Page 61 of Dark Ink

I had to turn away. I couldn’t keep that fuel of anger burning if I imagined the request coming from beyond the grave. I never really knew my mother, but it seemed like something she would say. Something she might even want. Healing. Restoration. Family.

I pushed the image of her away with a snort of derision and a tightening of my hands into fists.

“Heal?” I laughed. “You want me to go heal the man who made my life a living hell? You want me to mend fences in what was to me a literal prison? You want me to ease the guilt of a monster? I thought I’d said it already, but I’ll say it again, dear brother, ‘Fuck him. And fuck you.’”

This time Liam didn’t try to stop me as I went around him. Nobody tried to stop me. Not even the little voice in my head that wanted to be healthy, happy, good.

There was just me and my old faithful friend, self-destruction. He walked beside me into the dark like a dutiful dog, wagging his tail, tongue lolling from his too sharp teeth, eager for the chaos that was to come.

In that moment, he felt like my only real friend.

Eithne

I only allowed myself to cry once Stewart was asleep in my bed.

After Nick had left with a malicious whistle on his chapped lips. After I’d run to my brother, cut his bindings, blood-smeared zip ties, wiped his burning cheeks still wet from tears with frantic strokes. Only once I’d cleaned him up, made him tea, spooned him soup as he whimpered again and again till he finally passed out, tearing me in two all anew with each repetition, “Where were you, Eithne? Where were you? Where were you? Where were you, Eithne?”

Even then, after all that, did I only allow myself two minutes of grief. Guilt. Shame. Terror. Despair. Two minutes and two minutes only. I would have even set an alarm if I hadn’t heard every second passing like a ticking clock in my pounding chest. I couldn’t have escaped that two minutes, even if I had wanted to. And I hadn’t wanted to. Nor felt I deserved to.

I kept the lights turned off as I settled in at my old, slow computer. No tea for me. No little shot of whiskey for the pain. No blissful nothingness of sleep. I had work to do. Penance, maybe. Atonement, perhaps. I had failed my brother when he needed me the most. All those years of looking after him, picking up after him, providing for him, all those years off my life no longer counted in my mind. I had wiped the slate clean with one swipe of my thumb across my phone: Ignore. All the good will, good karma, good whatever the fuck you want to call it that I’d accumulated through literal blood, sweat, and tears all came crashing down the second I chose Rian over Stewart, chose myself over family, chose pleasure over duty.

I didn’t allow myself to glance at the little display of the time in the illuminated corner of the screen. It didn’t matter how long it would take. I would work till it was finished. Till I made sure Stewart was safe. Till his debt had been paid. And mine.

I chastised every yawn, slapped my cheeks every time my eyelids began to droop, straightened by back against the hard chair every time I found myself slumping over, the temptation of my cheek against the desk for just a second or two so, so, so alluring. The clicks of my mouse became my lullaby, the dragging of the arrow back and forth my gently swaying mobile. It was soothing, I told myself as my thoughts grew fuzzier and fuzzier, making up for my mistakes. It was like a dream, I could almost convince myself, feeling no more shame. Earning my way to no more shame.

Stewart slept behind me without a sound. Without moving. I, too, was motionless. Just the twitching of my hand from left to right across the mousepad to tell that I was still awake. The heat of my coat enveloped me; I hadn’t taken it off yet, I dimly realised. The rhythm of my work, easy and monotonous, lulled me into a strange trance. I wasn’t even sure I was fully awake at that point.

When Rian appeared at the doorway, he was little more than a silhouette. A looming shape in the dark. He lurched backward and forward, unsteady. But I knew it was him. Sensed, maybe, that it was him. Or perhaps I was dreaming at that point and simply wished it was him. Either way he did not frighten me. Not until he switched on the light.

It was very much like waking up, Rian turning on the light. It was nothing more than a bare bulb hung above the mattress on the floor, but it was harsh nevertheless to my eyes. It drew me out of my work as if from under warm, cosy sheets. I blinked like I was trying to remember where I was, who I was. Then it all came back. Unwanted. Cruel. Painful. And I was very much afraid.

My gaze went first to Stewart, to see if he woke up. Thankfully he remained a motionless heap under the blanket.

Next, I looked at Rian. His skin was deadly pale. A sickly gleam covered his face and neck, coat turned open despite the early winter chill of the night. The collar of his thin grey t-shirt looked clawed at as if by some wild animal. His pupils were dilated in a way I recognised all too easily. The pale blue of his irises had been chased away, almost nothing of it remained at the rim.

I should have moved faster. Perhaps things would have been different. But I was tired, exhausted really. The hard, uncomfortable chair had become a bed of my own; I didn’t want to leave it. Wasn’t sure I could. So instead I sat there. Sat there dumbly as I watched Rian piece it all together in his head: Stewart with his swollen eye and red-marked wrists, me at the computer with fake IDs half edited up on the screen, the baseball bat left leaning against the couch as a warning, as a threat, as a reminder that even without this weapon Nick could hurt us. Would hurt us.

I was up before Rian managed his first word. Pushing him back out of the room. Closing the door behind him. Placing a finger to his lips.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed. “You need to leave.”

“Who was it?” Rian demanded, not bothering at all to keep his voice low.

I shoved him toward the door.

“You can’t just hunt me down whenever you want, Rian.”

“It seems I’m not the first,” he shot back.

I glared up at him. “I have things under control.”

“What’s his name?”

Rian had stopped in the centre of the living room, halfway toward the door. I pushed at him, but he was immobile. As immovable as a stubborn bull.

“You stink like alcohol,” I told him, diverting. “And you’re high as a fucking kite. There’s nothing you can do for me.”

Rian was staring past my shoulder. Staring at the baseball bat just a few feet behind me against the couch. My hands were flat against his chest. I could feel the unhealthy heat of his body. The burning. There was the temptation to believe he’d come to save me, to help me. But I could see it was again the other way around: I would be the one to save him. To keep him from doing something he’d regret. To prevent him from harming himself. To make sure he made it to dawn alive.

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