Page 18 of Lethal
She wants him. The quiet one. The beautiful one. Not the butcher,the old woman cackles.
Paint the world in red, Wren, it’s the only way we will all survive,the clown urges, placing an image of a serrated, bloody butcher knife in the forefront of my mind.
I press my fingers to my temples, digging my ragged nails in just enough to bite. The pain usually helps to distract me from the angry chorus happening inside my mind, but today, it doesn’t appear to be working. “Shut up,” I hiss, rocking. “I said shut up... shut up, shut up, shut up...”
Bash doesn’t even flinch as he sits across from me on his bed, with his back pressed against the concrete wall like he’s carved from cold ivory, all calm and filled with cathedral silence.He doesn’t need to yell to be heard.
I hate that about him. Most days, I love my brother. He’s spent his whole life by my side, taking care of and protecting me, even though I’m the oldest twin. Other days, I want to see his blood trickle out of his body, and his heart slow until there’s nothing left, and I can be the only Norwood still breathing. That way, I wouldn’t have to share my toys with anyone.
“She looks at you like you’re a hymn,” I mutter, eyes flicking up toward the flaking concrete ceiling. “She looks at me like I’m an accident, tragic and broken.” His eyes watch me. I can feel them sliding across my skin, and it makes me itchy. Blue-gray eyes that are identical to mine, yet somehow different, as if there is something insidious within me that corrupted my twin DNA, and transformed me into what I am, leaving him perfect.You’re nothing. You’re evil personified. You’re a waste of skin andbones. Someone should finally put you out of your misery. The world will thank whoever finally ends you.
Bash turns a page in his book, the rustling sound too loud in the small, stuffy room we inhabit together. He’s not reading; he never is. It’s just something for his hands to do.“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,”our mother used to say, well, before I slit her throat, carved out her eyes, and ate them.
“She looks at you,” he says, while refusing to meet my glance, “because she wants us both.”
“No,” I spit, with anger brewing hotly inside of me. “She wants you. You’re the thinker, the talker. You touch her mind. I just make her flinch with revulsion.” The voices all get deafening inside my head, until I have no choice but to bang the back of my skull into the wall behind me to calm them.You can’t hurt us, fool!The old woman crows in a high-pitched voice.
“She doesn’t flinch,” Bash murmurs. “Not anymore, Wren.”
I stop rocking, and my nails dig deeper into my flesh, until I feel a trickle of warm blood sliding down the side of my face. “I hear her at night, Bash,” I whisper. “In my head, in the gnawing of my teeth. She whispers things back now. Did you know that?”
He looks at me now, something slow and predatory moving behind his eyes, and it causes glee to race through my bloodstream. Yes, brother, I see that seed of jealousy inside you. You don’t want to share this toy, but I won’t allow you to have her all to yourself. “She’s slipping,” I grin, my lips stretching wide, like my missing painted clown mouth. “Just like us. She just needs a nudge, brother.” I wonder what he would do if I slit her throat before he could stop me? Would he forgive me? Hate me forever and leave, or would he finally kill me, so he can be unburdened? Bash closes the book and folds his tattooed hands in his lap. Hands that are covered in as many blood stains as mine.
“We’re going to give her a gift,” he declares. “One she won’t ever forget.”
My chest tightens with a mixture of anxiety and pleasure, and finally, the voices in my head go silent, as they focus intently on my brother’s words. “What kind of gift?” I slide forward on the mattress until my knees dangle off the edge, and the coils creak loudly, as I brace my elbows on my knees, wholly intrigued by whatever Bash is going to say.
“A mirror. One that doesn’t lie.”Oh, a riddle!Bash usually avoids speaking to me in them. He moves to sit beside me, our knees touching. His presence is grounding, like gravity soaked in oil. For a brief moment, I’m sorry for picturing him dying and bleeding out, and thinking of taking our toy all for myself.You’re so weak! You’re a coward!The teenage boy yells, the sound of his fury bouncing off the walls inside my skull, and I flinch with the pain. “There’s a man here,Sullivan,one of Halstead’s lap dogs. He’s got a taste for broken things. Thinks women in restraints are his to sample.”
My fingers twitch and curl in my lap. I know the name. I’ve glimpsed him staring at her when he’s taken us to our sessions. I’ve never liked the look in his beady eyes, small and dark like gross raisins. “No one touches her but us,” I hiss.
“He won’t,” Bash states. Calm. Deadly. A promise of violence is prevalent in his tone. “We’re going to let himtry. Just long enough to get her to react the way we want.”
No, he’s going to get a taste before I do, I can’t allow it. I won’t share her with anyone else but Bash.My stomach flips, and my mouth waters with rage, bile, and something hotter. “What if he... what if he gets to her first? What if he rips a piece off before we get there? I’ll kill him, Bash. I’llpeelhis skin from his bones.”
“We’ll be watching closely, Wren. The second he moves, we go in, don’t worry, brother, trust me.” Bash forces my handsapart, and I stare down, realizing that I’ve ripped my skin open, and my palms are bleeding, while I was so focused on his words. The crimson of my blood calls to me, begging to be smeared, beseeching for someone else’s shade to join it, so that I can paint some beautiful art with it. I can sketch my pretty porcelain doll in those shades; she’d look stunning in red.
“And then?” I inquire, still not fully convinced.
“She’ll see what the world really is. What we are, Wren.” He leans closer to me, and his voice drips like poison, wrapped in sweet, delicious honey. “She thinks she’s whole, strong, anduntouched,but there’s something inside her…a crack.We’re going to split it wide open.“ I grin viciously, beginning to feel excitement at what my brother is proposing.
“She’ll scream,” I declare.
“She’ll beg,” he snarls.
“She’ll bleed,” I whisper.
“She’llbelong,“ Bash finishes, and the certainty in his tone brings a wash of peace through me, and finally, the voices are quiet and content once more.
We sit in the silence that follows, hearts slowing, minds syncing together, just like when we were children, and we hid deep in the woods away from our parents, who enjoyed hurting us. I start humming my new favorite lullaby.
“Pretty little doctor in a coat of white, come to us on devil’s night…”
Bash begins the next verse, interrupting my thoughts. His voice casts a magical spell all around us, just like it did when we were kids, and he soothed the deep rage inside of me. “Come without anything underneath the coat tonight. No notes. No questions. Just the pretty dark truth. Give yourself completely to us, and we’ll give you all the answers you seek.”
I repeat his words, the voices inside of my head chanting them. The words are a prayer, a promise, and a curse. I utter thelast line, “And all the sins you never knew you craved will bathe you in a deep red glow.”
We wait in the waning light for the night to finally come, because then she’ll come. They always do, all of the pretties that want to be consumed and adored by us, and this one?
