Page 60 of The Reckoning
“Truth,” I scoff. “The Hayes family wouldn’t recognize the truth if it slapped them in their perfect faces.”
“I’m a Hayes,” she reminds me. “And I want the truth. All of it.”
I stop pacing, really looking at her for the first time since this conversation began. She’s still damp from her shower, dressed in borrowed clothes that are too big for her small frame, haircurling as it dries. She looks vulnerable, exhausted, pushed to her limits by revelations about her own life.
Yet there’s a steel in her gaze that I recognize—the same determination that’s kept me going all these years and fueled my revenge when nothing else could.
“The truth is ugly,” I warn her. “It doesn’t set you free. It just gives you new chains to carry.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she replies, rising to stand before me. “I’m tired of living in the dark, Arson. Tired of other people deciding what I get to know about my own life.”
Before I can respond, a movement in the doorway catches my attention. Aries stands there, face pale, eyes wide with shock. How long has he been listening? How much has he heard?
“Aries,” Lilian says, surprise evident in her voice. “You’re back.”
He doesn’t answer her, doesn’t even look at her. His gaze is fixed on me, a storm of emotions I can’t—or won’t—decipher churning in eyes identical to my own.
“Is it true?” he finally asks, his voice barely above a whisper. Something like confusion on his face. “Is that what really happened?”
I meet his stare unflinchingly, all the rage and resentment of years bubbling just beneath my skin. “You tell me, Brother. You were there.”
He flinches as if I’ve struck him, one hand reaching out to steady himself against the doorframe. “I don’t—I can’t?—”
“Remember?” I finish for him, contempt dripping from the word. “How convenient for you.”
“Arson,” Lilian says, a warning in her tone. “Don’t.”
I’m beyond warnings, beyond caution. Seeing him standing there, still playing the victim when he’s been the architect of my destruction from the beginning, ignites something in me that can’t be contained.
“You let me take the blame,” I say, each word precise and cutting. “You let them lock me away. You let them convince the world—convince me—that I was broken. Dangerous. Unworthy of freedom or family or basic fucking human dignity.”
“I didn’t know,” he whispers, but there’s doubt in his voice, cracks forming in the narrative he’s built around himself.
“Bullshit,” I spit. “You knew. Maybe not at first. Maybe not consciously. But part of you has always known the truth.”
Lilian moves between us, hands raised as if she can physically hold back the tide of rage and recrimination. “This isn’t helping,” she says firmly. “We need to focus on the present, on what’s happening now.”
“Oh, I’m focused,” I assure her, never taking my eyes off my brother. “I’m very focused. On getting you safely through whatever Patricia has planned. On destroying Richard and everything he’s built. And when all that’s done”—I take a step toward Aries, satisfaction flickering through me when he instinctively backs away—“you and I have a score to settle, Brother.”
For a moment, we stand frozen in tableau—me, vibrating with barely contained violence; Lilian, caught between us like she’s always been; Aries, face drained of color, finally confronting the truth he’s denied for so long.
Without a word, he turns and walks away. No defense. No denial. No acknowledgment of what his cowardice cost me. Just the sound of his footsteps, fading down the hallway like the gutless retreat it is.
“Arson,” Lilian says quietly, her hand coming to rest on my arm. “He’s been through a lot too.”
“I don’t think I care about making things easier for him.” I laugh, the sound harsh and grating even to my own ears. “I spent years in that place, Lilian. Years of ‘treatments’ and ‘therapy’ andbeing told that I was fundamentally broken. That I’d killed my own mother. That I deserved everything that happened to me.”
She doesn’t flinch away from my anger, doesn’t retreat like most people would. Instead, she steps closer, fearless in a way that continually surprises me.
“I know,” she says simply. “And it was wrong. All of it was wrong. But Aries isn’t Richard. He was a child, too.”
“He was a coward,” I correct her. “And he still is. Running away instead of facing what he did.”
“Maybe,” she concedes. “Or maybe he’s just as damaged as you are, but in a different way.”
I want to argue, to rage against the implication that my brother has suffered anything comparable to what I’ve endured. But the fight suddenly drains out of me, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. The memories, the confrontation, the constant vigilance required to keep my anger in check—it all takes a toll.
“Just…give me some space,” I say, turning back to the desk, to the research that now seems insignificant compared to the ghosts I’ve just unleashed. “I need to keep working.”
