I’m glad RJ makes my search history vanish.
My utility knife does an okay job of cutting off the lower, dying branches of nearby pine trees, and I pile them up for a dry base. The evidence needs to burn completely, and pine needles are always good at catching fire.
Then, I use the cotton bedsheets I found from the hospital storage unit in the next layer, scrunching and twisting them into ropes so the oxygen can still make it to the middle. Those get doused in propane.
Next, I lay out my collection of fire starters, all of them with long cotton tails interspersed with paper cups full of wood shavings and petroleum jelly. Apparently, they’ll catch even on the coldest days.
Then comes the hard part: unloading the truck solo. It’s annoying, just like propping awkwardly shaped blackmail objects in higher and higher holey circles is. But I do my best so that oxygen can snake through every layer, making sure the hardest to burn bits are at the center. Papers go in the next layer, RJ agreeing I could add the directory tomorrow after he has all the phone numbers, while the last layer is the stuff that doesn’t really matter, like the hospital mattress and the lights from the weird studio we found. By the time I’m done, the sky’s a little pink, I’m sweaty and shaking from exertion, and RJ long ago went to bed.
But I built the pile, and it’s ready and waiting for when the time is right.
Until then, I’ve got a truck to return, some documents to collect, and a few hours of sleep to get. It’s almost time.
And I can’t freaking wait.
Chapter 53
Trips
My father gave me a bed, but that doesn’t mean I got any sleep.
Today is it—the next twenty-odd hours will determine the rest of my life. And as badly as I want to hold on to the hope that’s been hovering near my heart, I can’t grasp it.
There are too many places where the plan could fail. Too many moving pieces I can’t even see. So much trust put on people I have hardly spoken to for the last six months.
God, I hate trusting. I feel so out of control I’m practically shaking as I finish my shower, not knowing what else to do while Clara is being poked and prodded a few rooms down the hall, transforming into the perfect society bride.
Having the wedding at the mansion is meant to be a consequence, the smaller guestlist a message to the masses that I’m less important than my brother.
But I also know it’s because my father needs to control the environment. He knows we haven’t given up. But he also knows he holds all the cards.
How can we play when our hands are empty?
His frustration with the guys has been clear the few times he’s met with me. He’s suspicious because Walker and RJ just go to class and go home. He’s livid that he’s been unable to find Jansen or Emma. Clara and I are growing difficult to predict, and I wish I’d been able to listen to their conversation last night.
I still don’t get why he’s put this much effort into us, though. Not clearly. Why Clara? Why let the two of us stick together when he could partner me up with the daughter of some shady business associate?
I’d whispered that question to Clara a few nights ago, worried about what was coming. And watching her eyes drift to the wall like she didn’t want to see me when she answered, told me I wouldn’t like her guess.
“I think your father loves you, in whatever twisted way he’s able to feel that emotion, but he also can’t give up control of you. Therefore, he’s giving you what you want. He’s giving you me. Only he can’t do that without the leverage he so desperately needs to feel secure.”
I hadn’t liked that answer then, and I still don’t like it now.
My father is nothing but a monster. A lifetime of evidence of that fact is laid out across my skin and within my shattered psyche.
But what she said stuck with me, twisting in my gut.
I don’t want any fucked-up version of love he has to give. I want him to suffer like he’s made me suffer.He needs to disappear, either off the face of the planet or out of my life. I don’t care which.
Putzing around with my hair, I style it like I know my father likes it, wanting to tug the strands out of position the second I get it straight. Not knowing what else to do, I pull on the tux that was delivered to me this morning. It showed up with a cup of coffee and a breakfast I’ve hardly touched.
Then I stand in front of the mirror, staring at the monster my father made: me.
I look like a hard man, someone who doesn’t laugh, someone who feels nothing but hatred and violence.
The scars on my knuckles speak to that violence, and the ice under my brows backs it up.
The breadth of my shoulders doesn’t fit with the wealth I know waits downstairs, making it even more clear that I’m the beast, not the master.
