Page 33 of Shattered In Darkness

Alone, again.

All night I tried to lose myself. All night I tried to make it stop. But the pain comes to bed with me, wraps its arms around my ribs, and presses my face to the pillow.

I want to claw myself out of my skin, but instead, I lie there. The emptiness gnaws and gnaws. Brody’s face, it melts in my mind. My mother’s eyes become black holes. Pale skin. Blood curling around her crushed bones.

Brody’s face again. Twisted in pain and anger. A monster. He is storming away, back when we were nineteen, and telling me that I am dead to him. My heart falls so far. It sinks and sinks until I wonder if I am a living thing. I wonder if the light will ever return. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally break for good.

9

BRODY

I want to check on her. It is a burning urge, something that devours me whole. It distracts me from the hate that I feel for her. I’m not supposed to obsess over her anymore, but I can’t help it. She is like a fucking drug in my system.

She was so reckless tonight. So wild. The vision of her in that slutty red dress flashes through my mind. She lets herself be seen, lets herself be used, like it doesn’t matter. It turns my stomach, and it lights a fire in my veins that won’t fucking die.

I see it every time I blink. Lola, spinning on that shitty club floor, sweat on her skin. Neon slicing her curves. Blue light, red light, harsh as blood. Her hair stuck to her damp neck, her ass in a tight dress, rolling for strangers. I remember what it felt like to smack her ass while I would fuck her from behind. She always had a nice ass. Fuck.

I circle the block twice before I even pull into my driveway. Hate. Hunger. It’s all the same. I’m always circling her, even when I tell myself I’m done.

The house is dark except for the kitchen window. Richard’s home after all.

Perfect. Another round of father-son poison.

I kill the engine and slam the door, hard enough to echo into the night. My hands are still shaking.

Richard sits at the dining table, suit jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled halfway up. He’s reading something. Case files, as always. He doesn’t even look up when I walk in. That’s how he plays it. Pretends my absence means nothing, that he hasn’t been waiting up. That he doesn’t track the mud I drag in, the violence I leave behind.

I dump my keys on the marble counter and look at him.

He speaks first. “Rough night?”

I shrug. “I handled it.”

“Not quite,” he says, flipping a page. “You left a mess.”

“What mess?”

He closes the file, lining the edges up precisely. “The Martinez garage. There’s unfinished business.”

Martinez garage. The guy I left crumpled near the stairwell, blood pooling under his jaw. The taste of violence, still sweet in my mouth.

I don’t flinch. “He’s dead.”

Richard sighs, the patient way he does when I’m boring him. “That’s not the point, Brody. The dead don’t talk. It’s the living you need to worry about. The witnesses.”

I take a step closer. The light over the table is halogen, and it makes his eyes almost colorless. He stares up at me, no fear, no affection. Just the calculation.

“There’s a witness?”

He smooths the folder, tapping it twice. “Someone saw you leaving the scene. The problem is, they can’t identify you. The security camera was covered, but there’s a person of interest.”

I want to break the glass, just to hear it shatter. “Who?”

A smile flickers at the edge of his mouth, cold. “Girl in a hood. Small. Quick. Security says she was there after you left. They’re digging, but the description is… familiar.”

My gut seizes. I hate how fast I jump to her. I hate how my mind fills in the blank with Lola’s face, even though it’s stupid.

Richard sees it. He always sees too much. He leans back in his chair, folds his hands. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. Trouble has a way of finding your ex-lovers.”