I spit on the floor and can’t get out of that hangar fast enough.
My relatives? A celebrity? No, thanks. I hateherandhim, the city, the whole damn world.
“You okay?” Mary asks once we’re back in the car.
“No. Something is wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
I grip the wheel tightly, knuckles turning white. The car peels away, tires screeching. I can smell the burning rubber as I race toward the stupid-ass city I hate. So much hate. It’s burning a hole in my chest, making me angrier, restless, eager for a kill.
Rage chokes me. “There’s something wrong with my brother.”
“What?”
“I don’t know yet. But he’s angry.”
“When is Connor not angry?”
I shake my head and floor the gas pedal. “Something is wrong.”
“You’re driving too fast.”
The car slides off the narrow road, but I manage to steer it back on the asphalt.
Mary crosses herself and says a prayer. I’m not even a mile out when I look at the mountain above the city and spot a raging fire.
“Mary,” I call out, because I’m driving too fast not to pay attention to the road and the honking cars around us. “Is that my house that’s burning on the hill?”
“I have no idea where the house is from here. Could it be the mansion?”
“Mmhm.”
“Connor isn’t home,” Mary says. “He and Dina are out.” She checks her watch. “Should be arriving at the bridal shower now. I can call him, but he doesn’t usually pick up the phone.”
“Take mine.” I lean back, and Mary takes the phone from my pocket. We don’t use smartphones, so she flips over the burner, and I rattle off his number.
It rings and hangs up. Mary dials again. Same thing.
She closes the phone and stares ahead. We’re quiet for a while. Then, “Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll fix it.”
“I can’t fix a dead Connor.”
And if Connor is dead, what happened to Dina?
The image of my mother’s body bleeding on the floor as my dad carved into her belly flashes before my eyes. Massio should’ve kept us in Couldermouth. Why couldn’t he stay away from our mother? Why did he bring us with him on that trip? She didn’t care. She was never going to love us. Never.
I walk over the blood spilling out of my mom’s belly, leaving tracks in my wake to get to Connor, who’s just standing there, seemingly fascinated with our father’s work.
Yeah. He’s always had a thing for madness. My brother. Not me.
Not me.
I crouch beside her, trying to catch her dead stare. “Hang her from the bridge so they can all see,” I tell my dad. “Take extra rope for yourself too.”
Maybe also me.
An oncoming truck blares its horn.
