Page 104 of Underground Prince

My vision blurred with heated tears.

“You want that to hurt, but it doesn’t,” I said. “You want me to be so frightened I’ll escape out the back window. But it’s not about my fear, Theo. You want me and yet you’re afraid for me. For what’ll happen if you let me in.”

“It can’t—it will never happen.” He pushed away, rearing back into his seat, but he couldn’t hide the flutter of pain, the wince of frustration in his face.

“Why? Because now you’re convincing yourself Trace is right? I’ve got some sort of government shield?” I slid toward him, finding it satisfying that I could get into it with him just as easily as he did with me.

He fought against it, but eventually his eyes met mine. “The secret gaming, befriending Kai, asking him about cards, yes. But also asking about my family. Me.”

“I’ve been doing that because I want to learn!” I threw my hands up. “I didn’t do this to infiltrate. I’m not some undercover cop looking for clues. I’m just a college dropout who funds her days serving corned beef at a pub, has a couple of friends and a definite penchant for getting into shit situations. But that’s it. I only did this because I saw—I saw you, and I…” The gusto left me, and I deflated. “It doesn’t make sense. Or make me proud. But this, in here.” I pressed a hand against my heart. “I don’t recognize much anymore, but I felt you.”

He rubbed at his face. “Scarlet…”

“And you want to know why I have no fear? You really want to know? My sister, Theo.” The mere statement of her relation to me burned my throat, turning my voice to ashes.

My fingers shook, delicate spasms against my dress, my chest. Theo held himself still, but I’d already fallen deep, thrown against the cracked floor of the past.

“We were driving,” I said, the voiced remembrance bitter smoke against my tongue. “We were just in the car. I was in the back seat, because I was drunk. I’d called her because I was so wasted and I didn’t know how to get home…it was a summer party with our old high school friends. We were on a break from NYU. She was with her boyfriend that night, sitting at home and watching a movie. But as soon as she received my call, she demanded to come get me.” I swiped at one side of my face, tears pooling in my palm. “I remember her holding me upright. Piling me into the back seat. I went to sleep, but I’d open my eyes sometimes, see her in the passenger seat, chatting, looking back at me. She was laughing at what I’d done to myself, patting me on the thigh, and I’d smacked her hand away.” My breaths were haggard, and I worked to calm them. “That’s the last thing I did. Pushed her away.”

Theo didn’t fill the silence.

“The car skidded. Something on the road. We lost control and flipped. I can remember…I can see everything spinning, trees, branches scraping, metal, crunching sounds. Screams. Cassie’s screams, mine, everyone’s. But hers…hers cut off so quickly.” I found myself back in the acrid air, the metal aftermath. “Mid-cry, she went silent. The car stilled, with just that tic-tic of the dying engine breaking through, and somehow—I was conscious. I saw—I saw her, and blood…so much. She wasn’t the same.” The ending—Cassie’s ending—racked though dry heaves. “She was staring at me but she wasn’t…”

Theo’s arms came around me.

“The police were called. We were swarmed,” I said into the heat of his neck, becoming damp with my breath and tears. “They had to break me out of the car. I was put on a gurney but they wouldn’t let me go with Cassie. I was crying for her, screaming to see her, but no one would let me.” I shook my head, my eyes scrunching shut. “My parents, they came to the hospital. In a day or two I could move around again. My head…it was bandaged. I remember that. They came in and they asked…they asked for us to see Cassie. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t—but my dad. My mom said this would be the last time I’d be with her. They were going t-to cremate her and I—I—”

Theo rocked me, gently, his thumb brushing back and forth in between my shoulder blades.

“So we went down…we were allowed to stand next to her. They pulled the sheet back, and there she was. My best friend. My partner in crime, my own self. She was pale, cold. Her lips were blue. Her neck looked…odd. And there was the tip of a gash we could see on her chest. But her hair was slicked back, her eyes were closed, and she was…some kind of version of what she used to be. There, but empty. I put a hand on her shoulder—so hard, like ice—and I looked down at her, and my tears were hitting her face… My dad said, ‘It’s okay, honey. You can say good-bye. It’s all right.’ And I touched my forehead to hers, I laid my hand on her hair, and said ‘I love you, and I’ll see you again.’ And I kissed her. And I said good-bye.”

Theo’s mouth was at my temple. He smoothed my hair back, rocking us. My hand was on his chest, near his beating heart, and I felt his ribs moving. I felt him breathe.

I felt his life.

“When you wonder why I’m not scared, why I seem to have lost the ability to run, it’s because the worst has already happened.” I lifted out of his arms, wiping at my face.

One heartbeat. Two. And I decided to tell him everything. “She wasn’t just my sister, Theo.” Focusing on my breaths, on my ability to stay alive, I said to him, “I lost my twin that night.”

He sagged, but his eyes never left my face.

“Cassie was my twin.”

* * *

Theo and I never ended up speaking after Brodie came back. Theo kept me in his arms, holding me at his side as the engine started up and we moved into traffic. No words were exchanged as we crested the city roads, and when I noticed the direction we were going, I didn’t care. My cheeks were damp, but most of the moisture was absorbed by Theo’s lapels. His heat wrapped around me; the hard lines of his body kept me steady. I learned that comfort isn’t always found where expected. It could be in the middle of a surging crowd, sitting alone on a beach, or it could be in the back of a stretch limo with a mobster’s son, holding on.

We slowed to a halt.

Confused but acquiescent, I took Theo’s proffered hand. He kept mine in his as we walked to the front of the building.

Theo greeted the doormen. Their gazes slid over me, as clear and smooth as water, having only polite body language for the woman he was bringing home.

I wondered how many had undergone this treatment.

With a hand at the small of my back, he led me into the elevator, pushing the eleventh floor as he stepped in. Still, nothing was said between us.

We exited, Theo unlocking the third door on the right. He flipped the lights, and I was treated to a visual of where he spent his down time, his alone moments, the sanctuary where the angst melted from his shoulders and his true face was worn.

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