tight.
Or I can’t, at least.
When Logan comes to see me the next day, I know nothing good has miraculously happened to allow me to get out of here. I want to ask him what they did with Cleo, where she is. I want to know who’s taking care of Virginia.
But my brother’s expression is too dire for that. “They issued on the warrant.”
I’ve been combing through my hair with my fingers, like an ape, because I can’t wash it in the sink. I pause to look at him.
“What does that mean?”
Logan, to his credit, holds my gaze. He doesn’t even blink. “It means that in a few minutes, they’re going to transfer you
to the county prison.”
My heart drops. A great many strange things have happened here in Midas, but this is on an entirely different level. My friend
is dead. Murdered, clearly, if there’s a knife involved. And I am going to county jail. “What?”
He keeps his gaze steady. “Unfortunately, due to the nature of the murder, and your . . . questionable frame of mind, there’s
no bond.”
I am trying very hard not to cry, but the exhaustion and nausea are making it hard. That and him using words like bond. “Logan. For fuck’s sake. Stop talking to me like I went to law school with you and tell me what’s going on.”
Logan rubs his palms over his face, and I can tell by looking at him that he hasn’t slept.
“They’re just going to move you to another jail. It’s no big deal,” he says. In a way that tells me it is, actually, a big
deal. “On the plus side, you’ll get a shower there. Once they process you, I’ll come see you and we’ll talk about what we
need to do next. Jack has some ideas. Nora . . .”
He doesn’t finish that sentence. Something like temper—except much darker, much bigger—flashes over his face.
“What happened to Nora?” I ask, because what if whatever killed Cleo is stalking all of us? Was that why Virginia warned us
to stay together? Is Nora—
“She’s fine,” Logan says shortly. “We’re not going to worry about anyone else but you right now. Just do what they say, don’t answer any questions about what happened on that wall, and trust that I am going to figure this out. Even if it takes longer than I
want it to. I’m going to call in every favor from every lawyer I’ve ever met if it comes to it. You just have to be okay while
I make it happen, got it?”
“What if—” I can’t even get the words out. The idea out.
I believe that I didn’t kill Cleo. That I couldn’t. I know I didn’t.
But what if I wasn’t me?
Logan’s voice is harsh. “No. You didn’t. You know you didn’t.” He leans in and lowers his voice. “We agreed to believe in
this demon shit, Lex. We’re not going to forget that just because you’re scared and don’t remember. It was the demons. End
of discussion.”
I nod, even though a part of me has to wonder . . . what if I am a demon, in league with them or under their control? What if that’s what the dreams are—visions of some side of me I don’t
have access to?
What if Lexi Darling’s craziest act yet is this: going to sleep and killing off all my new friends? And my brother to boot?
Everything in me rejects that possibility. My grandmother would not have brought me here for that. I’ve already accepted that.
Believed in that.
But . . .
What if the demons got to me somehow? For two hundred years, people have fought them and lost. What if I just . . . lost?
I can’t say this to Logan, even though the possibility haunts me. It’s obvious that he’s as close to hanging on by a thread
as I’ve ever seen him.
Because he’s worried about me, I’m sure. Because he’s blaming himself. Because all his knowledge and connections haven’t solved this right away.
My twin has been strong for me more times than I can count. It’s my turn now. I blink back the tears. I settle into myself
and remind myself of one thing.
I have always been right. My dreams weren’t just dreams. My “crazy” wasn’t all that crazy, because demons exist. Midas exists. I was born here. I was always meant to come back here, because I was made here.
My mother said so.
I can handle this.
And if there are things that I can’t handle—things like Cleo, who I can’t think about without choking up—I give myself permission
to think about them later. When I feel safe. When I get out. When this nightmare that isn’t a nightmare, because I can’t wake
up from it, finally ends.
I don’t allow myself to imagine that those things won’t happen.
Because they have to.
And when the deputies come to take me to the larger county jail, I do everything I’m told. I don’t speak to anyone about what
happened. I don’t speak at all. I am determined to be brave, and I decide that really, a county jail isn’t that much worse than the things I’ve dreamed and the trouble that’s caused me.
I tell myself this will be a piece of cake. Because I get a shower, if not one I’d call up to my standards. And maybe it’s
louder here, more like jails I’ve seen on TV, but that’s okay too.
My second very long night in jail, I dream of Cleo. She’s bloody and ravaged, but she’s standing in front of me. Talking to
me, blood dripping down her face, but I can’t make out the words she’s saying. She’s too quiet under my own sobbing.
I wake to tears streaming down my cheeks and a real sob caught in my throat. Which is when I realize someone is in this cell with me. I bolt upright, feeling markedly less brave than last night—
“Logan.” I wipe at my cheeks. I don’t want him to be worried about me crying, so I tell him the truth. “I dreamed about Cleo.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, but he’s . . . weird. Detached, almost. “You’re going to be released.”
But he isn’t happy. I don’t understand. “What’s happened?”
“Someone confessed to the murder.”
He does not deliver this news with excitement or even triumph. He is all gritted teeth and clenched jaw.
I call it what it is. Fury.
“Who?” I ask. He doesn’t want to tell me. I can see that all over him. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Logan? Do you not—”
“Nora.” He throws her name out there between us like a bomb.
I don’t understand. “What happened to Nora? What are you—”
Logan’s dark eyes blaze. “It’s Nora, Lexi. She turned herself in.”