Baring his teeth, Randall brings a hand up in front of his face and forms a fist.
The handle of the knife bites into my palm as I grip it harder behind my back, ready for whatever comes next.
Questions pound through my mind, faster than I can answer.
Is he high right now?
Is he going to turn me into a killer, just like our father?
How far away is help when I really need it?
Why ohwhydid I send Weston away earlier?
My brother clenches his hand, like he’s squeezing a can, and leans forward in a threat. Breathing heavily, his grotesque breath curls the hairs in my nostrils, and I fight not to screw my eyes up in disgust and retch. Then he drops his fist.
Seething, his chest rises and falls with his angry breaths. “I found your vehicle registration. Once I had the name you’re using now and your plate number, it took me a couple months, but I was able to track you down. I didn’t use no damn reporter.”
I bolster myself, trying to sound braver than my frantic pulse and shaking knees make me seem. “You mean you stole my registration? Out of mom’s mailbox? And then what, you paid off some creep at the DMV like you’re in some shitty movie?”
Randall barks a laugh, manic in a way that makes every hair on my arms stand on end. “It’s called the dark web, Angel. You can get anything if you know where to look.” He snorts. “And Dad always said you were the smart one.”
A lifetime of acrid rage and helpless despair pumps through my veins, fueling me. “Don’t talk about Dad!”
What our father did was bad enough, no child should ever have to go through that. But for my brother to hold it over my head and refuse to let me move on? He’s actively tried to harm me every day of our lives, which in some ways, feels just as evil.
Behind my back, I press the button and the blade springs free. The click is so soft that he probably doesn’t hear it above the blood rushing in his ears right now at finally finding me, cornering me, so he can bully me in person after all this time. The prick has probably been fantasizing about this day for aslong as I’ve been dreading it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was foam at the sides of his mouth right now.
“You can’t tell me what to say or not say about Dad. It’s your fault he’s gone.”
My response is instantaneous. “It’s not my fault he’s gone. It’shisfault he’s gone. He was the one who chose to react the way he did.”
That’s something I’m not sure I fully believed until confiding in Weston, Lexi, and Rory, but saying it out loud, I realize I believe it now. It gives me some extra strength to scare him off.
I just hope it’s enough.
“That smart mouth of yours has gotten this family in enough trouble, don’t you think? Why don’t you shut it, give me what’s left of the death benefit, and you can go back to hiding from the world like the useless little brat you are.”
He’s still so hung up on his fantasy, so delusionally psychotic, that he doesn’t believe the money has been gone since before he’s even known about it.
Randall has been so fixated on the hope of a free ride that he’s never so much as considered there would be nothing for him to take if he ever got this far in his search.
He leans forward again, pressing too close to me, trying intimidation tactics that might’ve worked on an earlier version of Angel.
Maybe Avery would’ve cowed under this confrontation.
Amelia is certainly wishing like hell she had the capacity to ask for help when she needs it, because this is the scariest day I’ve had sincethatday, and someone here in my corner with me might make all the difference. But I’m on my own, just like always, and it’s time to get rid of him once and for all.
I just can’t stop thinking one thought.
Now he has nothing to hold over me, or Mom, either.
Maybe insanity does run in the family, because I burst out laughing.
“What is this? Why are you laughing?”
The confusion on his face—so similar to our father’s in some ways, but so much worse in others—it makes me laugh even harder.
Maybe I can only take so much damage before I break.
