I wondered when I was going to be sick. When the feelings permeating my body were going to be acted upon, but it never happened. I didn’t puke. The doctor came to me, showed me to a private room where Thea was hooked up to IVs and all kinds of gear I didn’t understand. What I did see, however, was that she looked tiny on the bed. Was so fucking small, that my heart ached.
It took a second but, in the corner, I realized that someone was there.
A man and a woman.
They looked drawn and pale, and it didn’t take much to figure out that they were Thea’s foster parents.
“Hi,” I greeted a little blankly, then I ignored them to grab an armchair, haul it over to her bedside, and take a seat. I clutched her hand, careful to avoid the IV line, then sat there, on a vigil, waiting for her to wake up.
She didn’t.
Not for hours.
The foster parents—the Majors—went, nurses drifted in and out, darkness fell, and suddenly, there was a hand on my arm and I was being dragged into awareness.
I reared back once I was awake, but what I didn’t expect?
The slap to my face.
Not a verbal one, but a physical one.
My head throbbed because I hadn’t prepared myself for the attack. It had ricocheted off the back of the armchair, and because it was the most uncomfortable piece of furniture ever invented, my skull collided with the wooden frame with a dull thunking noise.
Uncertain whether to rub my head or my cheek, I stared up at my attacker and tension filled me. I saw Dad had grabbed a hold of Mom’s arm, and he used that hold on her to draw her against him.
She was a sobbing wreck. My usual pristine mother all verklempt because of what—
A laugh escaped me.
Not because of what Cain had done.
But what I’d done.
Go figure.
“You condemned him.”
The words were spat at me, and she forced herself out of Dad’s arms, looking like some kind of mad woman on meth as she went for me again. But I didn’t stop her. I let her hit me. I let her hands slap me, and her fists pound my chest.
I got it.
Cain was her favorite.
I wasn’t.
Woodenly, I told her, “He hurt Thea.”
“This piece of shit?” she snarled. “You care more for this piece of pussy than you do your own brother? How could you do that to him?” she screamed, and I wasn’t surprised when a nurse bustled in, declaring, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you don’t keep things down in here.”
My mom turned wide, enraged eyes on her, but my dad grabbed her once more, and promised, “We’ll keep things down.”
She glared at Mom, but evidently aware there was a higher power of insanity in the ward, she hustled away—I wouldn’t have been surprised if she called security anyway. We probably fucking needed it.
I blinked at my father though, noticing he hadn’t moved to defend me during Mom’s attack, and I jerked my chin up. “You’re the ones who raised a monster. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’d do it again. Cain deserves to be locked up. He’s a fucking psycho and neither of you ever saw that.”
Turning away from them, I reached for Thea’s hand. I’d heard what had gone down when the EMT informed the hospital of what Thea had endured to prepare the medical team… “He tried to drown her,” I said simply, my fingers clinging to hers. “And you’d, what? Be happy for him to get a detention? To be grounded or suspended? Fuck that.” I glowered at them. “He deserves to be in jail.”
“He’s nearly seventeen,” Mom sobbed. “Dear God, Robert, what if they try him as an adult?” She sobbed some more against his chest, and for the first time in years, I saw my father hug her.
He looked just as dazed as I felt—like I was back to seeing the world through a window with dirty panes. But when he caught me looking at him, his eyes connected with mine, and he nodded.
A single nod.
And I knew, I knew, he agreed with me.
That nod told me I’d done the right thing.
Of course I had. The authorities had to be told. But my mom? The rest of the faculty at Rosemore? I knew they’d keep things under wraps if they could. Would have dealt with it in-house, because that was the kind of place