Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
When I came home, my house didn’t feel like mine anymore. It was that same weird floating feeling but projected onto the walls I decorated myself. Did I ever really think ducks with little blue bows on their necks were cute? Or did I just see it in an old magazine and let a curator from the nineties make that decision for me?
I get out of the shower, almost entirely wrinkled, and I wrap myself in a towel. I know I should get dressed, but somewhere between my bathroom and the chest of drawers that is practically directly outside it, I get lost. I find myself wandering my apartment in aimless, small circles, cooling quickly from the shower.
This place does not seem like home anymore. I don’t feel like home anymore. I feel like a stranger to myself. I look around and I see places Ted once stood, things he touched, the picture of the silly frog that he laughed and laughed at. He only came here once, but I can picture him here as clearly as if he’d lived here with me for a lifetime.
Tears fog my eyes as I finally pull on a pair of flannel pajamas, then go and sit in the yellow chair by the window, and stare out of it until it is time for bed.
CHAPTER 2
Leo
We rendezvous back at the family home. It’s a big standalone old house in the historic part of the city where only people with trust funds and illicit sources of income can afford to live. The house was built in the Gilded Age, as Mark Twain put it, and is a big, hefty Romanesque Revival piece of architecture with enough space for a very large family to live. My brothers and I have always swum in the place. There will be even more room for activities now.
Teddy used to enjoy the spacious gardens, manicured to within an inch of their lives, with clever planting creating all manner of nooks and crannies to hide in. I always liked the walls. They are high and pointed and intruders have a devil of a time attempting to get over them.
Aiden and Luke are in the lounge, drinking. I join them, though I abstain from the whiskey because I suspect being clearheaded will be an advantage in times to come.
“The girl at the cemetery is called Ella Chick,” I tell my brothers. “She’s got a picture on her social media of her and Teddy together, going out somewhere. I believe they were dating.”
“A girlfriend?” Aiden says.
“He never mentioned her,” I say. “But yes.”
Luke swallows what remains in his glass angrily and stares out the window. I wonder if he knows something he is not saying. He and Teddy, being the youngest two and relatively close in age, were co-conspirators in many things that Aiden and I would not have approved of.
“Do you know something, Luke?”
Luke shoots an irritated glance at me. “The contents of my mind are my own,” he says. “If I knew anything that had anything to do with Teddy being fucking murdered, I would tell you.”
Aiden makes a calming motion at me with his hand. We don’t want Luke getting belligerent. He can be a monster when he is triggered, and this has the capacity to be one of his worst days.
“Fine,” I say. “If you do happen to remember anything, please do let us know at your earliest convenience.”
“He kept trying to get away from all this shit. We should have let him go,” Luke says.
“There’s no way out of this, and you know it,” Aiden replies calmly.
Luke gives him an annoyed, angry stare. The pecking order is not broken, but it is being challenged by my younger brother. Luke has found himself back in a position he hasn’t had since he was very young, that of the youngest brother, and Aiden is being more controlling than ever because of our having lost Teddy.
Luke is rebelling against the closest thing we have to an ultimate authority, which is hilarious because Luke is 6′3 and an MMA fighter. Aiden is dangerous too, but in a different way. Less obviously physically intimidating, but smarter, and far more twisted.
I am immune to this dynamic to a certain extent because I have always been different. Colder, some say. More analytical. Less emotional. The typical sibling power plays never interested me.
“What if I want out of this?” Luke says. “Because I don’t want to follow him into the ground. We don’t know who the fuck did this. We have absolutely fucking nothing. And now people know that we can be hurt, they’ll be coming for all of us.”
“They always knew that we could be hurt. We’re human,” Aiden says.
“They wouldn’t have fucking dared touch us before now, and you know it. Our family has been fucking untouchable for generations. The last time someone was assassinated was in our great-great-great-grandfather’s day, and that was a fucking cousin!” Luke exclaims. “Teddy was our brother. And they shot him like he was a fucking stray dog.”