Page 27 of Cruel Cravings

I watched from the basement window as Jael carried her things to the car picking her up. She struggled with her box and bags, stopping at the curb for a glance around. She was checking for me.

If I was watching.

She knew I was. I always would be.

The car drove off and I eventually emerged from the dank pit I hide away in during daylight hours. I stepped onto the curb outside and decided that I would track her down. I would go where she went, regardless of what my father wanted.

It would take him days to notice I was missing. I wasn’t even sure he would care.

But I would need my pain meds one way or another.

Jael went to Easton. She got out of the car after thanking the driver and smiled up at the brick building that was once a warehouse.

It escaped me why she had shown up here until I realized it was the apartment building where her sister once lived.

Lyra.

The patients at the hospital are often kept in the dark on current events, especially if the staff deem them too upsetting. Jael had no idea that her sister’s life had been taken by the serial killer the Cleaver.

I knew about her sister because I had spent countless hours learning about her. I once broke into my father’s office late at night and found her file. Every important detail about her life was documented in there, from the names of her family to some of the deep-rooted issues she suffered from.

Lyra was mentioned often. Jael was obsessed with her sister, inconsolably upset by the prospect of being separated from her. Once the fires happened and her problems could no longer be handled by her grandmother, she was given up.

Admitted to numerous juvenile facilities and later this psychiatric hospital to get the help she needed—or so they claimed.

My father rarely helped anyone. The majority of his patients wound up worse off once he was through with them.

Strange comfort considering his parenting was the same way.

I watched from across the street as Jael rummaged through her sister’s bedroom. She found a laptop that belonged to her and hugged it to her chest like it was her sister. They were reunited again.

Jael’s euphoria was cut short a few seconds later when the man her sister shared an apartment with showed up. He was angry and confrontational, demanding to know why she was there.

Jael didn’t seem to grasp his anger. She was dissociating again, out of tune with the things she had done to gain access to her sister’s apartment, like breaking the lock off.

Startled by the man’s temper, she fled. The laptop went with her.

For days, I stayed by her side. I watched closely like a silent guardian, making sure she kept out of trouble—or as much of it as possible—as she found a home in an apartment that was temporarily empty. The family was away on vacation and Jael made her way inside.

All hours of the day, she poured over the few belongings she had of her sister. She slept with the laptop like it were a lifeline she couldn’t begin to let go of.

The screen lit up her face with its pale blue glow as she logged on and scrolled through her sister’s accounts and messages. Her longing was palpable, almost pitiful.

She’d do anything to become her sister.

So it was no surprise when she went onto a site called Cyber Fans and answered a message like shewasLyra.

Instant rage seared through me. I could barely restrain myself watching as her fingers hovered over the keys and she typed up responses to some man named Winston Cooper. Some editor at theEaston Timesthat seemed to make a habit of coming onto women with the promise of employment.

They agreed to meet for drinks at a place called the Velvet Piano.

She dressed up for him.

My pulse pounded in my neck as I hid in plain sight, witnessing how she slipped on a sparkling ruby dress that hugged her body like a second skin. It was expensive, from one of the department stores in the city, but she’d ripped off the tag and stuffed it into her bag, making it out undetected.

That was the thing about Jael.

Sometimes she didn’t understand right vs. wrong. She didn’t grasp when she was breaking rules or doing something bad. So long as it was justified in her head, it was fine. If she was caught, she’d put on the sweet sympathetic frown that pulled at the heart beating in my chest.

---