I was dead and he killed the demon. This was so fucked up. This wasn’t helping me. And maybe that was why I was here and he’d vanished into dust. Because there couldn’t be two of us here. I didn’t exist here at all, but he did, so the version of him disappeared.
“Aaron, this isn’t going to make any sense to you. But is it possible that somewhere inside of you, you could accept that there is another existence, an existence your father screwed with because of some legend he’s preoccupied with, that I killed Erdirg? That I didn’t die in that house? That… you and I are…” I let my voice fade off. “And that he screwed all of that up? Do you think you could accept that as even the smallest possibility?”
He turned away from me. This is it. He’s leaving. But he didn’t. He turned back around, fast.
And then he enfolded me in his arms.
“Aaron.” I wrapped my arms around his waist as tight as I could. “I went to bed with you last night. You kissed me. Held me.”
“It seems too good to be true.” His voice was choked, and he buried his face against my neck. “God. You smell the same. I’d forgotten what you smelled like.” He pushed me away, holding me out so he could study me. “You’re my age, right?” He touched his thumbs next to my eyes. “I can tell you smile a lot. And you’re just as beautiful. More so.”
He was handsome, too. But there was a tiredness to his eyes that the Aaron I’d left hadn’t had. It was like he’d been worn down. “How is your brother?” I asked. “And Thorn and Colton? Are you all still working together?” Taking care of each other?
Aaron reached past me, going back to his car door and opening it. “Get in. It’s not safe out here.” He hit the lock on the door and gestured toward the passenger side. “I’d open your door for you, but I’m afraid someone will jump in and take off with it while I do.”
Oh. That was a depressing thought. “Okay.” I hurried around to the passenger side door and got in. As I shut the door, I was hit by the scent of cigarette smoke. Did he smoke?
I clicked my seatbelt into place and examined the car. In the window was a little sign identifying Aaron as a rideshare driver. “You’re not writing?” I asked.
He glanced at me sharply as he put the SUV in drive. “No. I’ve never been a writer.” He let out a breath. “That last year of homeschooling was just a mess. I feel like I’ve forgotten more than I ever learned. I never could have been a writer.”
“Well, at least you’re not dead, right?” I dropped my head. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I could feel Aaron’s eyes on me. I glanced toward him and he was studying me, a weird look on his face. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I’d expect you to say. You’re really you.”
“I am. Bad jokes, awkward timing, and everything.” He hadn’t answered my question about the others though, and I had the feeling he was ignoring that on purpose. “So you still live here?”
“I do,” he replied. Blue lights flashed, reflecting off the windshield, and he pulled to the side. But like the cruiser earlier, it flew by us. “Not that I want to stay. It’s just—I can’t leave.”
That didn’t seem to make much sense. “Why can’t you leave?”
Their family lived everywhere. They could go ahead and go anywhere they wanted, anytime they wanted. He probably had a list of better places than this.
His sigh was long. “Someone has to be here to keep Oliver in line. If I don’t have lunch with him at least once a week, I’m convinced that he’ll fly off the handle and screw up the terms of his parole. He can’t leave here. Until he can, I can’t either.”
There was bitterness in his voice that I wasn’t used to from him. Between that and the cigarette smoke, I was surprised he wasn’t choking. This was awful. What had happened? “What did he do to land in jail?”
He winced. “He beat the shit out of your cousin a year after you died. Erdirg had just been dealt with and your cousin was being a jackass at a memorial my mom had set up. They got into it, and your cousin died. They tried Oliver as an adult.