Page 89 of Restitution

“I do though. If I’d gone upstairs when your dad told me to, then I wouldn’t have been there. Jason would still be alive.”

My hand shakes, but I manage to lift it and place it on her head, brushing my fingers through her soft hair. I inwardly sigh, our closeness something I need but can’t have. “Jason’s gone,” I say, the words getting twisted in my throat. “There’s no pointdwelling.”

We just need to get the funeral out the way. I’ll figure out the next steps once I bury my brother.

The thought alone makes me feel nauseous.

Stacey lifts her head up and moves so she’s sitting beside me on the bed. Then she drops back, holding the picture and dress, staring at the ceiling. I slowly lie back too and fight the urge to talk. To tell her how dark my head is. To ask her to stay by my side. To beg her to make the pain go away.

The crippling grief I’m trying to ignore.

The paranoia about my father’s whereabouts.

The rage I feel towards Archie, still trapped in my basement, starving and in pain from my constant beatings.

Stacey turns her head, looking at me. She lifts her hand, and I take it without hesitation. The contact has butterflies going through me again, and I close my eyes, loving the touch, ignoring the demolished room around us.

If only we could stay like this forever, here, in this position. Together.

Hours later, I wake up to Stacey’s head on my chest, her leg trapped between mine, the dress between us. I inhale, smelling her shampoo. I trace my finger over the mark on her cheek – I did that to her. I didn’t mean to.

When my eyes lift to the guard standing by the doorway, his back turned, I sigh and wake her up.

We pack the box again, even the ripped-up sketches of her I drew, and she makes me take my pencils and sketch pad too before we head back to the manor.

28

KADE

Mum and Ewan are watching a movie in the sitting room, and my sister has had Stacey in the studio for hours, so I’ve spent the last three hours torturing Archie.

He’s weak. His skin is a little yellow. Well, the parts I haven’t already cut into. He’s slobbering everywhere, and I think he might have an infection in his dick from the nail gun.

He wails in pain as I stub my cigarette out on his cheek.

“Are you going to give me any information on those bastards in the underworld, or am I going to start pulling your fingernails?”

“Go f-f-fuck yourself.”

I shrug and grab a pair of pliers, and blood squirts all over my face as I yank his pinkie nail out. I chuck aside the tooland cross my arms. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Pour bleach on his wounds,” I order one of my men.

“Yes, sir.”

I unravel my shirt sleeves, refasten the cuffs and head out into the corridor, stopping when I hear music – “Dead Man” by David Kushner. I push the door to the studio open to see Stacey mounting the aerial hoop.

Throughout the song, I watch as she dances in a routine. She forms shapes that would break my bones and kill me, and she spins so slowly and sensually, I know she’s feeling the music, zoning out and letting go.

I gulp and lean my forehead on the doorframe, hidden enough that she won’t see me watching the way she bends and moves, the light sweat working on her skin.

We’ve been texting back and forth today. Nothing flirty or about the other night. She’s given me soft smiles and even nudges me playfully when we’re eating at the dinner table.

We’ve walked the dogs together too. She still can’t handle holding both leashes without letting go when they pull.

Her routine ends, and she drops from the hoop like a cadaver and lies on the thin mat, her chest rising and falling. She wipes her face, then she starts stretching.

A throat clears behind me, and I turn to see Ewan holding a bottle of bleach. “I was told to bring this down.”

Luciella and I haven’t really talked. Me and my sister aren’t the type of twins to connect with our emotions – we aren’t synchronised.