She looks at my phone and nods but doesn’t speak.
“Nanna keeps liking all this crap. And she doesn’t even have dementia.” I slap a palm against my forehead. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean that to come out like… I know I’m a dick. How’s the tea?”
“Good.” She takes a sip and then sets it down.
Her movements are eerie, detached.
She must be having an episode. There’s no other way to describe how odd and quiet she is.
“Sorry I’m back so late. This executive insisted on taking me out for dinner.” I scratch an eyebrow, suddenly not wanting to hold her gaze.
She makes no response and just stares into the distance. Maybe she’s upset with me. Then I realise that there’s no maybe about it. She’s been upset with me for years, and rightly so.
I pull in a deep breath. “I guess I thought that if I stay a bit longer to help you, then maybe you’ll finally forgive me. I know I can be a sarcastic bastard at times. Well, all the time, but I’m… I dunno, pushing you away like I always have.”
She looks at me as I speak, but offers no sign of how she’s feeling.
“You probably think I’ve always hated you, but I haven’t. Not as much as I hated myself, anyway. Jessica made me go to therapy.” Silence surrounds us. I tap the edge of the Maltesers mug that came free with an Easter egg years ago. “Well, say something.”
“I… forgive you,” she says.
My shoulders relax as soon as she says the words I’ve been waiting to hear since that terrible day. I open my mouth to thank her, but then she smiles a crooked smile, and the hair on the back of my neck shoots up. Fingers tightening around the mug, I freeze as a warning bell chimes in my head.
I’m looking at Faye’s face, but that is not her smile. The arrangement of her muscles is all wrong. And where’s the sarcastic comment, the biting remark to put me in my place? My apology was accepted too easily.
I stand quickly, so full of energy that I shove the chair backwards and it clatters to the floor behind me. Then I lift an arm, extend a finger and point at the woman sat at the kitchen table. “You’re not Faye.”
Her eyes widen in fear and she rises from her chair, her eyes fixed on the door behind me.
She backs away from the table and turns, starting to run. I lurch forward, tripping over the table leg and falling onto the hard kitchen floor, palms slapping the tiles. Her gait is ungainly and stiff as she hurries from the room and then she disappears from view as I scramble on the ground.
I push myself up from the floor like a sprinter in the blocks, and finally, I’m on my feet, chasing after Claire Blackburn as she tries to run away.
CHAPTER 47
THE SISTER
Hello, Sister.
So now you know.
You know that I am the one you should have been afraid of all along.
Everyone always underestimates me. They have ever since I was a child. Poor, quiet Dina with no friends and no birthday party. The girl in the corner with nothing to say.
But that’s not who I am. It never was. I was always the most lethal person in any room, and the sting in my tail is that nobody knew how deadly I really was.
But he knew. He saw me as I am. On the day I met Magnus, he took me to a pig farm because he wanted to hurt something. I saw it in his eyes, like it was reflected back from deep within my own spirit. I knew he was my soulmate even then.
Yes, he has a wife and kids, blah blah blah. He even has a fiancée as well now. But he’s still mine. Nobody understands the rules we follow. No one else comes even close to us and I don’t need anyone else to confirm it.
Magnus and I have been together for years, ever since that day on the farm. He understands me better than anyone, better than I even understand myself. He knows all about my traumatic childhood with my despicable mother. The mother you managed to escape.
Claire and Faye. The perfect twins, who grew up in perfect homes with perfect parents. But recently things aren’t quite so perfect, are they?
The same day I met Magnus, was the day I met Claire. Mum tracked her down and they had a reunion while they sent us outside. It didn’t go well, I think they argued.
She went quiet at home. Wouldn’t talk about it. So I knew I was going down in the cellar again.
