sleep, when I hear the tapping in the living room. I peer inside to see Emily in the corner, fingers typing furiously. There is no light except for the computer screen. I make to leave her when she looks up with an awkward smile. Mother and Emily have both been weird around me lately, as though I’m the one who lied, as though I’m the one who killed our little brother and our father.
“What?” I ask.
“You know what,” she hisses. “I miss her.”
“Don’t,” I tell her. “Forget she exists.”
“Ubert lets us talk to her on the phone, silly,” Emily replies like I’m the idiot. “Plus, I don’t want to forget she exists. Oh, Carlo, can’t you just—”
“What?” I snpa. “Forget that she lied to me? Forget that her father is the man I’ve been fighting with most of my life? Forget that she set a fucking child murderer free—”
“Her brother,” Emily corrects. “She set her brother free.”
“People around here talk too much.”
“Don’t do that,” she whispers.
“What?”
“Don’t make me dislike you.”
“Emily, what don’t you understand? She’s Colleen Sweeney. She’s Fergal’s daughter. She’s been lying to us this whole time. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
She closes her laptop so loudly I almost jump. It’s very un-Emily like. “Part of being a writer is putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Imagining you’re the other person. Remember when I used to ask you to take me to those bars and just sit with me?”
I nod. Sometimes we’d sit for hours, saying nothing. Emily wouldn’t want to talk.
“I was looking at every person in there and imagining I was them. What they were thinking, feeling, how the glass felt in their hand, everything.”
“What’s your point?”
She raises her eyebrow. Don’t be a jackass, it says. “She’s Fergal Sweeney’s daughter. He’s a monster. She’s lived her whole life in fear of him and then, finally, she finds somebody she cares about. But she knows that she can’t tell you the truth because it would ruin everything. I understand her. I forgive her.”
“How fucking noble of you,” I mock. “How fucking short everyone’s memory is. Am I the only one who remembers the park? Am I the only one who remembers that day?”
I turn away. I don’t need this shit tonight.
Durante, I get. The man was passing out. Blood loss makes people say some pretty weird things. But Nario telling him in the first place? Mother and Emily giving me a hard time for not welcoming a goddamn Sweeney into my life with open arms? What the fuck is wrong with everyone around me?
I march through the mansion, suddenly too keyed up to sleep. I end up in Hazel’s studio, in front of her latest piece. It’s a Surrealist work about a man and a woman holding each other as the chaos of the world—fire, demons, hell—tries and fails to break their cocoon. It’s only half-finished.
I yank it from the easel and put a fist through it. When that isn’t enough, I grip the canvas between two hands and tear it asunder. Still, I need more. I’m raging, fire in my veins. The rip of the fabric is music to my ears. More. More. More.
Rip. Tear. Destroy.
When there are only shreds of the canvas left, I turn to the easel. Picking it up with both hands, I smash it against the wall. The resounding crack of the splintering wood feels good. It feels right. It feels like I am exerting my will against the world and the world is breaking before me, as it should, as it has always been meant to do.
I pick up a shattered leg, swing that against the wall.
Crack.
I roar wordlessly as I snap the remainder over my knee. I am sweating, heaving, but this is exactly what I need.
I need to break something to pieces.
When there is nothing left to ruin and the tide of fire in my chest has dimmed to flickering ashes, I finally stop. I stand still, eyes wide, drinking in the symbolism.
Even as I tell myself that it doesn’t mean a fucking thing.
29
Hazel
It looks like I’m exactly where I started—Prisoner Town—only this time I’ve got a baby and a bad case of the maybe-I-love-hims in here with me.
Three days have gone by since our little standoff in Sole Nero, and each day I try to harden myself. To forget I ever fell for him. Because he’s clearly forgotten he ever felt anything for me.
I’m already plotting my escape from this well-furnished penthouse. Ubert is guarding the door a