Crystal
I had revenge all wrong. I didn’t need to dig two graves. I didn’t even need to dig one. They had already dug them both.
A week later, Royal is home. The bruises have faded, and as far as broken bones go, he only had a few fractured ribs, which have to heal themselves over time. He had a concussion, too, but I know that’s not the worst thing that happened to him. He’s talked to the police and my brothers, but he hasn’t talked to me about the week he was gone, and I haven’t pressed. I don’t want to make him relive that.
The day before I go back to school—Dad had me excused for the week, though my other brothers wanted to go back after a few days when they got bored of sitting around watching Royal sleep—I wander into the living room to find my twin staring off while the TV plays some NFL pregame show that would have once kept him glued to the screen.
I drop onto the arm of his recliner. “What’s up?”
“When were you going to tell me?” Royal asks, staring out the window at the grey November afternoon.
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to play dumb, to ask, “Tell you what?” like I don’t know.
I was going to tell him when he was all better, when things were back to normal. But I’m beginning to realize that will never happen. Our bruises have faded, but we’ve all been changed by this experience, this place. There’s no going back. Every time I look at my brother, quietly fuming or staring off into space with a vacant expression, I know this is only the beginning of his healing. Like the broken ribs, which will continue hurting while he bears no outward marks, no bandages or bulky casts like Preston’s, the greater damage is what cannot be seen.
“I was going to tell you,” I say quietly, pressing my palms against my thighs to steady myself. I don’t know what he’s heard. We’ve both kept a low profile, not going online too much or posting anything about his recovery. But he must have seen something in his limited glances at social media.
“Is it still going on?” he asks.
“No,” I say. I take a deep breath and say it again, forcing myself to accept the truth of it. “No. Nothing’s going on.”
I haven’t seen Devlin all week. I halfway expected him to crawl through my window, but he hasn’t contacted me. I haven’t heard him outside at night, either.
“Does he know that?” Royal asks.
“I blocked his number, so yeah, I think he knows.” My chest tightens painfully at the reminder of what I did. But it was what I had to do. He chose his family. I have to choose mine. It was ridiculous to believe we could ever be free of these bonds, of our names. There is no way off the gameboard until the players are done with us. For so long, I thought the Darling cousins were the players, the ones in control. But we’re all the pawns of our parents.
“He posted bail,” Royal says. “He and his dad should be on their way home.”
“He hadn’t posted bail?” I ask, my heart lurching into my throat.
Royal scowls at me. “No. Why?”
Part of me wants to lie, to keep one thing for myself, even if it’s just a few text messages from a boy I can never allow myself to love. But nothing in this world is mine alone. Everything I do and say and see and wear… It all affects my whole family.
“He texted me a few times the first day,” I admit.
“He’s probably buddies with everyone down at the station,” Royal says bitterly.
That means he probably hasn’t had his phone while he’s been staying in country jail, or wherever he’s been until now. I guess they have rules there, even for the Darlings.
Royal turns to the window again. That’s when I know he’s not gazing off into nothingness. He might be lost in his own thoughts, ones I’ll never be able to understand or share, but he’s here for a reason. He’s waiting. Waiting for Devlin and his dad to come home. Waiting to face the people who claimed responsibility for his imprisonment.
King and the twins appear in the doorway a minute later. Duke comes bounding in and leaps over the back of the couch, landing on his back on the leather before bouncing upright. “You ready for this, sis?”
I swallow hard. “I guess I have to be.”
“It’s showtime, baby,” Duke says. “Payback starts now.”
“You guys know it wasn’t Devlin or his dad who did this,” I say.
“Does it matter?” Royal asks, swinging around toward me, his eyes full of accusation and hurt.
“Well…” I cross my arms tightly across my middle, trying to fill the sick, empty feeling building there.
“It doesn’t matter,” King says, coming to stand behind our chair and laying one hand on my shoulder and one on Royal’s. “You did your job, Crys, and you did it well. You should be proud. Now it’s time to finish it.”
“It doesn’t matter which ones did it,” Royal says, his eyes intent on me. “Their family did it. They did all of it. If it weren’t for Devlin choosing us as targets, his family wouldn’t have come after me.”