Page 15 of Heartless Heathens

“Then get your ass up in the attic so we can find out what Frollo is hiding from him.” He directed and Corvin nodded slowly, closing his eyes. “Did you bring your meds?” he asked him and I slowly backed away, knowing a fight was probably imminent.

“I’m not taking that shit, it turns me into a drooling fucking zombie and I forget everything.” His eyebrows furrowed heavily with his scowl.

“Well, you’re not going to be free to hurt anyone who inconveniences you, so unless you want a permanent babysitter, you’ll start taking them again.” He stood over him, his presence taking up so much more space than mine ever really could.

“Sonny,” Corvin gritted out in a challenge, but even I knew it was useless.

Sonny’s word was law.

That’s just how we did things.

Maybe because Arlan Black had spent the last nineteen years drilling it into our brains that it would be this way.

“At least a half, on days when you’re feeling a lot of pressure.” I knelt by my brother, hoping to diffuse the situation and not push him into another episode.

Sometimes when things got really bad, he would get into what we called “rolling black-outs.” He’d get stuck falling back into a black-out the minute he would come out of another, and he’d have to be medically sedated in order to avoid permanent brain damage from the seizure-like effects.

“Whatever.” He consented with a mouth full of loathing that only my brother could achieve.

“Grow up.” Sonny tossed him a water bottle, but I caught it before it could hit him in the face, knowing sometimes he got pretty physically weak from these episodes.

“Quit being an ass. Take care of him or I’m not gonna go look for her.” I threatened.

“Then we’ll all be fucked.” Sonny shrugged and made his way over to the side chair on the opposite side of Corvin’s bed, putting his feet up on the mattress and leaning back with his hands behind his head.

He was a beautiful bastard, but he could be a cold, cruel asshole.

His fatherandArlan made him that way. Though he did his best to be everything his father wasn’t, some traits you just couldn’t wash out, even with extensive grooming. Carmine Santorini had been a miserable piece of shit, and Arlan Black was scarier than the Devil himself. The combination wasn’t a hopeful one.

I strapped on my shoes and hopped out of the same bedroom window as the girl, trying to see if she’d left me any possible clues of where she might be heading but I figured my best bet was the dormitories. There was nothing else for at least a hundred miles in any direction.

What the fuck was she doing all the way out here? The chapel was at least a mile from the dormitories. If she came from the dorms, maybe other students had seen her. I jogged across campus as fast as I could, doing my best to not look like a total maniac to everyone who I passed by. What was I even looking for? A disheveled silver haired girl? I didn’t even know what the fuck she was wearing.

It was a blue dress, no it was white?

A nightgown?

Why would she have been wearing a nightgown?

I burst into the dormitory lobby, taking a second to catch my breath. I looked around, seeing a tiny blonde girl with a badge that said “RESIDENT ASSISTANT” sitting behind the desk with her feet up and her phone propped on a stand.

“You seen a girl come in here?” I asked. She pulled her earbuds off without looking up to answer.

“Why don’t you try being more specific?” she asked in a sarcastic tone before her eyes found my face and she saw my lack of amusement. “Wow. You both really look the same,” she said, letting me know she’d already met Corvin.

“That’s what identical means.”

“Who are you looking for?” She rounded back to my question.

“She had silver hair. Might have been wearing a nightgown, maybe just a really ugly dress. She seemed upset.”

“Um.” She bit her lip like she was trying to hold back a smile at my expense. “Sounds like you saw the ghost, we were all taking bets on whether or not she’d curse you all.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What ghost?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Y’all really don’t know shit about this school do you? I tried telling your twin about her.” She seemed like she was entertained by our ignorance.

“Apparently not, I didn’t even think they let girls in here,” I confessed.