Heartbreak Me by T.L. Smith Page 0,3

I take a step toward her, lifting her chin so she has to look at me. There was a time I thought she was beautiful, but now I see the ugly inside her, and that’s the way it will be staying. “I could still kill you. Would you prefer I do that instead?”

Lucy is overdramatic, this I have come to realize as we have spent time together. She throws herself back on the bed with her hands above her head as she continues to cry. Her theatrics doing nothing for me.

“She’s perfect. Thea is perfect. She already thought I was a bad egg, now you just confirmed it,” she says, the tears not leaving.

“Tell me more about Theadora,” I ask. Actually, no, it’s a command.

Lucy stops the tears straight away and sits upright. Her head drops to the side as she looks at me. “You like her, don’t you?”

Lucy doesn’t deserve my answers, so I don’t say anything.

“She’s pretty, but I’m exotic. You can have me! Don’t you want me instead?” Lucy’s hand touches my arm, and I look down at it.

My tone is aggressive when I speak to her. “Remove your hand, Lucy. Now.”

She drops it fast and pulls away from me.

“Tell me about your sister, Lucy. Now.”

Her dark eyes, which are the opposite of her sister’s, look at me before she starts talking. And believe me, Lucy likes to talk.

“She manages some shop,” she says with an eye roll. “Been working with them since straight out of school.” Lucy lies back on her bed and starts to play with her hair, twirling it with her fingers. “She hasn’t dated anyone seriously since high school.” She pushes up on her arms and looks at me. “Is this what you want to know? Who she’s fucking?”

“Who is she fucking?”

“No one. She’s a prude with a vicious mouth.” She scrunches her nose up. “Thea can be mean with her words.” Lucy lies back down and continues to talk while looking at the ceiling. When I get sick of her droning voice, I walk out with ocean blue eyes stuck in my head.

A prude? In that skirt she had on? I don’t see that at all.

No, I see her bent over with that skirt around her waist and my hands in her hair as I fuck her from behind.

Shit.

Shaking my shoulders, I get back to work.

Chapter Three

Theadora

I don’t go back to work that night to get my car, even though that’s where they took me from. I can’t seem to get up enough courage to go back there. Not yet. I stay in my small house all night, and the following day I struggle to get up in the afternoon.

Was it a dream? If it was, it was an unbelievably bad dream.

I call Lucy more than once, five times to be precise, and not once does she call me back.

Does he have her? Is she okay?

We may not be the best of friends, but she is my baby sister. And that has to count for something, right? I mean, I agreed to do whatever it was that man wanted from me to protect her.

For fuck’s sake, what has she gotten herself into?

Throwing off the covers, I get out of bed and quickly pull on whatever I can find, which consists of gray tracksuit pants that have seen better days and a hoodie that’s ten times my size. Putting on my old sneakers and placing my cell in my pocket, I start the trek to Lucy’s place. She’s living with a friend, and it’s not too far from where I live, but we still hardly see each other. Running my hand through my messed-up ponytail, I start to run. She has to be there. If she isn’t, then what happened wasn’t a dream. Which, right now, I am really hoping it is.

But what about my car?

You left it, so you will have to run. But it doesn’t matter, I like running because, for some reason, it calms me.

I slow down when I reach the building where Lucy lives with a roommate. Hers is more open apartments, this one is a block, and Lucy lives on the third floor. There’s an elevator that is always broken, so I know I will have to take the stairs.

Kids are out the front kicking a football as I make my way into her building complex. Glancing at the elevator, the closed sign taped to the front confirms my previous thoughts. Taking the stairs two at a time