Chapter Twenty-One
Aiden
This is usually my favorite part of every day: the night, the time when darkness has fully descended, and no one is out in our quiet neighborhood except for me. I sit across the street from our house in a little green area. There are a few stray trees and the grass, but I sit on the sidewalk, watching our house.
I want to keep my family safe, but I also know I’m not welcome there. This place has my room, my bed, and my memories, but it isn’t my home, not the way it is for Reid. He has love in that house. He has two parents who adore him.
But me? I just have a deep sense of…loneliness.
In my mom’s eyes, I can see how hard she’s working not to hate me, to not blame me for my sister’s death, but it doesn’t change the fact that she does. And now…now I know the truth. Layla isn’t dead. I didn’t kill her.
Emotions roll through me like a spiked ball of pain. My sister is alive, but she’s a vampire. That night I wasn’t speeding, not of my own freewill. And yet, none of that changes the last few years of my life.
Nothing can.
I pick up the sounds of quiet steps, and my head jerks up. Layla emerges from around the side of the house. My mother had decided to take the night off of work to spend with us. She, my father, Reid, and Izzy had spent the evening playing board games and laughing.
I’d tried. I’d tried so fucking hard. Harder than I’ve ever tried in my life to feel like I belonged there too, but I knew I made my parents uncomfortable. Every time I spoke, the laughter and conversation died.
When everyone finally turned into bed, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or tear the house down piece by piece. Instead, I’d gone outside to patrol. I’d ignore my sister’s glaring vampire boyfriend. I’d avoided my sister’s confused gaze.
I had enough to deal with without explaining everything to them. But now, as my sister heads toward me, I feel…tired. I don’t want to just keep pretending that nothing matters because she’s alive. The past does matter, because the past is still affecting my life now.
Layla crosses the street and gives me a hesitant smile. “Can I sit with you?”
I shrug.
After realizing I wouldn’t be saying more, she slowly sits down next to me.
For a minute, an uncomfortable silence stretches between us, and then she stretches her legs out and releases a deep breath. “What happened, Aiden?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, and even I can hear the defensiveness in my voice.
“I…I watched you guys together from the backyard.”
Shame burns in my stomach, even though it shouldn’t.
Slowly she continues talking. “That’s not how I remember our family. You seemed…on the outskirts.”
“What do you expect?” I finally say, and I sound angry. “They think I killed you. And they’ve never forgiven me for it.”
She reaches out and puts her hand on my knee. I jerk away. I don’t want her touching me. Not right now.
“There has to be a way to fix this,” she finally whispers.
“Not everything broken can be fixed,” I say, bitterness lacing each word. “Your death broke this family and me in so many pieces that no one will ever be able to put them back together.”
I’m surprised when she brushes a tear from her face. “I’m really sorry--”
“Don’t.”
I don’t want her to say more. The last thing I need right now is to feel bad for her even more than I do. Because that’s the other problem. In the back of my mind I know she’s a victim in all of this too. She didn’t ask to be turned into a vampire. She didn’t ask to give up everything in her life.
But it’s easier to be mad at her right now. At least until I find the vampires who did this and kill them. Is that what it will take to finally heal? I swallow down the bile that rises in the back of my throat. If revenge can’t fill this gnawing hole inside of me, nothing will.
“There’s a way I might be able to help.”
Finally, my gaze slides to her. “Layla--”
“Vampires have certain…abilities.”
“I’ve seen,” I tell her coldly.
She rises beside me in a quick movement. “Come on.”
When she starts to walk across the street, head held high, there’s a strange moment where all this feels familiar. Where I swear I can remember her reminding me to look both ways before crossing the street. But just as quickly as the warming memory awakens in my mind, it fades away, leaving behind a broken god and a memory of the sister I lost.
Rising, I follow her, the cold breeze stinging my face. And, I’m sure, the wind is the reason for the way my eyes sting too.
When we reach our house, she leaps up onto the wall dividing our house from the neighbors’. I follow her, surprising myself with how easily I can do such a thing now. She moves beneath our parents’ balcony, and soundlessly leaps onto it.
Frowning, I leap onto the balcony next to her.
She moves through the open glass doors, but I linger behind the white curtains as they blow. Somehow, I feel like a trespasser here in a way she doesn’t.
My sister stops at the foot of my parents’ bed. I see the agony in her face as she stares down at them, and it tears at the agony within myself. For one minute, I imagine she and I in the center of a storm, watching our lives being destroyed around us, and being unable to do anything to stop it.
Layla brushes tears from her face, then wipes them from her eyes. Her shoulders draw back, and I hold my breath, but I’m waiting for...I don’t know what. Those eyes of hers, so like Reid’s, suddenly change, the red ring around her irises growing brighter.
“Mom, dad?” Her soft voice drifts around the room like a mist.
I feel my mind soften. That’s the only way I can describe it. Like being in a dream that’s far too close to reality.
“Mom? Dad?” she asks again.
I see my mom stir first, and then beside her my dad awakens. They open their groggy eyes until their gazes land on Layla. Then, both of them sit up slowly and stare at her, looking confused.
“Layla?” my mom says.
“This is a dream,” Layla whispers.
“Because you’re dead,” my mom tells her, but the words hold untold pain.
Layla nods. “And yet, my soul can’t rest.”
“Why not?” my dad asks, and he sounds upset.
“Because you don’t know the truth of what happened that night.”
“Yes, I do.” My mom sounds angry. “Aiden killed you. That fucked-up kid, he ruined us all...”
I flinch at every word that leaves her mouth, and that dreamy feeling pushes away. This is all real. This is me hiding on my parents’ balcony as my vampire sister uses her powers against my parents.
And even in this state, my mom hates me.
“No,” Layla says, and she sounds like she’s trying to hold back tears. “The car had mechanical issues. Aiden tried to save my life. He did everything in his power, but the car kept accelerating, and then the car sent us into the tree. None of this was Aiden’s fault.”
“No…” my mom begins.
Layla moves closer to her, then sits beside her on the bed. Her red-ringed eyes swirl. “That’s what happened, Mom, and I can’t rest until you know that deep in your heart. The anger you’ve placed on Aiden is misplaced. All you’ve managed to do is lose two kids that night. But it isn’t too late.”