On my way back home, as I was struggling to pull my shit together so as not to get into a fatal car accident while the adrenaline coursed through my bloodstream, I figured out why Gus hasn’t thrown my sister into his mix of blackmail even though she handed him the ammo against me on a silver platter.
Gus protects Via.
Via protects Gus.
Nobody protects Daria.
I storm into the Followhills’ living room without so much as registering their faces. The only thing I see is my sister’s head peeking up from her homework on the kitchen island. I bunch the fabric of the back of her dress and hurl her outside to the backyard. Bailey lifts her head up from her homework and starts protesting before seeing the look on my face.
“Penn, what are you…?”
“Shut up.”
Surprisingly, it does shut her up. Maybe the look on my face is warning enough that I’m not above locking her in the utility room if she doesn’t cooperate.
“Oh my God! You’ve lost your mind! What are you doing? Let me go!” Via alternates between yelling and begging. “Penn! Wait! I can explain!”
“You can, but I’m done listening to your shit,” I say tonelessly.
My twin is still cawing like a raven when I use the back of her collar to toss her into the deep end of the pool. I watch as she stumbles on the edge, sinks like a brick, then rises to the surface. She shakes off the water and hair plastered to her face. I stand on the edge, watching her. Waiting to feel something more than disdain and discovering I feel nothing at all.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She punches the water, shrieking.
I throw my head back and laugh. “Dropping the F-bomb now, are we? Took you long enough to take off that cheap-ass mask of yours, Sylvia, but now that you have, I’ll give you one thing. I can see your real face now, and it’s pretty ugly.”
She wipes her face and starts swimming toward the stairs. “So I’m Sylvia now, huh?”
“Feel lucky that you are anything at all. I told you not to touch her. We had a deal. A blood oath.”
The day I told Daria to go look for dick elsewhere, I walked into Vaughn’s pool house thinking I was doing her a favor by temporarily breaking her heart. Smug fucker that I was, it never occurred to me that I’d be breaking mine, too.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I don’t even think about getting my dick wet, let alone allow the harem of cheerleaders and groupies to do the honor. I can’t breathe without thinking about the girl across the hall. I function solely for the purpose of proving to myself that I still can, and I can’t even look my sister in the eye without wanting to make it black around the edges.
Via climbs out of the pool looking like Samara Morgan from The Ring at the same time Jaime slides the glass door open, popping his head out.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice is an impatient growl.
“Nothing.” I wave a flippant hand. “We need to sort some shit out is all.”
Jaime glances at my sister with frost that wasn’t there before. Mel might have the patience of a thousand nuns, but Jaime knows what’s up, and he is Team Daria all the way.
Via nods at the same time she shivers her way to a lounger. “Thank you, Mr. Followhill. I’m okay.”
Jaime closes the door behind him. I walk toward her, casting a shadow over her figure, and kick her shin lightly.
“Answer me.”
“She ruined everything,” she huffs, her lips twisting in abhorrence. If she thinks she is getting off the hook by crying, she is gravely fucking mistaken, and officially doesn’t know the tin man she created the minute she left. “I hate her so much. And I swear I didn’t know about Gus asking you to lose the game. You have to believe me, Penn. I just wanted to get back at her for throwing my letter out.”
“I threw the letter out,” I yell in her face, stubbing a finger on my chest where the hole is. A hole that had been shrinking for weeks, but has now become bigger than ever since Via came back. I ripped my shirts the day I broke things off with Daria, cutting the holes so big, you can now see half