I’m pretty sure Angelica will talk. I have a feeling she’s been refusing to speak so that she gets to see me. It may have been six years since we’ve seen each other but a twin bond forged in abuse is not easily broken.
River stops me outside the locked door to the interrogation room. “Are you sure you want to do this?” He scans me up and down.
I don’t exactly look the part. I’m wearing joggers and one of Jude’s t-shirts that’s baggy enough to fit over my bandages. The cuts still ache but I’m on a heavy dose of painkillers and after a night of sedated sleep my mind feels surprisingly clear. “I’ve got this,” I tell River.
He nods at the guard who unlocks the door with a key attached to her belt. River, Jude, Eli, and Oz go into the viewing room. I take a deep breath and walk inside.
Angelica’s shoulder is bandaged where Oz shot her. Her right wrist is cuffed to the table while her left arm rests in a sling across her chest.
“You came.” She smiles at me. It’s a simple, innocent smile like the one she gave me when we were eight and I snuck us outside to play together in the garden.
The metal chair scrapes against the floor as I pull it out and take a seat across from her. I eye her sling. “Are you alright?”
She shrugs with her good shoulder. “We’ve had worse.”
I meet her eyes, a carbon copy of mine and nod.We really have.
“What happens now?” she asks, and she doesn’t sound like the manic woman who cut into me yesterday. She sounds like a scared young girl.
I rest my hands on the table. The cold metal chills my skin but I don’t pull away. “Now, I apologize,” I tell her. I can practically feel River’s glare through the two-way mirror behind me. I wet my lips and focus on my sister. “I broke my promise. I swore I would never leave you and I did and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, and I am so proud of you for not breaking yours.”
She frowns and pushes at her cuticles with her thumb. “I wanted to. I tried to.”
“I know, but you didn’t.”
Her eyes laser in on me. “Maybe I did, maybe I’m lying. I’m good at that.”
She is, but not to me. I take her hand and stop her from scratching her fingers to shreds.
She goes still.
I let out a steady breath. “I need you to tell me where dad is.”
She shakes her head, short sharp jerks.
“Angelica.”
“No. No. I won’t. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No!” She screams and stands up, sending her chair crashing to the floor.
I get up and hold up my hand to the mirror, stopping the guys from coming storming in.
Angelica yanks at the cuff locking her to the table. She pulls hard, the metal cutting into her wrist as she throws her head back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut.
I round the table and grab her arm. “Stop it. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She doesn’t listen to me, wrenching her body away from the table.
I hook my arm around her waist and pull her into me. “Allie, please stop,” I beg, calling her what I used to before dad caught on to the fact we’d given each other nicknames. “Please, Allie.”
She sucks in a breath and lets out a pained keen. She crumples against me and presses her forehead into my shoulder.
I hug her to me as she sobs, my top dampening with her tears. I cradle the back of her head with my hand and whisper into her ear. “You never have to see him again. He can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let him. You did it,” I say, “you got out. We both did.” Pressure grows under my eyes, and I realize I’m crying too.
We sink to the floor, gripping onto each other so tightly it hurts. We cry for what feels like hours, the two of us a storm cloud releasing all the pain our father gave us. We are tied together with rusted chains. Our lives fused with matching scars. Her cuts bleed in time with mine. No-one else knows what we went through. No one else lived it.
