Page 42 of Gemini
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“You’re going to be okay. You just need to lie low for a while. You’re safest here.”
Was I? I almost said it, but bit into the slider instead. Maybe for a brief moment I felt safe with them back at the church, until that was all dashed away.
“Until we deal with everything, you need to stay here. Lez and I will take turns watching you.”
“You mean babysitting me.” I scoffed.
“Gangs like this don’t fuck around,” he replied. “Our place is open, we have the club. We have people guarding all the time but we need to take extra precautions especially after Leslie’s blowup. They’ll be wanting revenge.”
Great. “Thanks for looking out for me,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so bitter. I knew I couldn’t blame them completely. It was my fault for going to the bar in the first place, thinking I could somehow negotiate with those men. It was stupid. And now I was in the situation I was in because of it. Leslie did what he did out of pure rage, and he wasn’t wrong, I hadn’t tried to stop him. Even with the shock, I just didn’t, but I should have. Maybe deep down, I was furious too. But the reality of Leslie killing some of them shook me up. I wasn’t one to advocate for murder. The only time I could remember not feeling sorry for someone’s death was the man who ran Severfalls. That whole thing had been so fucked up, but after what they had done to Eve, what they had done to so many innocent women and kids, it was the first time I truly thought someone deserved to be taken out for good. Now, a part of me felt that way for the Serpents. But it also felt like a slippery slope, wanting the death of just one person, let alone many.
I was crashing out bad, losing control of my usual good girl facade. And that scared me too. How easy it must be for the twins to just let go of that moral dilemma completely.
If someone messes with you or your own, you take the threat out. No hesitation.Leslie had said that to me once, when he, Dom, and I were alone in his armory, when I had asked him why he needed so many weapons, and what he was defending himself against exactly. I hadn’t understood his thoughts back then. But I was starting to now.
As I silently ate my slider contemplating all this, Dom found a throw blanket and wrapped it around me. Even though it wasn’t super cold in his apartment I was still shivering. He turned on the TV and put on an old movie from the stack on the shelf.Fright Night. Thankfully, I was a fan of campy horror films. I watched, only half paying attention. When Dom had finished his food, he wrapped up some of the leftovers and put them in the fridge.
“I have to go out,” he typed. “Leslie will be around if you need anything.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to make a few runs. Nothing crazy.”
“Can I come with?”
“Not right now, but maybe next time. I’m going to take your keys and go to your apartment to make sure nothing has been tampered with. You can text me if you need me to bring something back.”
I could already think of a few things. “Dom?” I called as he turned for the bedroom. “If my family needs me. You have to let me see them.”
He gave me an annoyed-looking smirk before texting his reply. “We’re not keeping you from your family, Lena. You’re not a prisoner. Not like last time. You can contact them. And if you need to go out somewhere, we will take you. But for right now, this is home.”
My throat tightened at that last sentence. I looked away, uncertain how to respond.
He came back a few seconds later with my keys. Before he headed for the door, he stopped in front of me. He took my chin in one hand, lifting my face. Then he leaned down and kissed me. I didn’t pull back, but I didn’t deepen it either. He straightened and turned for the door without a second glance and left me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I spent the next couple days holed up in Dom’s apartment. I was so tired, so burned out emotionally I decided to hermit myself. Most of the time I sat on his couch with the blanket over me, watching Netflix and eating whatever food Dom brought for me. I was going to gain twenty pounds in a week from all the delicious food and snacks he kept getting me, but I didn’t really care. I sat eating a pint of ice cream like I was a starving racoon in the dumpster, mindlessly scarfing it down. When I wasn’t just sitting there feeling sorry for myself, I was calling my family, texting my friends, and trying to catch up on my socials. I called Jamie and we talked for several hours, but I didn’t have much more information to tell him. I didn’t confess where I was or who I was with or what had happened to me, not wanting him to freak out. No one knew and I planned to keep it that way. My dad asked me to come over to the house to help with the search, but I lied and told him I had the flu. Thankfully, he bought it because I sounded terrible. I knew I couldn’t make that excuse for long. I’d worry later on how I was going to cover the bruises on my face and explain why I was limping. Word had gotten around about my sister, but I made several posts about how it was a family matter and I wasn’t going into details. Jana knew now too andput me on temporary leave with pay, telling me to focus on my family and if there was any more info she could give she would help, no questions asked.
Between all the communication back and forth, I was also continuing to text my sister. She never replied as usual, but I couldn’t stop, knowing she was still out there, and that she had to know we were still thinking of her. And maybe, just maybe, she would answer back and at least ease my anxiety if only a little.
That hope was all I had. Otherwise, I was miserable, frustrated, and lonely. Thankfully, I had Dom to stifle some of the loneliness. When he returned from his daily errands, he stayed by me, watching movies and eating with me. When I slept, which was often, I could feel his warmth against me. We didn’t talk much, but when we did, it was usually casual and short. Every so often he would stroke my hair and rub my back. It felt good and, despite my tension with him days before and my complicated feelings for him and his brother, I longed for his comforting touch.
Whenever Lez came to check on me, I refused to look at him. My answers were short whenever he’d talk to me. I would feel him lingering by the door when he was going to leave, his eyes burning into my back. I didn’t care if he resented me.
The days passed in a haze and by the following night I was finally starting to feel even an ounce like myself. Dom had gone out again, leaving me alone. I had stolen a case of beer from the fridge and had been slowly sucking it down till I was on my fourth bottle. I sat at the kitchen table on my laptop which Dom had brought back from my apartment. Eve’s thesis was pulled up again, scrolled toward the end.
I don’t know why I kept coming back to the twins’ story. It was like I was searching for something, wanting to find some part I could connect with. Wanting to see past the morallygray, to remind myself why they were the way they were. Their tragedy always hit me hard in the gut, my heart breaking for the childhood that was stripped from them. I’d never known anyone who went through what they did.
After the fourth beer, I was feeling tipsy and couldn’t read straight so I stumbled into the bedroom to lie down. At some point in the night, I slipped deep into a dream, finding myself on my family’s summer property.
I sat alone by the fire, the surrounding area pitch-black including our small cabin only a few yards away. Dad had bought the property years ago when we were kids to have somewhere for the family to camp while he went out fishing. I could remember the nights hearing music on the radio in the cabin behind us while my siblings and I talked by the fire. There was usually light and laughter. But now there was nothing more than an eerie quiet. The tall grass hardly swayed around me, the firelight casting a dim light that barely broke through the dark.
Everything was calm until the roar of a car engine broke the silence as a pair of headlights came out of the dark and stopped before me. Two dark figures stepped out of the car. It was the twins, only they were wearing masks, one with a stitched up smile, the other with a frowning clown-face.
One had rope in his hands, the other a blade.
