Page 70 of Serpentine
My heart pumps away, seeming a little louder through the news. “He does?” He’d never mentioned it before, and I feel a little defeated in how I’ve been there for him because I didn’t notice that he was struggling with himself in this way.
She nods. “I don’t know if he’s always wanted it or if last night was the breaking point where he just decided he needed answers about himself. But I think we’ll have to be there for him, beside him, and support him through it. I didn’t want you to be blindsided by it.”
I nod. “Of course, I’ll be there for him. It’s what I’ve done his entire life.”
She swallows, and a question is forthcoming, but by the look in her eyes, I don’t know if I’m ready for it.
“Were they always that bad?” she finally asks.
I lick my lips, thinking about when we were younger and the slightest thing would set him off.
I nod. “If not worse.”
Her eyes cast downward, as I’m sure she’s fighting another tear.
“Once, Mom told us we were going to the zoo before she tucked us into bed. She told us about all the things we were going to see and do the next day. But the next day came, and it was storming so badly that we couldn’t go. Braxton didn’t understand because she already told him it would happen. He couldn’t rationalize that there was a change in the day’s schedule. No matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t calm down. It lasted all day, and she held and rocked him and kept him from scratching at himself… She loved him so much, and I struggled to show him the same amount of attention. I’m not good with it like she was, you know?”
Aella nods, her eyes wide as she likely thinks of Braxton in whatever state she’d dealt with him last night.
“So, you’re going to do this?” I ask, and she bites her lip and nods.
“I need to know for myself as much as I want to find out for you two. I’ve been turning a blind eye for far too long.”
Even though she seems genuine, I still don’t understand why she’d go undercover and help us with anything. People are shit when it comes down to it, and I expect nothing but that from anyone.
“Well, I’ve already told you you can’t come back, princess. I’ll get you a burner phone to call me from, and you tell me if you feel at any point you’re in danger, do you understand me? Even if you think you’re being paranoid.”
She nods. “What’ll you do?”
I smirk. “Send Sully, of course.”
She laughs. “Sully? He’s like the nicest of all of you.”
The hard lines of my face stay intact, and her smirk fades. “He’s really not.”
She takes a sharp breath. “What leads do you have on your mother’s disappearance? Anything for me to go off of? A starting point?”
I sigh. Sharing this information with her, which is so sensitive to our core mission of finding our mom’s body, feels wrong. It feels like I’m fucking up. She’s an outsider.
But then, she’s not, is she?
I lift her shirt to inspect her fresh tattoo. The surrounding wrapping has been removed, and the scabbing process of healing has begun. I stare at it, and she lets me. It’s a reminder that she’s one of us now.
She’s a Cobra.
“She told a friend who used to work her shift that she found something in the labs of your father’s business. Where some parts are tested and created.”
Her father’s business is in travel. More importantly, airplane travel. He owns one of the leading airplane part manufacturing companies in the United States. As such, that comes with the power he uses to cover up a lot.
One can only speculate that he’d also stick his greedy fingers into something seedy.
“What the hell could she have found?” Aella says absently.
I shrug. “We’ve never been able to get close enough to figure it out. He knows us both from her funeral. He showed his face, and my father threatened to murder him where he stood. We had nobody. We’d just given up hope and needed somewhere to grieve.”
She strokes my face, and I close my eyes.
“You’re going to have to tread lightly. If we lost you, too… I know we haven’t known you long, Aella, but…”