Page 86 of Twice as Twisted

He shifts on the bed, casting me an awkward glance, which is quite unusual for Duke. “I messed with Royal’s girl,” he admits. “So, that was the punishment.”

I nod, trying not to think about what that means. Logic says he had sex with her, but the primitive instinct for self-protection says it was something else. I don’t like thinking about him with other girls, irrational as that is. I know howthey are, both Baron and him, and if Baron brought his sexual partner on this trip, they have probably both indulged in their fantasies with her—and all the girls they could get before her too. Judging by their aptitude three years ago, and the increase in attractiveness they’ve gained in the intervening years, they’ve never gone without.

“Royal has a girl?” I ask. It seems impossible that the stoic, brutal boy I remember could attract a girl for long enough to feel a possessive urge for her.

“Yeah,” Duke says, grinning. “We thought she was a Darling at first, but turns out, she’s alright.”

I lift a brow and pick up my tea again. The thought of Royal with a girl is interesting, but I’m not upset by it. I’m glad, though I can’t be sure if the feeling is entirely selfish, as somewhere my brain tells me that if he’s healthy enough to be in a relationship, my actions didn’t harm him in any permanent way.

I’m not sure he could say the same about me. His treatment of me is inextricably linked to the twins, the things they did to me that can never be forgiven. He certainly allowed it, even condoned it, but he didn’t participate in most of their tortures. It’s hard for me to parse out his contribution, just as it’s impossible to know whether the physical or psychological damage they did was worse.

Duke snags a strip of bacon from my plate and chews, smiling at me. At least I think it’s Duke. It certainly looks like him. He acts and talks like him. But I’ll neverreallyknow. Not beyond a reasonable doubt.

That’s what started me down the path to madness before, though, the first string that unraveled. I won’t go there again.

It doesn’t matter. That’s what I have to tell myself, over and over. My brain doesn’t like that answer. My brain likes everything to be categorized and labeled correctly. But I knowthat ultimately, the label matters less than the substance. After all, I stole Dahlia’s label, and I’m still as me as I ever was, and Dahlia is still Dahlia, no matter how much she’s changed.

And if I try to figure out who is Duke and who is Baron every time I see them, I’ll drive myself crazy again. Especially now that I live with them, and I’ll see them all the time, every day. And in the end, I’m right. It doesn’t really matter which one is which as long as I have them both. The only thing that will come of obsessing over it is another direct descent into madness.

This Dolce boy watches me eat, studying me like an insect under a microscope.

“What’s it like?” he asks after a few minutes.

I swallow before answering. “What’s what like?”

“Being loved by two men who can’t love.”

“Terrible.”

“Really?”

“It’s not love at all,” I say, sipping my tea. “You don’t know how.”

“And yet, I somehow figured it out for you.”

“Did you?”

“To the best of my ability,” he says. “And I don’t think you have any room to talk. I know you only said it to me because Baron made you. You don’t love me.”

“I’m not sure I know how either. I told him that.”

He nods. “Then you’re right. It is terrible loving two people who can’t love.”

His shoulders sag, and he watches me with eyes that are suddenly miserable, haunted in a way I don’t understand. I don’t remember ever seeing that look before, so I catalog it in my brain with the other changes I’ve noticed in him. He’s still very much a deviant, still under his brother’s influence, still trying to pretend that makes him better. But he’s sadder, too, more contemplative. He never would have sat in silence with me before.

I’m almost finished eating when Baron enters the room, freshly showered and clean shaven, neat as always and well-dressed in understated but obscenely expensive attire, as if he’s off to an admissions interview at one of the coastal elite schools. The only thing that gives away a more sinister motive is the pair of giant pliers he carries in one hand.

“How’s your cunt?” he asks, setting down the instrument and sliding onto the bed next to me. He lifts the blanket to check my ice pack, but I pin my arms over the covers and glare at him.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A simple enough one,” he says, receiving Boots into his arms when the cat strolls up the bed and plops down on his chest.

Duke scowls.

“You’ve been on your own too long if you think that’s an appropriate way to greet your partner first thing in the morning,” I tell Baron.

He nods thoughtfully, stroking Boots from ears to the tip of his tail. “How would you like me to express my concern?”

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