Page 132 of The Spider & the Storm

God, please let me wake up. I want to fucking wake up.

The cop grabbed Luke by the arm and spun him around. He holstered his gun and patted Luke down. “Anybody in there with you?”

“Just my brother. He didn't do anything. He has nothing to do with this.”

One of the other cops moved around them and stepped into the house, spotting me right away. For some reason, I held my hands up, and she offered a curt smile as she approached and quickly frisked her hands over my body.

“You can put your hands down,” she said and took out a pad of paper. “What's your name?”

Somewhere within my realm of understanding, I knew Luke was being guided from the house. I knew he was cooperating, knew he was looking at me the entire time. I knewthe woman beside me was asking repeatedly for my name. I knew a handful of other cops were coming into the house and searching around as if there was anything to find.

But all I could focus on, all I could process, was that I'd never see Luke in this house again. And I was alone. He had abandoned me, and as much as I’d meant it when I said I loved him, I hated him a little too.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CONNECTICUT, AGE THIRTY-ONE

When I had been thirty and Luke was thirty-three, he'd decided to go to the movies anyway, despite hating the idea of going alone. He wanted to spite me after I asked him not to go at all, as if we weren't brothers, but a bickering old couple instead.

Sometimes, it’d felt that way.

He walked into the theater with his popcorn and large soda and found himself a seat. He sat down, ready to enjoy his moment of rebellion against his overprotective, paranoid little brother, when he heard a familiar voice from the row behind him.

Luke and the various witnesses who'd stepped forward gave identical accounts of the exchange.

Like I always said, my brother had never been one to lie. An embellisher of the truth sometimes, sure, but rarely a liar.

“Hey, Zero. Finally living up to that nickname, huh?”

Luke had claimed he'd tried to ignore him, that he’d sat quietly, browsing his phone for a few minutes in an attempt to distract himself. But Ritchie had always been incapable of stopping himself from antagonizing.

“Where's your boyfriend? I mean, your brother, unless … shit,ishe your boyfriend now? You guys have always beenfuckin' weird. I bet he fucks better than any woman you’ve been with, right?”

Luke shook his head and tried to keep his anger from spiking while the trailers began to play.

Honestly, he should've just left, and I'd told him so on more than one occasion.

Luke's phone rang. It was me. It rang twice, and he sent it to voice mail.

“God, I miss Charlie boy. Been a long time. If you tell me how he's doing, I'll tell you how Melanie's doing. How about that?”

Ritchie tossed a handful of popcorn at Luke. Instead of engaging, my brother gritted his teeth and texted me, never once mentioning to me what was happening.

“She used to talk about you, you know. Used to scream your name, too, when I was plowing into her, but I slapped her around a little. Took care of that.”

Ritchie had been lying. He'd never been with Melanie. Didn't even know where she was—none of us did at the time. But Luke hadn't known that.

“Go to hell, Ritchie,” Luke finally replied, stuffing his phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Oh, you don't like that, do you? You don't like that I finally have that pretty little pussy all to myself, huh? Don't like that she finally came to her senses and dumped your loser ass?”

It had been sometime around this point when Luke said he'd started to struggle. Started to wonder if he should leave or if he should kick Ritchie's ass instead. If he should complain to management. If he should just fucking go home.

God, he should've just gone home.

“You know what else she said to me?”

“Will you fucking shut the hell up?” someone else in the theater shouted, finally speaking up, but Ritchie never could stop talking.

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