Vicious Hearts: Chapter 23
They never came.
Numb, standing next to the hospital bed, I stare at my sister’s lifeless body as the attending nurse pulls the sheet up over her face. The priest finishes his last rites, glancing nervously at me when he’s through.
I nod back, releasing him.
The son of a bitch almost refused to do right by Saoirse, because of how she got here. That piece of shit actually looked me in the eye and told me suicide was a sin in God’s eyes, and he could neither read her the last rites, nor promise she would get to Heaven.
That was before he looked down at her again, and saw the last name on the charts at the foot of the bed.
Before he looked back at me with sheer terror in his eyes, realizing who I was.
And before I told him I’d make sure none of the pieces of him I left would ever get to Heaven, either.
When he’s gone, when the nurses are gone, I drop my gaze back to my sister’s body beneath the sheet.
She never had a chance in this world. She was too sweet. Too naive. Born under a cursed named, into a cursed house, with a monster at the head of the table.
And yet, she survived all of that—being born a Kildare, I mean. Being born the unwanted girl, destined to be traded by our bastard father like a golden trinket for more wealth or power.
Being that bastard’s victim for so fucking long that it makes me want to scream and open up my own veins to join her, right here, right now.
A few years previously, Saoirse had been promised to a disgusting pig of a man—Atlas Drakos, the eldest son of Aeneas Drakos. Theirs was to be a marriage to end the bloodshed between Kildare and Drakos—and to line the pockets of Aeneas and my father.
And then, one day, after so many years, and so many times telling me “One day, Cill, I’ll get out”, she really did.
Saoirse was gone.
She ran off with another man. And I was so fucking happy for her. For her freedom, even if it came with our father’s wrath, and banishment from the family.
Good. Good for her.
She got out.
But nine months later, she was back on our doorstep—heartbroken by the man who’d since abandoned her, and ready to burst from the baby he’d put in her before he disappeared.
A baby girl our father made her give up as soon as she was born.
Rose.
My niece.
He made Saoirse leave that sweet baby girl on the doorstep of a convent—Our Lady Hildegard Home for the Sisters of Mercy.
And that’s what finally broke my sister, after surviving all the other things that should have broken her. The unwantedness. The predator we called Father visiting her room at night again and again and again when she was little more than a child. The man who stole her away just to use and abandon her in the end.
She survived all of that.
But losing Rose was the final straw that broke her.
I hate myself. I hate that I saw this coming months ago, after that horrible night when she left that baby with the nuns. I watched her get worse and worse, until nothing I could say or do would ever bring a smile out of her.
I’d planned carefully for tonight, with the goal of just one smile. Her favorite movies. Her favorite buttered popcorn and Skittles. The brand-new album from Velvet Guillotine, her favorite band.
She wasn’t in her room when I went to look for her. I knocked on the bathroom door, calling her name before deciding she was probably somewhere else. I even started to turn away from the door before I heard it.
Dripping.
I think that’s when I knew. Before I even screamed her name. Before I even slammed on the door. Before I even smashed it in, going numb as my eyes landed on her body lying in the tub of opaque red water, the razor on the tiled floor in a smaller pool of blood.
I knew she was already gone even as I wrapped her in a blanket, not caring about the blood I got on my shirt, put her in my car, and drove like maniac all the way to the hospital. I ordered them to take care of her, even though we all knew there was no person left in there to take care of. I screamed at them like a fucking devil to put her in that fucking hospital bed, put the fucking tubes in her NOW, and get her back to life.
But there was no coming back from where Saoirse had gone.
And they never. Fucking. Came.
Our parents weren’t home when it happened. But I left them both easily a hundred messages. Nothing.
One of the people from the hospital gently asks me if I’m ready to talk yet about Saoirse’s final wishes. About her burial, or perhaps cremation, and the steps that need to be taken first.
I tell him not to fucking touch her. That I’ll be back.
Then, I’m driving home just as maniacally as before.
Their car is in the driveway.
I know full well the monster my father is. I know my mother is bowed under the weight of his firm rule, to the point of ignoring me time and time again when I scream at her about what is happening under our roof.
I want to believe that somewhere behind the fear of her husband, my mother is still a good woman inside. But she hasn’t even responded to any of the messages I sent, and it makes me want to rip the house apart piece by piece as I slam on the brakes and shut off the engine.
I don’t really clock the absence of any of my father’s men or guards. But I do notice the kitchen door is cracked open. When I kick it in the rest of the way with my foot, everything freezes.
I instantly know she’s dead. Her eyes are open, but there’s no life there—her head hanging limply to one side as my father shakes her. He stops, turning to me with whiskey on his breath and madness in his eyes, seeing me standing there cold and still in the doorway.
“What did you do?”
He sneers at me. “Don’t look at me and pretend to feel a fucking thing, Cillian,” he snarls. “Don’t fucking lie to me and pretend you’re normal. Or a human with a soul. We both know you’re not.”
“What. Did. You. DO.”
He chuckles darkly, glaring at my mother before letting her drop, her head hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
“She wanted to leave me. Can you fuckin’ imagine? After all I’ve given her.”
This stops. Now.
This madness is fucking OVER.
My father turns back to me, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t you fucking look at me like that, you little monster.”
I step into the kitchen and shut the door behind me. Suddenly, everything’s still and quiet.
“What are you going to do about it, you little freak?”
I ignore him, walking over to the kitchen counter.
“The fuck do you think you’re going?”
I’m utterly calm as my hand closes around the handle of one of the big carving knives in the wooden block, just as his meaty hand lands on my shoulder.
“Don’t you fucking ignore me, you little bastar—”
I whirl and push the knife slowly into his stomach.
His eyes bulge.
“Why—?”
“For Saoirse.”
That’s not when he dies, though. Oh no.
I make him wait for that, until the next morning.
I stare at Una, something raw thudding in my head. Something wrong crawling over my skin.
That was her first. Fucking. Time.
She can try and lie through her teeth about it all she wants, but it’s written all over her face as she yanks up the covers to hide her nakedness.
“Cillian—”
“That night at the club…” my eyes narrow. “That was your first time?”
Her eyes drop, her arms hugging herself. And I feel something I rarely, rarely ever feel.
Remorse.
Regret.
Because for all my darkness, and all my sadistic tendencies…I never would have touched her, least of all like that, had I known.
My sister’s first time was also with a monster who wasn’t gentle.
And you went right ahead and continued the goddamn cycle.
I grit my teeth, my pulse pounding heavily in my ears as I try and swallow back the feeling of complete self-loathing that I never, ever feel.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I storm over to my closet, pulling on briefs and black jeans before I hear footsteps. When I turn back, Una’s standing in the doorway to the walk-in closet wrapped in the quilt, eyes locked with mine.
“Please…”
“That was your first fucking time?!” I spit.
The pleading look on her face drops in the wake of my anger.
“Excuse me?”
“Was it, or wasn’t it?”
Her lips purse. “The fuck does it matter to you?”
“Because it does,” I snap.
She swallows, looking away. “Fine. Yes. It was. But so fucking what?”
“Christ.” I push past her, storming back into the bedroom.
“What? Would you of all people have been gentle or sweet about it?” she sneers, her voice laced with sarcasm.
“I wouldn’t have fucking touched you at all.”
“You do realize I’m able to make my own goddamn choices, right?!” she hurls at my back.
I hiss, spinning to her. “But that wasn’t your choice, was it!? That was you working for whoever was—”
“That was me, an adult, making my own choice to—”
“Who. Is. He,” I snarl.
Fuck this noise. We’ve danced around the question, I’ve given her plenty of time and space to just fucking tell me herself. Now, I’m done playing games. Una gasps as I surge toward her, grabbing a handful of the covers as I leer down into her face.
“No more lies,” I hiss. “No more dodging the question. Who the fuck was pulling your strings, because I know damn well someone was.”
She shivers.
“Una,” I growl quietly. “Tell me.”
”I…” She looks down. “I don’t know.”
When I growl again, louder, her eyes raise to mine.
“I honestly don’t know,” she chokes with utter sincerity before her shoulders slowly slump. “We never met face to face. He used a voice changer thing whenever he called.”
My jaw loosens a little, my eyes softening when I see a tear in the corner of her eye. I reach up, using my thumb to brush it aside.
“I just know his name is Apostle, and that he was one of my father’s…I don’t know… Fans? Followers?”
My pulse thuds.
Apostle.
Fuck me. I heard that name once, and then I completely forgot about it as I got swept up into her.
Apostle. The buyer Aaron Armstrong, the arms dealer, told me about, right before I killed him.
Another tear trickles down Una’s cheek, and then a third. And before I know what I’m doing, I’m pulling her into me and hugging her tightly as I kiss the top of her head.
This isn’t like me. This…humanity. This normalcy. I could say it’s my darkness meeting its match in her. But, black plus black equals a darker, deeper black.
Not… Whatever this is.
“There’s nothing else?”
She shakes her head, clinging to me.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my chest.
“For what?”
I lift her chin as her eyes find mine.
“I…should have told you.”
“Then I wouldn’t have taken you to that room, and you wouldn’t have done what you needed to do, and none of the rest of this would have happened.”
She smiles a wry, thin smile.
“Get dressed,” I murmur. “Then come with me.”