Nightshade

  “But have you really tried?”

  My head snapped up at the response to her. I would know Mickey’s voice anywhere.

  “I’ve searched every inch of that room. I’ve done everything to make him trust me,” she went on. “I’ve done everything to make him fall in love with me. I’ve lost clients and a week’s worth of income to search and pry information from your assassin. And it was all for nothing.”

  I stood there for long seconds after the recording ended, my stare falling to the floor at some point.

  My stomach felt like it was filled with lead and my chest felt tight.

  Beck was right. She’d been lying the entire goddamn time . . . and I’d fucking fallen for it.

  “I’ll be here for you when you realize how good she is at playing her game.”

  Mickey stepped up in front of me and sighed.

  Less than a second. Half a thought. He would be dead.

  And he knew it.

  But I didn’t move, even when he leaned in to whisper, “Don’t ever forget this, Kieran. Don’t ever forget that everyone in your path might be there because they’re loyal to me.”

  I gave a stiff nod, then asked, “Are you satisfied yet?” I lifted my glare to his. “She said there was nothing. That you’re paranoid. Are you fucking satisfied yet?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Then tell me, Mickey. The ones who betrayed you . . . who are they loyal to?” I forced a challenging smirk and slipped from the room when his victorious grin fell and was replaced with rage.

  I’d gone on a rampage when Lily left. Destroyed anything she left behind. Trained longer. Pushed myself harder. All while plotting my revenge on four men.

  When Jessica left? I’d sat there, unable to move until Mickey’s call had forced me out of my agony.

  Only for him to deliver a devastating blow.

  I should’ve known. I should’ve fucking known it was her all along.

  I’d had my suspicions in the beginning. I’d thought of her as a wraith and the man Mickey hired as a ghost. But I’d never thought the man I was looking for was the girl in my bed. I should’ve followed my intuition.

  I should’ve known when Beck told me that he only ever saw her on the estate if she wanted him to . . . and suddenly I was seeing her constantly.

  This afternoon, I’d been sure she would disappear like the wraith she was.

  And it had wrecked me. Obliterated me.

  After leaving Mickey’s office, something in me knew Jessica would come back to Holloway. To see if she’d succeeded in destroying me. To gloat. To pretend. To search for more information that she’d never find because Mickey wasn’t satisfied. She’d be back. But I couldn’t stand to see her there. Not again.

  But even with all the lies and deceit, I knew her enough to know there was one place she would always return to. And I knew how to wait. I was ready for her.

  I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved when I heard the door to her empty trailer open and shut just a few hours after I snuck in.

  Because I had an idea where she’d been—what she’d been doing. And it fucking killed me.

  But the girl who’d buried herself so deep within me was just feet from me, and the part of me that couldn’t grasp the lies needed to pull her into my arms.

  I wanted her to tell me that what I’d heard was wrong—that Mickey had created it. But it was her voice.

  Her weighted sigh could be heard from the front and hit me like a punch to the gut. But I didn’t move from where I stood in the darkened corner of her room.

  I listened as her bag fell to the floor and her light steps sounded down the hall, my breaths getting more uneven the closer she came.

  “Tell me it’s not true,” I begged softly once she was in the room.

  She inhaled sharply and her head snapped in my direction, her eyes narrowing to try to see me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  I huffed. “You’re one to talk.” I forced myself to breathe, then repeated, “Tell me it’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?”

  A dark laugh sounded in my chest. “You have to ask?”

  Even from where I was, I could see her perfectly from the moonlight shining through her window. The way her throat moved with her forced swallow. The way she began nervously biting on her lip.

  “You know what I am. You already know my brother’s a cop.” She lifted a shoulder in a quick jerk of a shrug. “There’s a lot you know about me and a lot you don’t. So where should I begin?”

  I stepped from the shadows, my brow pulled tight as I slowly moved closer. “I want to know what you’ve done for Mickey.”

  Her shoulders dropped, and she smacked at the switch on the wall. The room flooded with light and I had to force myself not to take her in. Her face. Her clothes. Every man’s fantasy, and everything that screamed where she’d just been.

  “How many times are we going to do this, Kieran?”

  “Has he had you spying on everyone? Or just me?”

  A manic laugh tumbled from her lips.

  That laugh set me on edge. It was like her version of my monster. And I hated it.

  Hated that she had to live with it.

  Hated that I couldn’t take it away.

  But it didn’t change what she’d done.

  “Have you been fucking all of us?” I asked as I closed the distance between us, then dipped my head to look in her eyes. “Or just me?”

  Her teeth gnashed. “I’ve only been with you.”

  “‘I’ve searched every inch of that room. I’ve done everything to make him trust me. I’ve done everything to make him fall in love with me,’” I said, my voice low and lethal, and watched as the blood drained from her face. “‘I’ve lost clients and a week’s worth of income to search and pry information from your assassin. And it was all for nothing.’”

  “How did . . .?” Her chest heaved, and she reached for me. “How did you hear that?”

  I pushed her off me and yelled, “There should’ve been nothing for me to hear.”

  I staggered back when one of my last memories with Lily rushed to me.

  “Tell me what she said isn’t fucking true, Lily.”

  Lily looked over her shoulder at where our friend, Teagan, stood.

  “What did you do?” she asked her breathlessly.

  Teagan clenched her jaw and kept her voice firm. “He needed to know.”

  Lily flung her arm in my direction. “He would’ve found out anyway, Teagan, but he shouldn’t have found out from you!”

  I gripped at my hair and took deep breaths, trying to force the monster away as I calmed myself.

  “There should’ve been nothing for me to find out.”

  “Kieran, I—”

  “There should’ve been nothing for me to find out!”

  “Kieran, please,” Jessica breathed. “You don’t understand.”

  I rolled my neck and forced the similarities aside. Reaching into my back pocket, I let out a sad huff. “I do.”

  “Kieran . . .”

  Pulling out the wad of cash, I shoved it against her stomach and waited for her to take it.

  “What is this?”

  “Figured you’d know how this works since you’re so proud of being what you are,” I jeered. “You perform services. The customer pays. That should cover everything. The week of income you missed and clients lost. The times we fucked. All of it.”

  She shakily held her hand out to look at the money and lifted her head. Her voice was tight with emotion when she said, “I don’t want your money.”

  “And I don’t want you.”

  Pain and grief filled her eyes, but I didn’t let myself react.

  It was a lie.

  She was a lie.

  Calm. Furious.

  “You’ve done your job, Jessica. All of them, apparently. You should be proud of how good you are.”

  “Fuck you, Kieran.” A sob ripped from her throat as she threw the money at my c
hest.

  I didn’t try to catch it.

  I just stepped around her and walked out.

  Letting the sound of her cries be the last piece of her I would have.

  The last lie I would hear.

  I hadn’t been standing on my street for more than a few minutes the next night when red and blue flashing lights lit up the buildings around me, and I heard an all-too familiar, high-pitched, whop whop.

  I whirled around, a grin already on my face as I stared down the Raleigh patrol car coming to a stop not far from me.

  Lifting my hands in the air mockingly, I stood still as I waited for the officer to either approach me or speak to me over the PA system in his car. My smile froze, and I had the sudden urge to cry when he stepped out of the driver’s seat.

  Jentry . . .

  The need to tell him what was happening in my fucked-up life was as strong as the impulse to cry. It was enough to consume me. Wreck me.

  I wanted to relieve my shoulders from some of the weight and let him bear it for once.

  But it wasn’t as easy as that. It never had been. It never would be.

  Jentry accepted the perfect life when we were eight years old.

  To him, I was just a person he once knew. A person who now disgusted him.

  To Jentry . . . I needed to leave the life he disapproved of behind. As if it could ever be that simple.

  What he’d escaped was nothing compared to what I’d suffered.

  Nothing compared to what I was chained to.

  I could feel it bubbling up as he walked closer . . . the laughter and madness. The taunts making their way to the tip of my tongue. They were there, mixing with my need for Jentry to fix a lifetime of horrors.

  Make it go away, Jent.

  You’re weak.

  “Officer Michaels,” I teased. “To what do I owe this wonderful pleasure? Let me guess, you missed your whore sister? Because you and I both know I sure missed you.” I giggled wildly when his jaw ticked.

  “Put your hands down, Jess,” he said with a low, firm tone.

  “What? Don’t want to pat me down for drugs this time?” I cocked my head and sent him a look like I thought he was adorable. “I told you they weren’t mine. Oh, wait, because they weren’t. And why was that? Because there weren’t any drugs. Like I told you there wouldn’t be. But you didn’t believe me, did you?” He started to speak, but I continued over him. “I mean, why would you? It was me. And in your mind, I’ve graduated from prostitute to addict.” I clapped gleefully. “I bet you’re so proud.”

  “Jess,” he barked.

  And there it was . . . my own, sick addiction.

  The need to push him until he snapped.

  The need for him to put an end to the madness.

  My hands fell as the shaking began deep in my bones. A rush filled me unlike any high.

  Unable to stop myself, I inched closer to him, the taunts hot on my tongue with each step. “You gettin’ mad, Jent?”

  Make it go away.

  “What does it feel like when you get angry?”

  Does it feel as horrible as this does?

  “That rage inside you. That darkness . . .”

  Does it make you hate yourself the way I do?

  “What does it feel like?”

  Make it go away, Jentry.

  He sighed and gave me a placating look, and my panic at seeing that calm wash over him threatened to choke me.

  I wanted to scream at him until he lost it. I wanted to hate him for being able to find a calm that I would never know again.

  Weak. So weak.

  “Jess, turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”

  My head swung roughly as I swallowed back that panic.

  “Oh, no, no, no. I don’t think I will. You just came driving up on me while I was walking down a street. No reason for it. Completely unwarranted.”

  Jentry’s eyes begged me not to make him do this, but still he bit out, “We got two calls in the last half hour that a girl with your description has been going up to random men on this street, offering herself.”

  The absurdity of the claim was enough to force a laugh from my chest. “That’s not how I work. They come to . . .”

  My face fell and a chill spread through me.

  I reached for Jentry but he stepped away, putting his arm out to stop another attempt.

  “Hands behind your back.”

  “I’ve only been here for a few minutes,” I hissed. “Jentry, don’t take me.”

  “Jess, don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  “You don’t understand,” I yelled. “You can’t take me. You have . . . to . . .”

  Dread filled me when Jentry turned me around, giving me a clear view of the familiar black SUV on the opposite side of the street, about a hundred yards away. “Fuck you,” I screamed, struggling against Jentry as he put handcuffs on me. “Fuck you.”

  “Calm down, Jessica,” Jentry said as he pulled me toward his car.

  “I belong to no man!”

  There was a deep sigh from behind me. “Jess, I can’t handle your crazy tonight.”

  I belonged to no man.

  Make it go away, Jentry.

  I slammed my head back into my brother’s face, a wicked laugh bursting from my chest when all I wanted to do was scream and cry.

  “Goddamn it, Jessica.” Jentry forced me the last few feet to his car and shoved me down onto the hot hood. “Damn it,” he growled.

  “You feel that, Jent?” I asked, taunting. “You feel that anger? It’s always been inside you. You ruin everything you touch. How’s that little wife of yours? Ruined yet?” I continued, blinking when my eyes burned. “You can’t run from who you are.”

  Make it go away.

  The pain.

  The madness.

  Momma’s addiction.

  The men in that car.

  The others watching in the dark.

  Losing the only man who mattered.

  Everything.

  Get mad, Jentry . . . and make it go away.

  Jentry forced me up from the hood, and I shot one more glare at the black SUV as he pushed me toward the back of his car and roughly helped me inside.

  “You can’t arrest me,” I said on a rush before he could shut the door behind me. “He wants me arrested so he can prove he owns me.”

  For the first time in our lives, Jentry looked at me like I’d actually lost my mind. “Jesus Christ, Jessica, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “The men in that black SUV over there,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the car with its lights off. “They follow me. Stalk me. He said I belong to him.”

  Jentry searched my eyes for a moment then turned to stare at the vehicle. “No bullshit?” With another careful look directed at me, he blew out a calming breath. “Okay, Jess. Okay.” With that, he shut my door, and I watched as he crossed the street to walk calmly to the car I’d sat in just the day before.

  I held my breath as he shined his flashlight in the windows, but my stomach dropped when he cupped his hands on them and peered inside. After circling the SUV and standing in front of it for a few minutes, he walked to where I sat in his patrol car with a frustrated look on his face.

  “Why I let you talk me into that . . .” he said once he was in the driver’s seat. “Ran the plates. It belongs to a woman in her forties.”

  “No, he—”

  “One day you’re gonna let me help you. One day, Jess. And I hope I don’t see or hear from you again until that day comes.”

  If only he understood that I’d been trying to get him to help me for years.

  It just wasn’t the help he wanted to give.

  He wanted to save me. To make me better. To give me a life he had.

  I was waiting for him to make it all go away.

  Because when you’re chained to this life, there is no making it better. There is no saving.

  There’s surviving . . . and there’s dying.
r />   When no one came back to the house after three days, I went to our old school and waited for him there.

  He would come, I knew he would. And he would make this all go away.

  When morning came and kids started arriving, I waited in the bushes so no one would see me and watched the gate we normally walked through.

  Be nothing.

  Be nothing.

  You’re invisible.

  But when a voice I knew like my own sounded, it came from the opposite direction. From where the cars were dropping off kids.

  I turned to look, confused, because Daddy would’ve already been at work. And he never drove us.

  And suddenly I wasn’t invisible.

  Suddenly I wasn’t nothing.

  Because there was Jentry.

  My Jentry.

  My twin brother.

  And he was getting out of a car with Declan—a rich boy from our class—and wearing nicer clothes than we’d ever had. He had a new backpack and shoes. Not a roughed-up spot in sight.

  And he was smiling. Like there was nothing bad in the world at all.

  Like Daddy didn’t get angry and beat us, and Momma didn’t have scary friends.

  Like he hadn’t lost me the way I’d lost him.

  For just a second, his smile slipped and he turned and looked, as if he could feel me watching him. And for just a second, his eyes stopped on me. And then he was smiling again and talking with Declan as he walked away.

  I’d never felt more invisible.

  I’d never felt more like nothing.

  I’d never been more hurt by anyone.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks, and Momma’s words snapped through my mind.

  “Weak. So weak, Jess.”

  “He’ll ruin you.”

  “He destroys everything he touches. Just like his daddy.”

  “They’re selfish. Evil. They would’ve thrown us away and never looked back.”

  I felt weak.

  I felt ruined.

  I felt destroyed.

  I felt lost.

  And the only person who could’ve made it go away didn’t care anymore.

  He made me wait an hour before he came for me.

  Considering I’d been screaming at him—or his empty car—I’d half expected him to leave me in jail the entire night before coming to me with another offer.