Page 158 of The Spider & the Storm

Their demise had, in turn, in a way, been mine as well … and Luke's.

He'd been too young to take care of me. It wasn’t my fault for not understanding this and wanting to stay with my big brother, to hold on to some normalcy—I'd only been a kid myself. But Luke never should've insisted on it. He should've sent me to live with our grandmother. He should've ignored mydemands, ignored my constant tears, and forced me to go. And I would've felt unwanted for a while. I would've hated him; I would've hated life. But I would've grown up to understand why he'd done what he did, and maybe he wouldn't have lost himself to booze. He wouldn't have lost Melanie. Maybe, just fucking maybe, he wouldn't be sitting in a prison hours away, and I wouldn't be lying here, wondering what the fuck I should do about the terrorist down the street.

Tommy Wheeler.

I believed it might've been his mother who’d instigated Project Make Charlie Corbin's Life a Living Hell. But somewhere around the two-year mark after Ritchie's death and Luke's incarceration, she'd given up, leaving poor Tommy to carry the torch on his own.

I hated him, but I didn't want to because I also understood. I could put myself in his shoes and empathize with why he felt this need to torment his brother's killer's only living relative into permanent hibernation. He was pissed off and resentful and missing his own big brother—God only knew why, but who the fuck was I to talk? In his mind, the imprisonment of the man who'd stolen his brother's last breath wasn't enough. The punishment didn't fit the crime, and it wouldn't until Luke's corpse was covered in dirt, and, dammit,I got it. But I couldn't do a fucking thing about any of it, and I still had to somehow live my life, and why the fuck should I have to spend the rest of it paying for something I’d had no part in?

Doesn't he understand that? I didnothing.

Tommy had never been an idiot. Sure, he'd always been a dick. Not as much of one as his brother, but a dick nonetheless. But he'd never beenstupid.

“He's not stupid,” I muttered to the dark abyss. “He's crazy and desperate.”

That was what it was. His desperation to avenge his brother had cost him his sanity, and he had lost it. It was the only explanation for why I'd caught him on camera, his pants around his ankles, taking a shit on the front lawn. And how else was I supposed to explain his complete disregard for a court-ordered restraining order and regular visits from the cops?

“Yet the fucker still walks,” Luke had muttered just a few days ago, the last time I'd seen him. He didn’t bother to mask the bitter disgust in his tone. “The guy's been torturing you for three fuckin' years, and the worst that's ever happened to him is, what? A night in a fuckin' holding cell? It's horseshit!”

He wasn't wrong; the whole situation was horseshit. And it wasn't that the local cops didn't feel for me or anything. Actually, my relationship with them had become a decent one. I was now on a first-name basis with a few of them, and they were all aware of Tommy Wheeler's reputation. But the problem was simply that Tommy hadn't done anything badenoughto warrant more than a few slaps on the wrist, a handful of overnights at the station, and a couple of hefty bills after violating the restraining order.

Yet.

He hadn't done anything bad enoughyet. And that was what Luke was worried about. He was worried about me. So was I. I lived in a constant state of paranoia, terrified of what or who might be lurking just around the corner. It was no way to live, Luke always said, and I agreed. But what the fuck choice did I have?

“I could leave. That's always an option.” I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut. “Yeah. And gowhere?”

He'd probably just follow me anyway.

Not if he didn't know where I went.

Tommy's not an idiot. He'd find me.

I rolled my head against the pillow to glare at the damn alarm clock. Fuck, I had to be up for work in just a few hours. But it was now Halloween, the three-year anniversary of Ritchie’s murder and my brother’s arrest, and Halloween meant no sleep was going to be given to me. Not tonight.

Three years. A whoosh of breath squeezed itself from my constricting lungs as a torrent of grief barreled over me.How the fuck has it already been three years?

That was something Tommy didn't get—I was grieving too. I didn't expect him to care, but it would be nice if he at leasttried. He never would though because nobody gave a fuck about the family of a killer. Nobody ever did.

I rolled over in my bed, determined to sleep even if it was only from lulling myself with a handful of shed tears for the hopes and dreams I'd once had for the life Luke would never lead. The altar he'd never stand at with Melanie. The kids they'd never have. The uncle I'd never be allowed to be.

Happiness. I cried for the happiness we were never permitted to have.

***

The room was still dark when my eyes snapped open. The glowing red numbers on the alarm clock said I'd only been in a dreamless sleep for about forty minutes.

“Fuck,” I groaned, rolling over in an angry, frustrated heap of blankets and sheets.

My resolve to sleep was firm, but I expected it to take a while to come along again. Yet heaviness rolled along my limbs and up my body to settle in my head. I sighed, satisfied, hunkering deeper into my cozy cocoon.

Creak.

I bolted up, eyes open. Asking myself what that was but knowing exactly whatitwas—the floorboard just down the hall at the top of the stairs. The one that'd been squeaking my entire life. Butwhy? Older houses were prone to unusual sounds. They were full of the moans and groans and sighs of the people who'd lived before, but that floorboard never made a peep unless—

Creak.

Closer.

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