Page 59 of The Other Side of Green

“Sometimes favors have undesirable outcomes.” Mom leered and for the millionth time I wondered just what the fuck I’d done to deserve her. “Although, your daddy was a bad man. Maybe I got off lightly.”

Jack’s gaze zeroed back on my face. “Lyra?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“Brother and sister.” Mom filled in the silence. “All those years across the fence and you never worked it out?”

“Mom!” Luca pulled her toward him. “Stop. Just stop.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Jack. I watched the shutter come down.

He turned to Luca, his skin so pale, ghostly. “You knew?”

“Jack.” Luca wrangled Mom into a firmer grasp. “I can explain.”

“Too late!” Jack lurched forward, knocking Mom out of Luca’s grasp and grabbing Luca around the throat, the exact same grasp I’d held on Mom only a few short blissful moments before.

Like brother like sister.

Bile rose up my throat and I struggled to swallow it back down.

“Jack, please, please don’t.” I reached for him, but he batted me away.

“You knew, you fucking bastard.”

A tear slipped down my cheek and I crushed it away only for it to be replaced swiftly with another and then another until salt tanged on my tongue. “Jack, please.”

His knuckles whitened as he squeezed Luca. Luca’s face paling as Jack’s grew redder and hotter.

“Please, Jack, we can sort this out.” He turned, his lips curled into a furious grimace.

“Sort this, Lyra, sort this.” His hold on Luca lessened a little and I took my chance, stepping up close and smoothing my hands down his arms.

“Just calm down and we can all talk. I promise we will talk.”

His wild green stare met my gaze. “You knew. He told you. That’s why you left without me.”

My tears dropped hotter and faster, my shoulders rising up and down with every gasped sob tearing from my mouth. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Mom started to laugh, a pixie on helium. “I always knew you were like me, Lyra. Like mother like daughter.”

“Shut up.” I wheeled around. “Just shut up and get out.”

“Where am I going to go? This is my house now.”

“It’s not, it’s Grams’.”

“She’s dead, Lyra. Dead, and good riddance to the pious old coot.”

I’d reached my limit. My eyesight darkened, my ears buzzing with a loud ringing, out of tune, out of time, out of everything, apart from reality.

“Lyra.’ Jack and Luca both turned to me, my brothers stepping in unison just as I heard the faint buzz of Pastor Clarke’s voice from the doorway.

“Oh dear. Wouldn’t be a Florida funeral without a punch up in the kitchen afterwards.”

And with that I crumpled like a pack of cards, my fight to continue leaving me once and for all.

Chapter Fifteen