Page 34 of Run, Little Rabbit (Blood & Bonds #1)

Chapter Thirty-One

Echo

“ W hat the hell do you two want?” I ask as the twins make themselves comfortable in my house.

I’ve lived here for a few years now, since I was twenty-one.

I’d grown up on a country estate in the middle of nowhere, but when I was old enough to no longer need babysitting, I bought this with some of the money Mum left me.

A society princess needs a palatial little townhouse to keep up appearances.

Conor grabs my recently poured shot of tequila and downs it.

“Eww, gross. Get your own glass, asshole.”

He grins wide. “We share the same DNA, Echo. I don’t have cooties.”

I snort. “Jeez, how old are you? Who even says that anymore?”

Cillian throws a disdainful look at his twin as he hops up onto one of the barstools at my white marble-topped island. “Don’t be childish, brother. It’s beneath us.”

Conor just rolls his eyes and starts rummaging for a couple more shot glasses.

“What do you pair want?” I ask again when Connor returns victorious and pours us all a shot.

He sits in the seat next to his twin, and if you didn’t know who was who, you’d never be able to tell the difference.

They look exactly the same from the top of their strawberry-blonde hair down to their Italian loafer-clad feet.

It’s been a long time since they’ve been able to trick me, though.

Conor’s eyes still have a sliver of soul left in them.

Cillian’s, on the other hand, are as cold and as dead as ice.

“Why don’t you tell us about this?” Cillian says as he slides my calling card across the surface.

I could play cute and deny knowing anything about it, but if they’re here with that card, they already know everything. “That there would be the calling card for the Six Minute Killer.”

“Cute name,” Conor says, his eyes watching every micro-expression on my face.

“Thanks.”

“You’re not even going to deny it?” Cillian asks, an eyebrow raised. I'm half impressed that I managed to elicit a genuine response from him.

“Is there any point in denying it?”

“No,” he replies flatly.

“Why six minutes?” Conor asks as he shrugs out of his jacket and rolls his sleeves up.

“Because it shouldn’t take longer to kill someone than that. If you’re torturing someone, that’s different, but even from strangulation, death should occur within a six-minute window.”

Cillian drinks his tequila and then removes his jacket too.

It’s a weird thing they share. They can’t seem to stand looking any different.

Even as adults, they dress exactly the same, and I think that’s what sets people on edge around them.

What was cute when they were five isn’t cute now that they’re twenty-eight.

“When did you figure it out?” I ask them.

Conor rocks his head from side to side, mulling over the answer. “About a year ago.”

“That long ago?” Colour me impressed. More from the fact that they kept the secret for so long, rather than they actually figured it out. “What gave me away?”

“It was subtle, really. Your behaviour got less and less erratic, so you were clearly getting an outlet somewhere,” Cillian mused.

“At first, we thought it was your little fuck boy, Kai, but when he started to get mopey, we knew you’d cut things off with him. Poor boy, how could you break his precious little heart?” Conor pouts and pretends to cry.

“You can have him, you know,” I say with a grin.

Conor flinches, just a little. Almost too fast to see, but I know I’ve struck a nerve. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Even Cillian smirks at that comment.

“Of course not,” I drawl. “You don’t pine for him at all.”

“You can leave my brother’s unresolved issues over his sexuality off the table. We’re here to talk about you,” Cillian says, jumping immediately to his twin’s defence.

“Fine, but we’re definitely circling back to Conor and Kai.”

Cillian smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It never does. “Deal.”

There’s a gasp of indignation from Conor, but both Cillian and I choose to ignore it.

“So, you’ve racked up quite the body count,” Cillian says, a spark of something unsettling glimmering in his green eyes.

Have I just become fascinating?

How novel.

“I think it might be more than you two put together.”

Conor snorts. “We doubt that.”

“You do know it’s creepy as fuck when you two refer to yourself as ‘us’ and ‘we’,” I say, leaning across the island towards them and dropping my voice to a stage whisper.

Conor just shrugs as if he doesn’t care.

They’ve always done it, always referred to themselves as a pair and never as an individual.

They’re definitely co-dependent, and I am curious to see what would happen to their dynamic if one of them ever started dating.

I mean, they’re both possessive over their things, so I don’t think they’d share life partners.

I know they’ve shared bed partners, but that has always been as a one-off and never longer than a week or two.

The whole ‘unresolved sexual identity issues’ is rather intriguing, though.

I just assumed they were bi, but now I’m not so sure what they are.

But it’s not my business, and I’m sure if they were going to tell me, they would.

It won’t stop me from paying a bit more attention to who they spend their time with though, just to see if I can figure it out.

“So, you managed to get Bennie’s phone,” Cillian states, his head cocked to one side. It’s a statement, not a question.

“Well, I did kill the guy. Of course I stole his phone.”

Conor runs his fingers through his perfectly set strawberry-blonde hair, mussing up the locks just a little. Cillian frowns at his twin for spoiling his perfect image. God, those two are weird.

“And you just managed to get all the information off it?” Conor asks as he bats his twin’s hand away from his fringe.

“No,” I scoff. “I had to wait for an acquaintance of mine to decrypt it.”

“Ahh, your little tech whiz you keep at Mother’s old home,” Cillian says smugly.

How does he know so much? I need to get better at keeping secrets. “You know it’s annoying how much you know.”

“It pays to know,” he replies as Conor whispers something in his ear. “Oh, yes. The files. So, Father had Mother murdered.”

Another statement rather than a question. “Looks that way.”

They don’t even look bothered or hurt about it.

Then again, I’m not really sure how their emotions work.

They appear bored most of the time, but I think that’s because they find the rest of the world beneath their notice.

If it doesn’t bore them, then that’s when they show some kind of reaction.

I guess the news of Mum being murdered isn’t interesting enough.

I know they're wired differently than I am, so I try not to take that personally. They’re sociopaths, and I’m—well, I’m not quite sure what I am.

I revel in the chaos and enjoy the power of a kill.

I definitely feel, so I’m not a psychopath, but I’m not sure a label will make a difference.

It most likely stems from the trauma of having a violent father and a murdered mother, and I think I cling to the ideal of my mother because my father was so violent.

I have this image that she was this caring goddess of a woman, but in reality I don’t really remember much about her at all.

“We aren’t surprised,” Cillian murmurs softly. “Father’s nature is volatile at the best of times; if Mother did something to anger or upset him, I wouldn’t put it past him to order a hit on her.”

“Really?” Conor asks his twin, and my eyebrows hit my hairline. The twins disagreeing? I have to look out the window to see if pigs are flying.

Cillian turns to his twin, a calculating look invading his features. “Why are you surprised?”

“Mother might not have loved Father, but he adored her. In his own way,” Conor says, but his voice is unsteady.

“What do you remember about them?” I was five when Mum died, and the twins would have been eight.

Cillian turns back to me, his gaze assessing. “Why is this important? Why blackmail Father over this?”

Anger rises in me, sudden and potent. “Can’t you figure it out?”

“Because he lied.” Conor nods as if he understands, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel like I do.

“If he killed her, it means everything is a lie. His grief, his sorrow. Every attempt at comforting me was a lie. It makes me sick and angry. He robbed me of any chance of being normal, of having a family, because let’s face it, I’m only worth what he can get in return for marrying me off.

” Tears start to brim over my eyes, and even that makes me angry.

That I’m crying over something so selfish.

“Echo,” Cillian starts, but I don’t let him talk.

I point my finger accusingly at the pair of them. “And you two. You sat in those meetings for a year knowing I was more than capable of sitting at that table, and you did nothing.”

“That’s not true,” Conor says quietly.

“Oh, really? All the smug fucking smirks were what? Your attempt at support? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Cillian sighs deeply, like I’m the frustrating one. But they just sit there, with no expression. Giving nothing away about what they’re thinking or feeling.

“You’re right,” Conor says as he places his hands on the counter-top in front of him. “We don’t understand how you feel; it’s been conditioned out of us over too many years, but we do understand why you’re angry.”

“And we have been working on a way to make a difference.” Cillian mimics his brother’s posture, but I’m not sure he even realises he does it anymore. Seems like it’s just become second nature for them to appear to be the same, even when they’re not.

I draw back and eye them warily. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what we say,” Cillian replies with a frown.

“We’ve been undermining Father for almost a year,” Conor adds.

Wait. What? “Explain.”

Again Cillian sighs at having to explain something to me.