Page 25 of The Hand that Frays

Her blonde hair is up, strands curling around her ears, and her hands are stuffed deep into her pockets.

She stops before us, and Neo doesn’t move. He says nothing, only stares at her.

He’s giving her space to say her piece, I realize.

“I didn’t realize we were being poisoned for the longest time. I still have trouble looking at my siblings because… Well, because I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to protect them.”

Pain stabs through my heart, reviving a side of me I thought long dead.

“I started putting it together when I was around fifteen. We’d only get sick and get terrible stomach aches on days Dad cooked breakfast. He’d watch us, too. Stare at us over the rim of his coffee cup to ensure we ate every morsel of food.”

“Did he take care of you afterward?” I ask. That’s a thing amongst people with Munchausen by proxy. They make others ill, usually those helpless in their care, to nurse them back to health.

She shakes her head, and Neo stiffens beside me.

“She did.”

I cock my head. “They were both in on this together?”

Cecily sniffs, turning her face to look far off as if digging for the memories of an old forbidden chest.

“I think so, but I’ll likely never know the truth. It was like some sick game. She couldn’t have any more babies. She had a bad birth with my little brother, and she had to have an emergency hysterectomy. It left her… different. She was always happiest when she had a baby in her arms, Dad used to say.”

Cecily’s thick London accent seems even broader with all the emotion she’s trying to choke back.

“She couldn’t have more of us, so Dad made her feel useful and loved. After all, who do you want when you’re feeling ill?” she asks, tossing the question at Neo, sensing a kindred spirit in him.

“Your mother,” he replies, not missing a beat.

She scoffs, anger coiling her face. “I still can’t believe it. I went to the school counselor and voiced my suspicions. I never thought they’d be true. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the notion that my parents could be so vile.”

“But they had been,” Neo says absently.

Cecily nods. “You’re going to end this? They can’t be allowed to worm their way back into our lives. They have grandchildren now. They’ll do it again. Both of them are so sick and fucking twisted.”

The rage inside my stomach for this girl, the little girl she used to be, is overflowing inside me. Rage is good, but it can also make you sloppy.

Neo taught me that after Kage Davis took me, raped me.

My anger on the subsequent few kills was unfathomable, consuming.

I feel more myself with the intensity slithering through me, however.

Neo stands, and I do the same.

Cecily backs up a few paces, knowing she’s in the presence of someone she should fear.

Her childhood disillusioned her with the world.

“I’m going to end them both. They won’t hurt you or your siblings again.”

“Can I ask something?” I ask Cecily, sensing she’s ready to turn and run.

She gives a curt nod.

“Why did your brother and sister recant their testimonies?”

She sighs, and it’s shaky. “I don’t know. They were young, and I knew it was risky for them to testify, but I never thought they’d change their statements.”

---