We’re listening to some Sleep Token songs now and I see her bobbing her head slightly.
“You like this music?” I ask her.
“It’s not bad.”
“What music do you like?” My chest tightens a little. Is this nerves? I’m suddenly a nerd attempting to talk to the prettiest girl in school.
“I like rock music. Country. Folk. Anything, really.” Her voice quiets as she adds, “Lewis liked rock. We used to listen to it all the time.”
I swallow hard. “Max was more of a rap guy, couldn’t stand it.”
I glance over to her and see a small smile on her lips. “Lewis liked rap, too. They would have had that in common, as well as dying together.”
The words cast a bitter air over us. She’d convinced herself they could still be alive, but it seems logic is settling back in now adrenaline’s wearing off. It’s devastating, but they’re not alive. And she shouldn’t hold on to that futile hope that they are. Max’s body was identified. Just about.
“Did you have much in common with him?” I ask, finding myself eager to keep her talking.
She sighs. “Yes. We shared a lot. Music, books, movies. We had a saying between us, one he’d tell me when things were bad. From one of our favourite childhood movies.”
“What was it?”
She waves a hand. “Nothing. It’s dumb.”
“Tell me.”
She inhales slowly. “I can go the distance. It was Lewis’s favourite song from Hercules. He believed we could find a better place than what we had with our dad.”
I purse my lips, clench my jaw.
“That’s what I picture him saying to me sometimes.”
God, my chest hurts.
I swallow hard. “Is that who you talk to? When you talk to yourself, do you picture it being him?”
I’d always thought it was odd, catching her mumbling stuff under her breath. But if she thinks it’s Lewis…
“Sometimes,” she hesitantly admits. “But mostly it’s…”
She doesn’t finish. “What?” I urge.
She shakes her head. “You’ll think I’m mad.”
“I already do.” I give her a sidelong glance. One I hope comes across as encouraging. “You did just dig up your brother’s grave in the middle of the night. I don’t think it can top that.” My attempt at jest falls flat. I’m not good at this shit like Fiz.
I just want her to keep talking.
Finally, she speaks again. A lot quieter. “The darkness.”
“The what?”
“The darkness… from my cell.”
“You had a cell?” What the actual fuck?
“Dad preferred to keep me in the castle dungeon. After taking away my mattress as punishment for disobeying wasn’t enough to stop me resisting him, he started locking me up there.”
She takes a breath, and it’s all I can do to take one too.
