Page 79 of The Sister's Curse

And I understood that something down there would also stop at nothing to pull me down into its depths.

—

I got home just after midnight, when the fireflies lit up the forest at the edge of the house.

“You want some coffee?” I asked Monica.

“Nah. I’m heading home to bed. Catch you in the morning.”

We said our goodbyes, and I let myself into the house. Gibby came to greet me, his nails clicking on the scarred hardwood floors. Nick was in bed, snoring.

So much for that talk we were going to have.

I slipped into bed, and Gibby wriggled in between us.

I had faith that Nick would talk to me when he was ready.

I stared at the ceiling, thinking about this family I’d made. Family was a terribly fragile thing. I didn’t want to let it go. If Nick wanted to move away, I didn’t think I could bear being apart from him. Not in the middle of the night, when all the fears that I couldn’t talk about clouded my head.

I couldn’t ask him how to interact with my mother. My father had killed Nick’s mother, long ago, and Nick had lived with his grandparents. I had a model of motherly love, certainly—my adoptive mother. She and my adoptive father were enjoying their retirement, traveling. They were currently on a cruise in Alaska. I vowed that when they returned, I would take time off, enjoy my adoptive mom’s cooking and bring her flowers. Yes, that felt normal. Sane.

Nothing like my biological mother, who was masquerading as a member of a happy family. I knew better. She was a sociopath. She carried the Lyssa variant, the genetic mutation that I suspected drove much of my father’s psychopathy. I carried it, too. I refused to believe that biology was destiny, but with her…

How could she have abandoned me at twelve like that? How could she have sent me away without a second thought, to create a new life? I wanted answers from her. I knew I would never get them.

The dreams I was having stung. They showed me a version of my mother that I wanted, someone who was softer, who didn’t hate me for being my father’s daughter. In those dreams, I felt like I was her daughter, too. That maybe she loved me, just a little bit.

But I couldn’t trust those dreams. They were so different from what I knew, of her coldness and her abandonment.

There were no answers. It wasn’t as if I could ask her. Even if I did, I was certain she would lie to me, just as she did decades before.

—

I awoke to my phone ringing.

“Koray,” I answered muzzily. I rolled out of bed to take the call away from Nick, who was still sawing logs. Gibby snuffled at me and burrowed under the covers.

BEEP.“El-Tee, it’s Detwiler. Got a crime scene here at the quarry that might be of interest to you.” He sounded a little green, which didn’t bode well for the nature of the crime.

“Copy that. Send me the directions?”

“Done.”

It was then that I realized I didn’t have a car. “Um, can you also do me a favor?”

“Shoot, El-Tee.”

“Can you please get Vice to drop a car off for me?”

“Sure thing.”

BEEP.

Ugh. The new comm system’s beeping was like a bullet to the brain. I got dressed and headed out to the driveway, wondering what the fuck was going down at the quarry. Vice had apparently already come and gone, leaving me with the El Camino that smelled like cigars. Well, it was certainly better than nothing, but I was sure they were cracking up at the fact that they’d hung some pink fuzzy dice from the rearview mirror.So retro.

As I left, Kapp’s Automotive called to tell me that the SUV was ruined. I asked them if they thought it could have been sabotaged. They couldn’t definitively say that, but they told me that the car would cost more to fix than it was worth.

I sighed. I’d miss the SUV. I patted the El Camino’s dashboard. “You and me are gonna be friends for a while longer, old girl.”