Page 58 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
“Whoa, chill out,” Lucas says, holding up his palm in a placating manner.
And it is the exact wrong thing to say. Christina sees Sebastian’s nostrils flare, the muscles in his jaw clench.
“I will notchill out,” he spits, his voice a mocking whine. “What do you think you’re doing with my sister?”
“It’s none of your business, Sebastian,” Christina says, her hands pressed flat on her brother’s chest. Her heart starts to hammer against her ribs as she stands here with these two angry boys towering over her, but she doesn’t move.
“Like hell it’s not,” Sebastian retorts, his eyes never leaving Lucas’s. He lifts a hand and shoves Lucas hard in the chest. In doing so, he knocks Christina off balance, and she stumbles.
If Sebastian notices what he’s done, he has no reaction to it. But Christina can see the way it ignites something in Lucas, something dangerous and fierce, an untapped rage in him that she didn’t know existed.
“Watch it,” Lucas growls, stepping around Christina and shoving Sebastian so forcefully that it knocks him back a step.
Sebastian wastes no time. It’s as if Christina is watching it all unfurl in slow motion: the way her brother pulls back his fist and sends it in an arc that connects with Lucas’s face, the blood that flies from Lucas’s split lower lip. The way Lucas touches his face as if in disbelief, wipes the blood away with his sleeve. How he makes a fist of his own, but Sebastian’s knuckles slam into his ribs before he has a chance to throw a punch.
“Stop!” Christina screams, the world suddenly moving at full speed again. “Sebastian, stop!” She throws herself in front of Lucas, both palms in the air, pleading with her brother.
“Stay the fuck away from my sister,” Sebastian growls at Lucas,his upper lip curling in distaste. He spits on the blood-spattered ground at Lucas’s feet, then grabs Christina by the arm, pulling her toward the path home.
“Christina.” Lucas reaches out for her, but she shakes her head.
“Don’t,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. Then she allows herself to be led away from him.
34
Maggie
Benton Avenue
“Let’s go.”
Maggie startles, the knife she was holding clattering to the floor. “Go where? I’m just getting started on dinner,” she says with some effort. Her jaw is still tender from the last time she’d questioned Dean. She prods one of her molars with her tongue. She’s pretty sure it’s loose.
“You can do that when we get back.”
Maggie wants to ask again where it is that she’s going, but she can tell that she won’t be getting an answer from Dean. And so instead, she picks the knife up off the floor and carries it to the sink. She grips the handle for a moment, feeling the heft of it in her hand.
I could kill him,she thinks. She imagines the expression on his face if she were to plunge the silver blade into his neck. The mix of surprise, horror, defeat that would play across his features. She slides her thumb over the smooth wooden handle.
“What’s taking so long?” Dean barks.
Maggie drops the knife into the sink where it lands with a clang. She doesn’t have it in her. She isn’t a killer.
“I’m coming,” she says.
Maggie follows Dean out to the driveway, feeling more trapped than she ever has before. She wonders what Sam would say if he were here right now. She’s been thinking about Sam a lot lately. She could call him. She knows he’d help her, even after she’d been so awful to him. But it wouldn’t be right. She can’t ask Sam to ride inlike a white knight and rescue her from her own life, not after the way she’d treated him, casting him off like his friendship meant nothing to her. Besides, what if Sam got hurt because of her? What if he were to show up here and Dean did something terrible? She imagines that knife again, but this time it’s in Dean’s hand. She watches the scene play out in her mind: Dean stabbing the knife into Sam’s chest, the blade sliding between his ribs, Sam clutching at the hilt, thick, black-red blood dripping between his fingers. She imagines the way his beautiful blue eyes would look as he took his last breath, the life draining away from them, and the way she’s certain he’d still have come for her even if he knew what it would cost him. No, Maggie can’t take that risk. Not with Sam. She made her bed with Dean, and now she has to lie in it.
Dean climbs into the driver’s seat of his old Camaro. He doesn’t drive it often, in part because he prefers his bike and in part because it’s unreliable. Dean bought it off the owner of the chop shop down the street. It needs a lot of work, work Dean knows how to do himself, but the repairs require parts, and those require money, something that’s always been in short supply and is getting even shorter since Maggie hasn’t been able to go to work nannying for the Sullivans this week. Not in the state she’s in. Her back has been hurting her too much to get on the floor and play with the children, and she knows her appearance would raise questions she isn’t ready to answer. She had to pretend to be sick with the flu.
Maggie gets into the car and buckles her seat belt while Dean turns the key in the ignition. The Camaro starts on the first try, the car roaring to life. He backs down the driveway and the tires kick up gravel and a cloud of dirt that balloons out around them.
As he starts down Benton Avenue, one arm languidly draped over the steering wheel, Maggie notices him looking at her from the corner of his eye.
“We’re going to scope those big fancy houses across town,” he tells her, offering the explanation like a gift. But Maggie knows it’s a Trojan horse.
She says nothing, keeps her eyes on the road in front of her.
“The ones that look like kids live in ’em, those are the ones we hit. Most likely to be empty on Halloween.”
