by James Tate
Jasper snorted. “We are home, babe. We now own this entire building.”
Okay then. “You moved fast on that,” I said, surprised.
He shrugged. “I mean, not everyone is out yet, but all of your floor is vacant, and the rest should be out in the next few days.”
Two days ago that would have pissed me off so bad, especially since they’d emptied the entire building. But now … now I was happy and excited. This was the best of both worlds. I got my independence from Catherine, the evil bitch, and still had the protection of my very well trained friends around me.
“Well, then,” I said, jumping out onto the sidewalk. “Better pick out your apartments.”
22
If I ever ended up back in my poor neighborhood, I would probably be astonished when it took people thirty days to buy a place and two days to move in. By the time we left for school on Monday, all four of the guys had an apartment on the same floor as me. Fully decked out with sweet as fuck furniture, and looking like they’d lived there for years, rather than hours.
“There are some parts of this world I could get used to,” I said as Beck drove me to school. “The money definitely opens a lot of doors for you.”
It felt weird to be alone with Beck, even though I’d seen him quite a bit yesterday helping to move furniture and picking out the thick quilt and cover for his room. He’d even managed to set a room up with guitars. I was pretty sure they were all new, his originals back in his mansion, but I loved that an important part of who Beck was, got to come along to this new place. I’d tried my best to forget that song he sang when he thought I was asleep, but there were nights, when I closed my eyes, that the music would be in my head. His beautiful voice. Destroying me note by note.
“I’ve always had money, and I’d definitely struggle without its power, but at the same time, it’s fucking soul destroying. People kill their families for it. They lie and steal and hurt, and maybe it’s never that I’ve had that desperation, but part of me wishes that all of the money would just disappear.”
I hesitated to ask the question, one which had been hovering in my mind for days now. “Do you think we could visit my brother’s grave?”
Beck was silent, his hands tense on the steering wheel, and for a moment, I thought he was going to just completely ignore me.
“Yeah, it’s been too long for me as well,” he finally said, pulling into the school. “We can go this afternoon.”
I nodded, relieved that he hadn’t bitten my head off. Oscar was a touchy subject for all of them, and I really knew fuck all about my brother. Part of me wondered if I was just a morbid freak, because his death was often on my mind. It felt like there were pieces missing. Not just for me either, because the police had never figured out whether it was murder or suicide.
Maybe when we were at the grave, Beck would be more willing to talk.
The others joined us in the parking lot, and the five of us walked in together. A united front. Game faces on.
Katelyn was center stage, holding court with her minions. All of them watched as we walked past, and for the first time, I didn’t bother to hide my hatred for her. I met her gaze with one of my own, a slight smirk on my lips.
Her smug expression faltered, and as her gaze ran across the five of us, the way we walked so close together. In sync again. I saw the red tinge her cheeks as her eyes blazed. She was not happy about that, and it made me happy to know that we’d ruined her morning.
“Claws in, pussy”—Jasper paused, and I rolled my eyes at him—“cat,” he finished. “That bitch will get what’s coming to her, don’t you worry.”
I turned so I could see him better. “What does that mean? What do you have planned?”
Beck shook his head then, reaching out and threading his fingers through mine. “Not at school, Butterfly.”
Fair enough, but I wasn’t letting them get away with any more deceptive behavior. If there was shit going down, I wanted in on it.
* * *
Class passed uneventfully. Evan was my escort for the day, and with his help during study period, I even managed to catch up on some of the school work I’d been missing. When the bell was about to ring, my phone buzzed.
Eddy: Hey, girl. Is everything okay? Haven’t seen you for a few days. Jasper moved out?!?
Me: We definitely need to catch up soon. Jasper moved into my building. You should see about getting an apartment there too. Or you can share with me.
I almost deleted the last part, but then I realized that if I was forgiving the guys, I sure as fuck was forgiving Eddy. She hadn’t even done anything. And I was worried about her living in that place with her toxic parents and no Jasper to keep an eye on things.
Eddy: Fuck yes. Okay, I’m asking now. If Jasper is there, they really shouldn’t say no.
There was a brief pause and I got another text.
Eddy: And btw, there is a party this Friday that you’re going to. Don’t argue with me. It’s been too long since we let loose.
I really hadn’t been in the mood to party since everything went to shit in my life, but maybe it was a good idea. I could use a night to let off steam, and watching a peep show of some skeezebag politician didn’t count. Even though I definitely had let off some tension that night.
Me: Let’s do it.
I could already picture Eddy squealing when she got that text. I then shot one off to Dante telling him about the party on Friday. Not only was it my birthday, but he had a thing for Eddy, so he’d no doubt be there. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about their “thing”, because I was trying my best to keep Dante out of Delta bullshit, but I also knew he’d treat Eddy right, and that was important to me.
After class, Evan and I were met in the parking lot by the other three guys.
“Everything okay?” I asked, looking between them.
Jasper nodded. “Beck told us that you’re wanting to visit Oscar’s grave, and we figured that it was time for all of us to have a moment with him.”
My hands were clammy, my heart doing weird palpitations at the thought of visiting Oscar’s grave. “I just … he was my brother,” I said softly. “It feels like I should at least meet him.”
Evan coughed and rubbed a hand over his face, like he was desperate to hide his emotions. Stepping forward, I wrapped my hand around his and pulled him along to Jasper’s SUV. It felt important that all of us went together.
The drive to the cemetery was silent; I was still nervous as fuck about this moment.
Jefferson cemetery was on the opposite side of town to the Delta compound, and it was really pretty. As a place to bury dead bodies went. White iron gates, that were propped open, trellises of roses that splashed reds and pinks across the green foliage, and so much land that it disappeared into the horizon.
“This has been Jefferson’s sole cemetery for a long time,” Dylan said quietly, all of us paused at the front gate like we were afraid to take the final steps through. “We all have a lot of family buried here.”
“But Oscar and Nat are the most important,” Jasper cut in.
I paused. “Who’s Nat?”
Silence. No one said a word, and I found myself looking at Beck. His jaw was doing that rigid thing, his eyes were doing the stormy thing, and my heart was galloping a million miles an hour, because I had this feeling this was Beck’s great loss.
“Nat was my sister,” Dylan told me, and I blinked, because I had not expected that. “Remember how I said my father had an affair with the nanny?”
I nodded.
He let out a derisive chuckle. “Well, we needed a nanny because I was not his first child. Nat was nine months older than me, and she was the legitimate heir. Even though they would never quite acknowledge that … the old ‘needs a penis to sit on the Delta board’ tradition was even stronger back then.”
I gasped, not quite sure how to take this new information. I could feel his pain though—Beck’s too—and I waited patiently for more of the story.
“
She was a perfect child,” Dylan continued. “White skin, like he preferred, blonde curls, and huge blue eyes that could get her anything she wanted.”
A single tear traced along Dylan’s cheek, and my heart ached like someone was actually squeezing it. “She was run over in our driveway,” he finished suddenly. “When she was ten, and I was nine. One minute there and the next gone.”
“She was not cut out for this world,” Beck said softly. “We should have done a better job protecting her.”
I tried to clear my throat. “That’s why you were such an asshole to me when I first arrived?”
Beck nodded. “Yeah, I loved Nat like a little sister, and when she was killed…”
I swallowed my tears. “I’m so sorry,” I said, stepping forward to wrap one arm around Beck and the other around Dylan. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Dylan dropped his head, burying it in my neck, and I could have sworn more tears fell. “It was my fault,” he whispered. “Her mother was trying to run me down and Nat jumped in the way. She got hit instead.”
I gasped, jerking my head back so I could see his face.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Yes. I’m the reason my sister is dead. She was the only one to give a fuck about me, and it got her killed.”
I was just staring at him, my eyes wide, my breath ragged. “What in the fuck…?”
How could this be their lives? How could there be so much loss and pain and destruction in the twenty plus years they’d been alive.
“That was not your fault, Dylan,” I said seriously, reaching up to hold his face so he couldn’t turn away. “I never want to hear you say that again.”
His expression shuttered, but he didn’t argue with me.
Looking between the four of them, I’d never felt so happy that I’d moved out of the compound and forced the four of them to follow me. Their families were all toxic and deadly. Each of them more insane than the last.
“We should get inside,” Evan said quietly, and we all moved to follow him.
The guys stopped at Nat’s grave first, which was part of her family plot. The guys explained that all five Delta families had their own huge plots, with mausoleum looking structures and multiple large tombstones. Even in death they wanted to stand out and splash their money around.
Beck and Dylan crouched down on either side of her white marble grave topper, and placed their hands on top of it. They didn’t bring flowers, or anything else, and I knew that wasn’t their style. They were just here to remember her.
“Hey, big sis,” Dylan said, voice somber. “Sorry I haven’t been back for a while.”
He cleared his throat before falling silent. His head lowered, and I ached to hug him. I’d stayed back with Evan and Jasper, who clearly had not been as close as Dylan and Beck were to her, and it was so hard not to step forward and offer them comfort.
Beck didn’t say anything out loud, but he lowered his head as well, and I noted the white knuckles on his right hand that was gripping the side of the stone.
“Rest easy, little one,” he murmured, right before he stood.
Part of me hated that they’d had a female as part of their group before me. Eddy had told me there was never a female in Delta, and I realized she hadn’t quite lied, because she’d meant that the adult heirs of Delta, the five of them with Oscar, had never allowed a woman into their inner sanctum. But there had been a female they cared about. Another sister. One who was clearly closer to them than Eddy and Evan’s sister must have been.
Nat.
Staring down at her grave, I had a strange sense of foreboding, which I pushed down as hard as I could. Worrying about my possible death because of this fucked up world was just a normal part of my daily anxiety these days, but now wasn’t the time.
“Let’s go to Oscar,” Dylan said, and I was grateful for the distraction.
I nodded and then followed them as they wove us through the Grant section of the cemetery, past Langham, and then it was Deboise. There were a dozen or more fancy graves already in this area—Oscar’s was right near the end of the taken plots.
The five of us stood at the base of his marble grave—it was black, with flecks of gold and white inlay. There was a fancy statue at the head, carved like four angels, harps in hand. His name was huge and the dates of his life carved beneath. There was a single phrase across it: Rest easy, for your work here is done.
Suddenly my throat was tight, my eyes burning, and I had to press a hand to my mouth to stop a sob from escaping. I’d had a brother. A real, blood brother, who might have been a part of my family, if I’d ever been given the chance to know him.
“Oscar was the funny one,” Beck said, breaking the silence. “Always making a joke. We learned to never leave him alone in our rooms or houses, because there would be some bullshit prank waiting for us when we least expected it.”
“He was such a fucker,” Jasper said with a choked laugh. “I still remember the time he dyed my dog purple. I swear he gave her fleas just so I would have to use the powder.”
Their laughter died off, but the silence didn’t feel quite as heavy this time.
“Tell me more about him,” I said, managing not to sob.
“He was shorter than you,” Evan chimed in. “Shortest of us all, which he hated, but he liked to say he had the biggest guns.”
“Not fucking likely,” Beck cut in.
I chuckled, because it was hard to imagine anyone having larger arms than Beck and Dylan.
“He was up for absolutely anything,” Dylan added, and the mood was somber again. “It didn’t matter if you phoned him at three in the morning, Oscar was always the perfect wingman. He would never let you down.”
“Never,” Evan whispered. “He was the one who introduced me to anime, so it makes perfect sense that his sister would share the same love.”
The tears couldn’t be stopped any longer, and I decided just to let them fall. I might not have “known” Oscar, but through these four, I felt the connection.
“He was our best friend,” Jasper added. “And the fact that I still don’t know what happened to him, kills me every fucking day.”
The silence pressed onto me, questions hovering on the tip of my tongue. “Do you think he killed himself?” I finally asked, my voice a breathless quiver of sound in the still air. “Is that possible? We know there’s no other way out of Delta.”
I waited for their anger, because it felt disrespectful to suggest such a thing when they all had such fond memories of him. But I knew that suicide, depression, grief … it didn’t just happen to poor, lonely, sad people. It happened to people from all walks of life.
It happened to anyone and everyone without prejudice.
“Oscar had times when he was introverted,” Dylan said, kneeling down then, pressing his hand to Oscar’s grave, as he had done with his sister. “Where he would retreat from us, go into his own head, and be aloof for a few days. We always just knew that was his way, and we’d let him go. Giving him the time and space he needed.”
“And he always came back,” Beck added, voice growly. “Always. Until we got that call.”
“So you think he did kill himself?” I pushed, needing to clarify it.
“Not a chance,” Beck bit back, crouching down next to Dylan. “Oscar was murdered. I’m certain of it, and I’m equally as certain that it was someone in Delta that did it.”
23
I couldn’t get anything else out of them about Oscar’s death, so I instead spent the rest of my time there, silently talking to my brother. It was much more painful than I’d expected, and by the time we left, I was emotionally spent.
The five of us ate dinner together in my apartment, because it seemed to be the central gathering point, and then I crawled into bed, only to be joined by Beck ten minutes later.
He held me close, and even though we didn’t talk, there was some more healing happening between us. I ended up sleeping soundly for most of the night, and it
was only when I woke that I realized how long it had been since I had a nightmare.
The next day at school passed quickly, and just as I was wandering across the parking lot with Evan, Eddy sprinted out of the school and pretty much tackled me into the grass next to the front stairs.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Edith,” Evan cursed, peeling her off me so I could stand up again. “Riles still has bruises and shit, ease up you psycho.”
Eddy rolled her eyes at him, like he was another annoying brother, and plucked some grass off my plaid skirt. “Sorry, girl. I was just so freaking excited!” She demonstrated this by bouncing up and down a little with a grin so wide it showed almost all her teeth. “I’m moving in!”
My jaw dropped. “What? Holy shit! That was quick!” I’d only mentioned it to her the day before.
Eddy beamed. “I know! I really didn’t think they’d say yes but with Jasper already living there, they didn’t have much to say. But also, like, they don’t care that much about me.” She shrugged, as though that fact didn’t bother her. “I mean, I have to live in his apartment. But at least we’re on the same floor, right?”
“Good enough!” I agreed, returning her hug on impulse. I wasn’t a big hugger ... like, at all. But it was hard not to get caught up in Eddy’s excitement.
“What did I miss?” Jasper called out, jogging up to us and grinning. “Why are we all hugging? I’ll take one if they’re going free.” He snatched me out of Eddy’s embrace and snuggled me tight, making me laugh.
Evan answered for us. “Eddy’s moving into your apartment,” he informed Jasper. “Didn’t you know?”
Jasper froze, but didn’t release me. Not that I minded, Jasper gave great hugs and these days I found I was craving that caring human contact more than ever before. Maybe it was having to live without them for so long. Having to hold onto that anger which ate away at my insides.
That shit was so behind me.
“Eddy’s doing fucking what now?” he demanded, turning what-the-fuck eyes on his sister.
