Page 19 of Twice as Twisted

Baron Dolce

“What do you mean, she’s not in Tennessee?” Duke asks, scowling at me. “Then why were you there all that time?”

He’s answered his own question, but I know he needs a minute to put it all together, to process this new information. I keep driving, not that the Lotus needs much help.

I hit the button to roll down the window, as if I can catch a different girl’s scent on the air in the place, mingling with dirt and wet leaves. But everything is different now, lush and bursting with life, not just the spring green outside the car but flowers of a half dozen colors, birds, butterflies. It looks like a paradise. No one would guess I picked her up in this place, in a barren wasteland of leafless trees. That’s why someone so alive felt vibrant in comparison, bright as plumage against the drab grey winter, stark as crimson droplets of blood left on a world muffled with snow.

“Well, where is she?” Duke demands after realizing I’m not going to answer.

“She’s on the East Coast,” I say, bringing my mind back to the girl who is the goal. “She spends her summers there.”

“Doing what?”

“Visiting an aunt.”

“So she changed her name trying to run from her family, but then she goes to stay with them every summer in New England? Why would she do that? It doesn’t make sense.”

Mabel is nothing if not sensible.

“What difference does it make?” I ask, since I can’t answer his question. That’s the interesting thing about people, the fun part. Figuring out why they do what they do, seemingly at random. It almost never is, though. The motivations and drives behind their decisions are usually pretty similar once you figure them out. Humanity likes to believe we’re complicated, complex beings that have evolved beyond animals, but most people are simple at their core.

Once you figure out what they want, you can give it to them, and then you can get them to do anything. In truth, you never have to give them anything if you can convince them they already have it—or that it’s on the way.

Love. Money. Fame. Freedom. Pleasure. Belonging.

Everyone thinks they want one of those things, that it’s what drives them, that it’ll make them happy. Intelligent people know what they really desire, the most important motivator of all.

Power.

That’s what it all boils down to, what everything else leads to. That’s what everyone really wants, even if they’re not smart enough to realize it. They’re busy chasing their more basic desires, and they’ll hand over power in favor of instant gratification. If they’re simple, they’re even happy that way. If they’re smart, they realize that all the love, money, fame, freedom, pleasure, or belonging in the world can’t make them happy if they’re powerless. By then, it’s too late for most of them. By then, someone more intelligent has the power.

“You have your shit in Tennessee, right?” Duke asks.

“That’s right,” I agree.

He doesn’t ask how I know where she is. I came here for her, and even though I saved her for when we could get her together, he knows I wouldn’t wait for everything. I’ve been watching her, learning her habits, tracking her every step.

“So what do we do now?”

“The plan doesn’t change. We go get her. It’s a few more days of driving, that’s all.”

“But it’s not all, is it?” he grumbles, glowering at me from the passenger seat.

“She was in Tennessee,” I point out. “Now she’s not.”

“She’s mine too, you know,” he says. “If you found out something new about her, I have a right to know. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

So much more.

I don’t want to tell him, but I recognize that the impulse to guard secrets is a primitive one. I still have the same instincts and urges as any other man. I’m just smart enough not to let them rule me. Duke is my brother, though, and family is more important than ever now that we have less of it around. Not to mention, he’s right about Mabel. She belongs to both of us.

And since we don’t lie to each other, I tell him everything I’ve learned from the time I left Faulkner until now. What I’ve found out by watching her work. What I’ve seen and done. How I found her, the measures I put in place to keep track of her without her knowing I’m following, watching her every move. I tell him about her classes, her apartment, the men she meets online.

Men who never show up for a second date.

After all, he’s my brother, my twin, the other half of me. We’ve always told each other everything—almost everything.

“You don’t think she would have noticed?” he asks after a long stretch of silence. “When every guy she tried to date ghosted her?”

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