Page 32 of Cruel Charming Psychos (Necessary Evils 2)

Mother lights a cigarette and takes one puff, but then she looks at me and immediately rubs it out in the glass ashtray that sits on the nightstand between us. “I’m sorry. I know that you don’t like the smoke.”

I peel my eyes towards her, but don’t say anything. It’s the first time she’s been considerate about anything since I first came back home. For her part, I can tell that she’s actually trying to be a real mother for the first time in her life. That ship has sailed though.

“I know we don’t have the best relationship, Addison, but please tell me what’s wrong so I can try and make it better.”

“It’s just been a shitty week and an even shittier day.”

She reaches across the gap between the beds and places a shaking hand on my shaking knee. “I’m sorry about Asher. I know he was your friend.”

“Yeah…”

She clears her throat. “I don’t want this to come out wrong because I have a feeling you didn’t want me to know, but you can’t let the stress of that boy dying affect your pregnancy.”

I look back to her again, confused.

“It was in the paper,” she says lowly.

“Of course it was,” I bury my face in my hands and let her know, “I had a miscarriage.”

“I’m so sorry.” She takes a moment before standing up and moving to take a seat beside me. She wraps an arm around my back and pulls me in close to comfort me, but I resist with all my might. “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but God works in mysterious ways.”

I cock my head to her, disgusted. “What do you know about God?”

She hesitates to speak, blowing out hot air. “I don’t know what happened in that house the other night, but I know that it’s strange that your friend had to die in that house in particular. We both know that’s not a coincidence. I don’t want to be the person that saysI told you so,but I told you that those people were bad news.” She lifts my chin with one hand. “Just like I knew that you were pregnant before you told the world.”

We lock eyes for a moment too long before everything in me is just telling me to run before I say something really stupid. I reach for her pack of cigarettes on the nightstand and jump to my feet, running out the front door.

I slam the door behind me and finagle a cigarette into my mouth. I grab the lighter out of the pack, spark it, and light the end of the cigarette. The first inhale threatens to choke me, but I revel in the way the burning of the cigarette almost seems to burn the back of my mouth. I throw my head back and exhale a thick cloud of smoke into the air.

It’s been at least five years since I’ve had a cigarette, but at this point I’ll be dead before cancer has time to destroy my body. My relationship with my own mother is so fucked up that I’d rather kill myself one cigarette at a time than have her comfort me.

“I didn’t realize you smoked,” a familiar voice says, soft and feminine. “It’s probably not good for the baby.”

I look straight ahead to find Emily standing in the gravel parking lot. There’s an older car behind her that shows the faintest hints of rust, a far cry from the luxurious cars the Callaways usually run around in.

She is the least awful of the Callaways, and that’s saying something considering she burned my house down while my mother was inside, but she’s still a Callaway. That means, I really don’t want to see her right now.

I take another drag of the cigarette. “What are you doing here?”

She approaches and takes the cigarette out of my mouth, stomping it out on the ground. “I heard what happened and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

I shake my head, not buying it. “You made it clear how you feel about me over the course of this summer.”

“I care about you, Addison.” Her eyes search the area, desperate to look anywhere but straight at me. “Sometimes I hate you. Sometimes, I feel sorry for you. Sometimes I miss the relationship we had when we were younger. Even on the days when I wake up and wish you’d cease to exist, I still care about you. It’s just that I can never decide what exactly that means.”

“And today?”

“You never should have come back here,” she says, and it comes out like a warning that’s much too late to be heeded. “But now that you’re pregnant with Nick’s kid, I guess you can’t ever leave. You’re stuck like the rest of us.”

I throw my head back against the window of the motel room. “This town is going to be the death of me.”

“My father killed that boy.”

The words, coming from her, startle me. “Why would you say that?”

“Everyone knows the truth. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud, but I’m not afraid.”

I’m well aware it could be a trap. She’s been doing small things to get back into her parents’ favor, just enough to get access to her trust funds. She could have easily been sent here. “Why would he want to do that?”

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