Page 36 of Redd

“I told you, I'm not lying.”

“Then why are your nostrils doing that twitchy thing?”

“My what?” Pulling a hand free from the wheel, I rubbed my nose. “I'm not twitching.”

Does my nose really twitch when I'm lying through my teeth?

“It's that girl, isn't it?” I didn't answer her back. Clenching my jaw, I cleared my throat and just kept my gaze in front of us. Crooking her lips to the side, she said, “You didn't just find her outside, I'm not stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

“No, but you treat me like I am. I'm not a little kid anymore.” Her voice grew hard and stern, as if she was trying her best to muster the most mature tone she could.

“Vicki, you're twelve—”

Cutting me off, her small hand came up and sliced the air. “I'm thirteen—thirteen, Redd.And you're not my father, so just tell me what's going on.”

Ugh. . . Don't do that! I can't stand when you do that!

I hated when she used that line. It cut me deep, puncturing my heart with hot pins. She didn't have to remind me that I wasn't her father, I never wanted to resemble that man.

All I ever wanted to do was give her what she deserved. I filled a role for her, showing her that there was someone who still cared about her. I never wanted her to feel unloved or disregarded, a lost child with no one to turn to.

I knew when she said it, she wasn't trying to hurt me. She said it as a fact, as a verbal notion that I didn't have to always pretend with her. Vicki was trying to remind me that we were on the same level. We were both parentless, products of the same fucked up environment, bred from the same evil.

But that didn't mean those words didn't sting.

“Twelve, thirteen, either way it doesn't matter, there are some things that you just couldn't understand.” Slowing the car down, I pulled over towards the curb, stopping behind the line of school buses.

“How about you give me a chance first, before you decide that for me? You said we were a team, you've always said we were a team. This doesn't feel like that, it feels like you want me to act like I'm just a regular girl, like we're just a normal family. We're not, we never were. You're forgetting I was there too, just like you. What you saw, I saw, it didn't just happen to you, Redd. You forget that I know who you are, but you just can't see me anymore.” Throwing the door open, Vicki tossed her backpack over her shoulder and walked away.

Most mornings I would get a quick half smile before she went in. But not today, today she stormed off pissed.

I just couldn't give her what she wanted, not right now. She knew a lot about the world I had been in, but I kept the darker side as my burden and my burden alone. I could never put that weight on her shoulders.

She knew about how we got our money, and I was thankful she never judged me for it. Granted, she was still young and naive in a way, putting all her trust in her big brother.

If she knew the whole truth, if she knew what I was capable of, what I had done all those years ago. . .

Shuddering to myself, I shook my head and forced the thought away. I couldn't imagine the pain I would see in her eyes, I wouldn't allow myself to even picture what that would look like. To watch her get crushed, to see her dissolve as the realization set in that her brother was more than just a thief; it would kill me.

This was no different. And in the same breath, it was.

I had killed again. But for the first time ever, I was afraid of what could happen because of that. I took something that didn't belong to me, Val had made that clear.

Somewhere out in this city was a man who was going to find a thick thorn in his side because of me. This was all my fault, what could happen in the aftermath was all on me.

I sat stunned, confronted by a truth I had been working so hard to ignore, doing my best to push it away as if none of it had happened. Our past had created me, and instead of changing when I had the chance, I embraced what I had become.

And she sees it too.

I wished I had called out to Vicki and told her to come back. She deserved an apology, because she was right.

She's not a kid anymore.

I was guilty of trying to hold onto her innocence. There were moments where I would forget what she had been though. When her age sparkled like a diamond and she had that youthful glow on her face.

She'd crack a joke, she'd tell me some fact she learned in school, and her face would explode with delight when I showed interest or laughed out loud. And maybe I tried to cling too hard to those moments. For shit's sake, I said she was twelve, when she had been thirteen for almost six months now.

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