Page 86 of Twisted Heathens
We’re all caught in her orbit. Every damn one of us.
I slump on the floor, my back against the bloodied wall. My head falls to my hands as I fight the overwhelming need to smash Brooklyn’s door down and sort this toxic mess once and for all. Break her, scream at her, tell her I can’t stop fucking thinking about her. Anything to fix this toxic mess. I can’t remain trapped in limbo, caught between loving and hating that bitch.
The knock at my door comes before it swings open, Kade striding in. He takes one look at me on the floor and frowns, freezing on the spot. “Hud? What’s going on?”
I shake my head and flee to the bathroom, unable to express the intensity of my anger. Kade refuses to look away while I rinse my hands under the tap, red swirls trailing down the drain along with chunks of broken plaster.
“Nothing. I’m good,” I grit out.
He hesitates, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Thought you were working through this stuff, not giving in to it. What’s gotten into you recently? Don’t you want to go home?”
I wrap the towel around my sore hand, sparing him a withering glance. “Who are you, my fucking therapist?” Brushing past him, I take a seat on the bed. “Just mind your own business. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Kade heaves a frustrated sigh. “It has everything to do with me.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Seriously? This again?
“When will you learn to fuck off when you’re not wanted? You think I wanted you to give up university to follow me here? Or that I wanted anyone to lie—” I pause, teetering on the edge of revealing too much.
Kade takes three long strides and sinks to his knees in front of me, his hand landing on my leg. “I know, brother. I know.”
My eyes slide up to meet his. Wide and certain, without a single crack of doubt. “You… know?” I repeat slowly.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears as he nods. The entire fucking world ends with that admission. It has never mattered what everyone else thinks of my crimes, a half-baked lie that we spun with cash and influence to conceal what really happened that night. All I’ve ever cared about is one thing. Kade.
He’s my better half, everything I should be and more.
“You don’t know,” I mutter, as if trying to convince myself.
“Mum told me everything. The whole ugly fucking truth.” He grinds his teeth, struggling to remain calm and level-headed. “You should have told me. I deserved to know.”
My gaze instantly drops to the floor, cheeks burning and heart thumping erratically. I can still see the blood that poured from his battered body. Streaked up the walls, pooling across the kitchen tiles, peppered with fragments of skull.
“Tell you what? That what happened wasn’t self-defence?” I hiss.
Kade gulps. Shudders. Silently fights his own conscience. “Yes.”
The air feels impossibly thick as we watch one another, awful reality crushing us both. “I didn’t want you to know,” I manage to say.
“Why? I don’t get it, Hud. None of it.”
“Because I didn’t want you to think bad of me! That’s why!”
I stride over to the barred window, staring out at the dark night. We used to spend every Friday night like this together, before Blackwood. Before I became this person. Clubbing or drinking, sometimes taking a train into the city centre to find some cute girls to chat up.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I mutter regretfully. “You’re wasting your life in this place. They’re never going to let me out, in three years or thirty. Not after what I did.”
I glance back at Kade, noting the look of absolute devastation across his face. He chews his lip, carefully choosing his next words. “Hud… there’s something you need to know.”
I wait for him to finish, knowing that whatever is coming, it must be bad. Enough to affect the unshakeable Kade. Enough to drive him to my room when he can barely stand to be around me as I slowly ruin my life even further.
“Just tell me,” I command. “Tell me and go.”
Kade joins me by the window, hands clenched in balls. He can’t even look at me, resolutely staring ahead. “Mum says that there’s been a development in the case.”
“Right... And?”
“Fuck, Hud,” he curses, anxiously loosening his shirt collar. “Your ma, she’s come forward and wants to testify against you.”