Page 51 of Rage

We both know I’llalwaysdo what’s best for our child, a job be damned. I enjoy what I do and the lives I improve and occasionally save, but the hospital would have my replacement within twenty-four hours if I died from pregnancy complications.

My family, this family we’re building, will always be my priority.

Zaiden

Fingernails bite into my palms, harsh breaths leaving my lips.

“Something isn’t right.”

“Go after her.”

I ignore the voices, but dammit! They sound right. They sound real.

Sarah won’t hear of me encouraging her to quit going to work months before she’s due. She insists on going to the hospitaland being what those women need, women in the same boat as herself.

Fuck!

She’s seven months pregnant, waddling around the house and exhaustion tugging at her whenever I look her way. She shouldn’t be at work.

But unless I “kidnap” her, again, she’ll continue going into work Monday through Friday.

Buzzing from my pocket draws me from the anxieties plaguing my mind ever since I looked online at all the potential things that could go wrong. I had no clue.

But,shedid.

This makes her happy? The possibility that she could die, leaving me alone?

The buzzing starts up again and I pull my phone out, frowning at my twin’s name across the screen. Zachary. Only my future sister-in-law is allowed to call him Dalton.

My finger slides across the screen before I think better of it. Out of the two brothers I have in the country, he’s the one who unnerves me the most. Schizophrenia doesn’t lend its sheen to the maniacal gleam in his eyes, eyes a similar shade to my own.

It’s something else, something darker, that lurks in my twin’s mind.

“Hello,” I say, wincing at the whimpers sounding out in the background.

“Sup, bro? Whatcha doin’?” he asks with mock jovialness. My eyes narrow, jaw clenching. My cousin, Xander, told me Zac is like Xavier, needling people around him for a reaction. Except, I’m not most people and he should fucking cut it out.

“What do you want?” I barely hold back the snarl in my voice, providing him with exactly what he wants.

“To hangout. You know, Zaine told me what you did,” he coos. My fingers tighten around the phone. “We’re the same, bro. Come over, come have fun with me.”

“Zac, I don’t?—”

“He’s not an innocent,” he says, voice losing all pretense of cheer. There it is, that lethal steel I’d expect from my serial killer twin.

“Explain,” I say, glancing around the empty living room. I’m off today, no psychiatric appointments scheduled, and Dr. Shaw and I aren’t due for our walk until next week.

What the hell else would I do with my free-time other than spending it upstairs, listening to the sliding of scales and flutter of wings?

Sarah says I should get out more, interact with people outside of the house. Zachary is outside of the house.

“You know I took Zaine’s advice and my Nat doesn’t feel sorry for the trash I’m cleaning up. He’s a predator. Well, I’m a bigger predator. So, are you in?”

Am I?

“What did he do?” I ask, but I already suspect I know the answer to both his question and my own. Zaine urged Zachary to quit killing indiscriminately, to go after criminals, like men who prey on women.

Unlike him, I don’t possess that same urge to kill. I struggle with my schizophrenia and medication has helped, but it never drove me to murder. A different beast–a different facet of mental wellness–drove me to that. Grief. Months later, I can see how it drove me to do those things, totakeSarah, to listen to the words of a dying woman because I had nothing left to cling to. My mother demanded I find my brothers and a large part of me took joy in hurting otherdoctorsto accomplish that. In my mind, they’d failed both of us.

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