Page 56 of These Monstrous Ties
Present
Lunch with Nicolasstarts with drinks. I’m already buzzed by the time I drop down into the seat across from him at one of the restaurants in the hotel. This place really is like its own village, for the sick, twisted, and afflicted.
But Nicolas has a drink waiting for me, what looks to be a rum and Coke, and I’ll take that affliction any day. He also has iced water, and I nod my thanks to him for both before I reach for the alcohol.
“You might want to slow down, kid,” he warns me. I want to tell him I’m not a fucking kid, but instead I just take a drink.
He rolls his eyes, rests his forearm on the table. No one has come to take our order yet, and I’m glad. I want to get this out of the way first. Then I’ll know if I’ll be able to eat without vomiting.
Nicolas is wearing a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up at the forearms. He gives me a crooked smile as I finish my drink and reach for the water, but the smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes.
“What’s going on with you and Jeremiah?” he asks me.
The question takes me by surprise. I let the ice-cold water make its way down my throat, cooling the burn from the rum. “Why didn’t you ask him that?”
His eyes narrow into slits. “I did. But now I’m asking you.”
I lean back, take the cloth napkin from the table and unfurl it, draping it over my lap for something to do, even though there’s no food on the way yet.
I clasp my hands in my lap. “What did he say?”
Nicolas scrubs a hand over his face. “You two are more alike than you think,” he says, groaning. “You are definitely brother and sister. One hundred percent Rain and one hundred percent assholes.”
I laugh out loud. “We’re not alike,” I argue. I don’t want us to be alike. Wecan’tbe alike. I don’t think I’m a saint, by any stretch of the imagination. But Jeremiah is worse than Satan himself.
“He would have shot Kristof for you, this morning,” Nicolas says, suddenly serious, looking at me through his blonde lashes. “He would have killed him in that meeting room and had someone burn the body. Do you know that?”
I wave away his suggestion that somehow Jeremiah has had a real change of heart toward me. I want it to be true. But he’d only pretended to, to get me to agree to getting rid of Julie and the Unsaints.And Lucifer, I remind myself.
“Whatever. He aimed a gun at my head just last night and pulled the fucking trigger. Or did you forget that?”
Nicolas’s expression is serious. “No,” he says, his voice clipped. “I did not forget. And I won’t.” He leans forward, both elbows on the table. “But I don’t think Jeremiah will forget either. I think he regrets it.”
“Is that what he said?” I ask, knowing he hadn’t.
Nicolas doesn’t look away from me. “No,” he answers truthfully. “But I know him. More than you. More than nearly anybody. He regrets it. And he regrets he’s putting you in this position, to do something he knows will hurt you—”
“Woah,” I interrupt, shaking my head. “Who said it will hurt me?”
Nicolas leans back and clears his throat. “Jeremiah knows about Lucifer. He’s the one that found you, remember? Or have you forgotten?”
“He doesn’t know what happened before he found me.”
I don’t even know what happened before he found me. I remember learning my brother was no longer called ‘Jamie’. That he had morphed into Jeremiah. I remember waking up in the park, deep in the woods, far from the asylum. My eyes burn with that memory. But I didn’t know what hadactuallyhappened.
No one did.
No one but Lucifer.
And he had run away, like he promised he wouldn’t.
I push that memory aside. I have no time to think about that shit now. It’s far too late for regrets, from either me or Jeremiah.
“If he feels so damn bad about it,” I snap, trying to clear my head, “then why is he making me do it?”
Nicolas raises his brows. “You really don’t know?”
I shake my head, my temper rising. “No, I really fucking don’t.”
