Page 25 of Cry Madness
Worn-down charcoal in hand, I examine the sinister cat, aware that I have plenty of time before I need to shower and get ready. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s see how far we can get before I have to leave.”
I block out the world to concentrate on the vaguely grinning feline on the canvas, my hand moving almost with a life of its own. It glides the charcoal across the stretched cloth, streak after streak and smudge after smudge, giving the creature its shape. Slowly bringing it to life…
…but I cringe, gnashing my teeth, when the rev of that fucking engine roars down the street.Again. This time, with “Weirdo” by K.Flay ripping through the air—a blatant reminder of when Maddox and I took a joyride to Callay.
The day I bought him the top hat.
It’s among my favorite memories—and he damn well knows this. What an asshole.
Goddamn you, Maddox.
EIGHT
“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”
—Hatter,Alice in Wonderland
She’s here.
At Folly House—my sanctuary, my dominion—and she’s absolutely fucking stunning.
She also looks like she’s having far too good a time effortlessly mingling with everyone except me. But I see her game, and I’ll raise her mine because this simply will not do, not at all. Not even a smidge.
Alice’s mere presence is a gift among this godawful privileged crowd of Wonderland’s future overlords—the offspring of the wealthy and powerful, poised to become corrupt lawyers, overpriced doctors, greedy politicians, and greedy CEOs. They’re too dense to recognize the single drop of true beauty. But I see it, I see her, and I relish every nuance of that fierce, Gothic goddess.
Oh, and she isfully aware of my hungry gaze fixed on her, and that’s why she’s deliberately avoiding looking at me. The delicate blush, however, blooming on her cheeks is the giveaway.
Alice can play pretend to everyone else, but not with me. Never with me. I know her too damn well.
March crashes onto the couch beside me, a red plastic cup in hand filled with his ‘infamous’ bathtub gin. Out of morbid curiosity, I sampled it before everyone got here, only to have it rip through my insides like molten lava. No, thanks. I prefer a smooth bourbon, having already downed four shots of Buffalo Trace to numb the brewing primal jealousy of watching Alice deliberately cozy up to men who are not me.
March stops singing along to “Hokus Pokus” by Insane Clown Posse to nod at Alice—who’s still chatting away with Brantley-fucking-Benson, making it painfully apparent that she’s engrossed in their bullshit conversation. “That’s the reason you’re looking murder-y?”
“I don’t look murder-y,” I insist, even though I’d love nothing more right now than to rip Brantley’s heart clean out of his chest. “Just sitting here minding my own business, fantasizing about your mom,” I quip, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
The brawny fucker shoves me so hard, I nearly topple off the loveseat. “Astrid O’Hare was a saint,” he retorts with a smirk.
As if he’d know if his mother was a saint or not. Astrid died from a ruptured aneurysm when March was a toddler. Finlay O’Hare, his deadbeat dad, was killed years later when he was shot during a failed attempt at robbing a liquor store over in Pleasant County. His parents are nothing more than ideas rather than memories, and following Finlay’s death, Roman snatched up March and brought him to Horizons. March was there two years before I arrived, and within seconds after I got here, heand I became as close as brothers. Our dark humor has always been a coping mechanism, I suppose—with one of our favorite topics to tease each other about being our dead mothers.
“Okay, fine, you win.” I toss up my hands in mock surrender. “It’s your dad’s luscious ass I’m dreaming about—Ow, fucker!”
…or our dads, because why not, right?
If March hadn’t pulled the punch, his heavy fist would have definitely cracked a few of my teeth. But he did go easy on me, with the hit landing soft enough to silence me but not hard enough to stop my laughter. “You’re a jerkoff,” he growls with no real bite.
I rub my jaw. “True, and yet here you are, my brother from another mother. What the fuck does that say about you?”
He slouches against the back of the loveseat, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle, and arms folded across his broad chest. “Simple,” he says with a shrug. “I’m stark raving insane, same as you.”
“Ah, okay, using the ol’ insanity excuse.” With a roll of my eyes, I pull out my watch to check the time before stuffing the gold timepiece back inside the pocket of my black vest. “Anyway, why are you down here and not upstairs, buried balls-deep in one of these willing ladies?”
With a bitter snort, March’s visceral disgust says everything without speaking a word as he surveys the motley crew gathered in our living room. They’re a sorry spectacle, these foolish pick-me girls vying for our attention. Clowns, the lot of them, here to amuse us, completely unaware of how ridiculous they are. They’re sheep, oblivious to the metaphorical slaughter awaiting their inflated egos.
The air is thick with the worst kind of entitlement, and every individual here embodies the most negative stereotype of spoiledoffspring hailing from a gilded upbringing. I suppose March and I are victims of this same cliché, despite growing up in an orphanage where survival of the fittest was the rule of thumb. We’re trapped in the web of arrogance and disillusionment, perhaps even more than these silly creatures. We’ve merely twisted our dysfunction into a different mold, yet we’re still snared in the same toxic cage.
When Brantley Benson moves in a touch too close to her, it takes every drop of self-control not to pop off this loveseat and lay claim to her right here, right now. My insides curdle and my muscles tense with the need to beat him bloody. His casual confidence is infuriating, especially when he leans back just enough for her hand to rest on his hip, a gesture that feels far too familiar, too damn intimate. Her every slight movement feels deliberate, as if she’s testing the boundaries I’ve earned and fought hard to protect.
But what really pisses me off is the way he steals a glance my direction, a snide look that’s practically begging me to hurt him. His expression is pure gloating satisfaction that fans the flames of my jealousy. He knows I’m watching, and I take his actions as a silent dare for me to respond.