“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” I demand, my voice edged with hysteria. “King is fucking shot! Go to the hospital!”
“I’m going to have to get used to this in my new line of work,” King says. “Drop the last ones off and let’s go home. I wouldn’t mind lying down.”
“You guys are crazy,” I yell. “You’re all fucking crazy. What is wrong with this family?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me,” Duke says, spitting blood out the window. “I’m missing half a tooth. I can’t believe that asshole pistol-whipped me!”
“Oh my god,” I say, lying my head back on the seat and closing my eyes. I can’t deal with this. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been through too many emotions tonight, the shock and horror of what they were doing, learning the truth about Royal’s kidnapping, and now this insanity. I just… I’m going to lose it if I have to listen to this insanity much longer. They’re like Dad. Nothing will be enough until every Darling house is burned to the ground, until every Darling is nothing but ash.
One house left, I tell myself. That’s my only consolation. One more.
Then I can go home and figure out what to do. I have to get out of here. Somehow, I have to get out of the mental asylum that is my family. If I don’t, I’m going to go as crazy as all of them. I can already feel it bubbling beneath the surface, the urge to break into hysterical laughter and never stop.
Ten minutes later, Royal swears under his breath, and the car slows. I lift my head to see a narrow, one-lane wooden bridge in front of us. A white wooden frame covers the bridge, although it’s not enclosed or roofed. Below the bridge, a gushing brown river of water churns past, and around it, darkness and shadowy woods without a house in sight. On the far end of the bridge, two cars sit blocking the road, their front ends angled together, their headlights bathing the bridge in light and glaring into our faces, blinding us to anything but streaks of driving rain.
“Hit ‘em,” Duke says.
“I don’t think I can get enough speed going across the bridge to knock them out of the way,” Royal says. The bridge looks sketchy as fuck, with wide boards forming a path for each tire on top of the regular wooden slats that form the floor of the bridge. What kind of bridge is made of wood?
“If they’re waiting for us, they’re probably armed,” I say, reaching forward to grip my twin’s shoulder. “Can we just go home? Please. You’ve more than made your point. I don’t want to die tonight, and I’m not planning to bury a brother, either. King can’t even fight.”
“Bullshit,” King growls. “Give me the gun. They can try to come at me.”
“The gun?” I ask incredulously. “Since when do you fight with guns?”
Royal’s always fought, but he does the underground, bare-knuckle kind of fighting. I was horrified when he said the guys who took him had guns. Yes, my parents have a pistol for protection, but I’ve never touched a gun in my life. We’re rich people from New York. We have security at the front door for a reason.
“I got it off the guy who shot King,” Royal says. “Would you rather I’d left it on him?”
“Can we just go home? Please?”
“I bet it’s Devlin,” Royal grumbles, gripping the wheel tighter. “I bet it’s him and his asshole cousins. If they’re looking for a fight, we brought it.”
“No, no, no,” I say as Royal shifts into gear and revs the engine.
Duke grabs me before I can do something stupid like lunge over the console and try to wrestle control from Royal. My breath catches in my throat as Royal’s foot hits the gas.
“What if it’s a trap?” I gasp out. “What if the bridge collapses under us?”
“There’s only one road here,” Baron says with complete confidence. “They had to drive across already.”
The Range Rover lumbers onto the rickety wood, and all I can do is grip the seat and try not to hyperventilate as nightmare images flash through my mind. It’s been raining all month, and though the river below is probably small during most of the year, it’s swollen and rushing now. If we go in, we’re not getting out.
I’m not going to die this way. I’m done with this mess, with the whole fucked up feud, with the violence and the crazy. I open my mouth, take a deep breath, and make my voice heard. “Let me out,” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Let me out of the fucking car right now!”
For a second, a shocked silence fills the car, leaving a vacuum in the space my huge voice just filled. My brothers aren’t used to me yelling. Demanding.
And then Royal presses harder on the gas, and Duke holds me tighter. There’s no way out.
Is this how it ends? Trapped in a fucking car with my insane brothers because they can’t let go of Dad’s ambition to win, to be the best, any more than he can. I’m so sick of it I could scream. I didn’t want any part of it, from the moment we stepped through the doors of Willow Heights. But I fought for it just as they did, for them, the same way they fight Dad’s battles for him. But I’m done. I’m so fucking done. I’m not going to die this way.
I’m done putting my family first. I’m done being an obedient little puppet for my father, done being smothered by my brothers. I’m done putting their needs and wants and petty fights before my own safety, my own life. They’re not keeping me safe. They’re dragging me down with them. And this time, I choose me.
twenty-six
Crystal
Duke whoops as I feel the drop, and my stomach lurches into my throat in the split second before our tires hit smooth, solid asphalt. But it’s enough.