He lifts an eyebrow because, yeah, it sounds stupid.Why would anyone want to do this?If it was someone working for the Castros, then why didn’t they just come to my room and put a bullet in Fenrir’s head and then one in mine?Why would they sneak into the kitchen to set up some freaky scene?
I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I’d grabbed my hoodie as goose bumps erupt over my skin.
“What the fuck is going on here?”I ask more sternly, hoping Fenrir will dignify me with an answer instead of his stony silence.
“I don’t know,” he says as he turns in the chair to look at me.“I don’t fucking know.”
There’s a beat of silence before I say, “Whatdowe know?”
As if answering me, Fenrir gets up and heads into the kitchen.I follow.He opens the cupboard and grabs the whisky and two glasses.
I shiver, the coldness hanging in the air like the aftermath of a horrible incident.“I’m not staying in here,” I tell him.
“Neither am I,” he says as he exits the room.
I follow him upstairs and back into my bedroom.He flips on the light and sets the bottle down on the tall drawers.
“Here.”He hands me a glass.
“I’m going to be an alcoholic by the time we get out of this house,” I quip.
“You and me both.”
Sitting on the bed, I curl my feet under my legs and cradle the glass.Fenrir returns to the sofa, his glass held precariously by the tips of his fingers.
I take a sip and wince, still not used to the taste.I wonder how my mum tolerates this stuff.Then a thought occurs.“Hey, do you think it was this house that turned my mum to drink?”I ask.
He swallows hard before answering.“Who knows?I’d have thought being married to your father would be reason enough.”
“You can say that again.”I tut.“I often wonder why she stays with him, how she’s lasted all these years, but then I suppose that I must be the reason.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“That and the fact that no one can ever leave my father.Not really.Only he decides that.But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to get away from him.I’d give anything not to be a Devall.”
“We have no control over the family we’re born into, and I’m sure you aren’t the only person who wishes they had a different family,” Fenrir says.
He’s right, again.I’m sure there isn’t a day that goes by that Fenrir doesn’t wish he’d been born into a family who weren’t involved with a gang.He wouldn’t have had to throw his sister over a balcony.He wouldn’t have lost his mum and dad, and eventually his sister, who he tried so desperately to save.
He wouldn’t have to carry this with him every day.He wouldn’t have to be reminded of what he endured every time he looks in the mirror.He might have stood a chance of having a normal life, where he could walk down the street without being stared at, without having blood on his conscience, without having to deal out the retribution he felt he had to.
He could have been someone else entirely.
I glance at him, and it’s in this moment that I wish I could give him that: a different life, one where he can be anyone he wants to be, where he doesn’t have to carry the shit he’s carried for so long.
“You should sleep,” he says after downing his whisky.
“I’m not sure I can.”I swill the liquid around the glass, then neck the lot, the burn working its way down my throat and into my stomach.
“Do you believe it’s haunted?”I ask, immediately feeling foolish for even suggesting it.
“Haunted?”
“The house.Do you think it’s haunted?”I repeat.
“You don’t believe in ghosts,” he reminds me.
“I don’t.”I place the glass on the bedside table.It doesn’t escape me that he hasn’t answered my question, but I won’t push.“You’ll stay?”
