Page 65 of Castle

“I said don’t talk to me! Leave.” He screamed, swiping his hand over the moving trains and toppling them over. The engine lay on the ground at the side with its wheels turning.

I snapped back to reality. Castle has never been upset with me before, never screamed at me, so right now my heart ached with the thought that I was the reason he was feeling like shit. I shouldn’t have said anything.

I should have just let it go.

I was walking alone in the gardens; the mansion loomed at a distance, and the fog surrounding it was giving it an eerie look. I could hear the sounds of the water fountain. It was peaceful everywhere, the calm of the dead which I was used to. Nothing scared me more than people anymore.

I turned a corner and almost bumped into Theo.

He stood against the finely trimmed shrubs, holding a cigarette between his fingers.

“What the hell, Theo?” I stood there, dumbfounded. “You’re just seventeen!”

He looked like he’d been caught doing a robbery. He took a long drag and puffed the smoke like a pro, which told me this wasn’t the first time he was smoking.

“It’s just a fucking smoke! Don’t tell Devin or anyone about this.”

“Drop it!” I ordered.

“Come on, Millie.”

“I said drop the cigarette.”

It must be my authoritative tone that made him finally drop it to the ground and crush it under his foot. He was still wearing his private school uniform.

I raised my hand towards him.

He rolled his eyes, fished out the packet of cigarettes, and handed it to me. “You know I can buy another packet, right?”

“You won’t, because if you do, I’ll tell Devin. I don’t care about anything else anymore.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“Technically, you’re still a child.”

His brows arched up.

“I’m seventeen.” He said as if I didn’t know it and as if seventeen was the new twenty-seven or something.

The kid lacked manners, and I had Devin to blame for that. I could bet Castle used to be the one to keep him in line. I also felt bad for him. He was at this age where he wasn’t a child neither an adult, stuck somewhere in-between.

“A child,” I corrected him. “A bratty child with too much money and far too much time on his hands.”

“You on your periods or something? A cactus gotten up your ass, maybe?” He snapped, “I’m not stupid. I know you had some fight with Castle too.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Listen, did you read the marked pages of the journal?” He asked, his tone a mix of frustration and secrecy.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, by the time you finish it, Chandler is going to get married and have his kids. You’re at a snail’s pace and we don’t have time for you to finish it.”

I let the sarcastic comments slide. “What do you mean, we don’t have time?”

Theo’s light brown eyes met with mine. It always seemed to catch me off-guard and reminded me of a teen version of Castle.

“Tomorrow we will recreate the day of the boating accident.”

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