Page 34 of Apathy
I remembered Judah Blackwood as he held the dagger against my father’s throat. I remembered Harlow St. Clare as she laughed at my mother, while she held me against her body, squeezing my arm until I screamed.
The people that lived here didn’t know that they were surrounded by snakes. They didn’t know that they were being fed with poison since the day they were born. They were the prisoners of the town that never wanted to let them go. The missing girls, the whispers in the dark, they were doing it again.
They were preparing for Samhain.
My phone rang, breaking through my thoughts. I picked it up from the passenger seat and looked at the screen.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked as soon as I placed the phone to my ear, hearing the chuckle from the other side.
“Well, we’re both supposed to be in school, but that apparently isn’t happening today,” Sebastian answered. “Where did you go?”
“I had something to do.” I didn’t want to talk about her with him. Unlike our uncle and me, he was still convinced that nobody had to get hurt. That we could just go to the police and report everything we knew about the Black Dahlia.
If only it was that simple.
Judah Blackwood controlled this area in more ways than one, and Harlow St. Clare held the reins in his pharmaceutical company as a CEO, while he shook hands with other politicians, plastering a fake smile on his face. The Maddox family controlled the police here and the Lacroix family owned Lacroix Corp., an investment company in Chicago.
Wherever you turned, they would have their hands on it. Not to mention that most of them had connections deeper in the underground with the Russian Syndicate and the Outfit. No, these weren’t the people that you could just report to the police.
Besides, who would believe us? The reports for our parents’ deaths showed that it was a freak fire caused by faulty electrical wires. It was even signed by the chief of police, and by the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the house we used to live in was already burned to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes and pain behind.
“You had something or someone to do?” he asked, snickering at the same time. I told him about my plan for Skylar, but Sebastian being Sebastian was adamant to change my mind. After seeing her picture onSnapgram, he started nudging me to go after her for all the wrong reasons.
“None of your business, baby brother.”
“Argh,” he groaned. “Can we please lose that nickname? Please?”
“No can do, baby bro,” I teased. “You are younger than me.”
“Only two years younger. I’m sixteen not six, and if you saw how some of the girls were eyeing me, you wouldn’t be using that name on me.”
“Hmm, do they know about the blanket—”
“No, Ash,” he threatened. “Don’t you dare.”
The story about the blanket he used to carry around as a child always worked.
“As much as I love hearing your lovely voice…” I started speaking as I parked in front of the pub a few feet from the bridge. “I would like to know why you’re calling me.”
“I need to ask you for a favor.”
I turned the ignition off and unfastened my seatbelt. “I’m listening.”
He hesitated for a moment, the line going silent.
“Seb—”
“I want you to teach me how to drive,” he blurted out, piercing my heart.
Our dad or mom was supposed to teach him how to do that, not me. I loved our uncle, but he knew more about cars than kids, and most of the time it was up to me to make sure that Sebastian wasn’t walking with his shirt inside out, or that he actually did his homework. After he found out about our parents’ death and after we came to him, it was as if the only thing he could think of was revenge against the people in this town.
I never really asked why or how, but I had a feeling that it went further than just not liking what they were doing to innocent people, or what they did to his friends.
“Ash?” Sebastian’s voice tore through my thoughts. “Will you do it? I understand if you can’t, but—”
“Of course I’ll do it, Seb.” I dragged a hand over my face, hating that he had to ask me. If our parents were alive and he asked me the same thing, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes, but that hole in my chest where they used to be seemed to expand even more with this request. “When do you want to start?”
“Really?” His voice, laced with excitement, drew the first real smile today from me. “You’ll do it?”
