What My Sister Knew

by Nina Laurin

  “You’re fucking insane.” My lips form the words but only a whisper comes out. “Eli, I’m your sister.”

  “As if that ever meant anything to me.”

  I struggle to get myself back under control. Blood fills my left eye, blinding it. I blink and blink, my vision tinted red.

  “Then why didn’t you just tell everyone back then? That it was me?”

  “Would they have believed me?” He’s raising his voice—maybe because the gunshot deafened him too. “I should have just let you burn too. Would have gone to prison anyway.”

  Finally, I dare raise my hand and wipe the blood out of my eye. I feel little bits of glass embedded in my skin like shrapnel. Don’t panic, don’t panic. It’s what he wants.

  “So why didn’t you?” I ask.

  He points the gun at my head now. His hand is trembling.

  “But you did pull me out. And you kept my secret all these years. When you had nothing to lose. Was it all just so you could pull my strings for the rest of my life? Was that worth throwing your whole life away?”

  He says nothing for a few moments.

  “Go into the living room.” The gun points at the dead center of my forehead.

  “What—is this the contingency plan?”

  “I don’t care at this point,” he snaps. “Go.”

  And I understand, from the way his voice wavers just for a split second, that he’s desperate. The best I can do, to keep him from killing me, is to make him think he’s still in control, that he still has a way out.

  I hold up my hands. “You do care. You won’t be able to get away with it if you shoot me. That was the idea, right? To frame me for Lamb’s murder. It won’t work if you shoot me in the head.”

  “I don’t think it matters anymore,” he says.

  “Eli—”

  “You were supposed to murder Lamb to keep your secret, then set the house on fire and die inside. But now I’ve changed my mind. We’re both going to die.”

  I don’t move a muscle. Just stand there, perfectly still, and look at him. “We don’t have to die.”

  “I’m not going back to prison. I’d rather burn alive.”

  “Nobody is going to burn alive. Do you want me to confess to everything?” Stall, keep talking. “To the fire, to the murders? Sunny? Adele?”

  I see a flicker of something pass through his empty gaze.

  “Was it hard for you to kill her? Did you love her, in your own way?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he says.

  “She must have loved you too. She killed for you. You murdered a girl you loved just to screw with me—that’s something.”

  He looks at me intently. The gun trembles and then lowers to point at my midsection. If he were to fire now, I wouldn’t die on the spot—I’d probably bleed out from a gut wound.

  “I can’t take that off your conscience but I can take the blame for it. You were right. It’s my turn to go to prison for you this time.” I smile. Just let me have the strength to keep smiling, to keep being his sister. “That’s what you want, right?”

  He doesn’t answer but the gun lowers just a tiny bit more.

  “I’m so sorry she had to die,” I say in my best social-worker voice. “I know you loved her very much.”

  To my surprise, he laughs. The sound is like claws on glass, so sudden and jarring that I reel back. The gun jumps back to my face level.

  “You’re so fucking dumb,” he says. “You know why I killed her? I was ahead of schedule, actually. I had meant to do it on the anniversary of the day you killed our parents, as a special touch. But she threatened to tell about Collins, the prosecutor. I was pissed off so I snapped and killed her two weeks early.”

  I back away until I hit the wall. There’s nowhere else to go.

  “None of them mean anything to you,” I whisper. “Just means to an end.”

  Eli shrugs.

  “Well? Do you still want to take the fall for me?” He grins. “Didn’t think so. Now be a good girl, Addie. Go to the living room. Face death with some dignity. After all, you won’t be alone! It’ll be the two of us, just like old times.”

  He’s completely lost it. He’s insane. And I don’t have many options if I want a shot at leaving this house alive.

  I hold up my hands and take a step toward him, then another. And then, just as he thinks I’m doing what I’m told, I charge at him with all the speed and energy I can muster.

  The gun goes off.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  I roll on the floor, no idea whether I got shot or whether I managed to knock the gun out of his hand. I come to a halt when I hit a piece of furniture. The impact sends a jolt of sharp pain through my ribs but the pain brings me back into my body. Other than my shoulder aching from landing on the floor, I’m unharmed.

  Fighting the dizziness that grips my head, I get on my hands and knees, and then on one knee. My brother is getting up slowly. I can see his hands but I can’t see the gun. He feels around for it and, not finding it, jumps back on his feet.

  Stumbling, my legs like cotton, I run from the room. He follows close behind.

  “Come back, Addie,” he calls out. “Don’t waste your time. You’re only making this more difficult than it has to be.”

  I need to call for help. And I’m betting there isn’t a landline—or if there is, my brother has disabled it. My phone! I feel around my pockets but there’s nothing. Then I remember. I left it back in the office.

  I can’t get to the front door without passing through the living room again but there must be a fire exit. Or a window I can break.

  A second-story drop doesn’t sound too bad compared to being burned alive.

  I race up the stairs and find myself in front of a long hallway lined with doors. I make my choice without thinking. I dart into the room, slam the door shut behind me, and—oh, thank God—there’s a latch that I turn without wasting a single second.

  The room is a guest room, or maybe a child’s room that’s been repurposed as a guest room some time ago. Everything is covered in dust. My every step raises small clouds of it that make my nose itch. I make a beeline for the window and start tugging on the window frame but it turns out the windows are as poorly maintained as the façade. The lock on the old latticed frame has rusted shut, and all my efforts can’t budge it. I sink my nails under it, trying to loosen it, but one of my fingernails snaps off, sending such a jolt of pain through my arm that I lose my balance. I slip off the windowsill and land flat on my back with a gasp.

  Behind the door, I hear steps. Slow steps, unhurried. I freeze; the only sound is my own ragged breathing and the beating of my heart in my ears.

  The steps approach, followed by another sound I have a hard time identifying. Sloshing, like liquid.

  The door handle rattles.

  “Get away from me!” I bellow. “Help! Someone help me!”

  But the neighbors won’t hear me—I know it. He probably planned it that way. The next house over is too far.

  The door shudders from a heavy impact. A few chips of paint go flying, along with a whole lot of dust.

  “Just open the door,” Eli’s voice says on the other side. He sounds bored. “Unless that’s how you want to die, cooped up in there.”

  I sure have a better chance here than I do out in the hall. I scramble to my feet and spin around, looking for something heavy. But the room is devoid of anything but the basics: a bed and an armoire I probably couldn’t push. The door shudders again, and the doorframe breaks apart into splinters.

  My brother crosses the room in one bound. He sinks his hand into my hair and yanks my head back. My scalp screams with pain, and the next thing I know, I’m drowning.

  He’s pouring something over my head. It burns like hell when it gets in my eyes, mouth, and nose, cutting my scream short before it can leave my throat. My airways are on fire, and I begin to sputter and cough for my life.

  It’s some kind of alcohol. Vodka, I think.

  “Co
me on,” he says, somewhere far above my head. “Let’s go.” His voice sounds almost tender as he drags me after him by my hair.

  “Let go of me!” I howl once I’ve regained my ability to speak. My eyes are still watering, and I can barely breathe. He’s dragging me toward the stairs. “Eli! Please. Please.”

  I hadn’t even realized I’d begun to cry, and now I’m full-on sobbing. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. I’m your sister. You said we were—you always said we were two sides of the same coin.”

  When I look at him, he appears completely indifferent.

  I realize how stupid I have been, to think that I was the one who made him like this. He was always like this.

  “Eli,” I blather, more to stall for time than anything else. “Please. It’s me. It’s Addie.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  A moment later, Eli is shoving me down the stairs.

  I land at the bottom of the stairwell, the impact knocking the wind out of me. The thin carpet does nothing to cushion the fall. Everything reels. It feels like I’ve broken all my bones. I try to move my arms, then my legs, but I feel disconnected from them, from my own body. When I try to roll over, my shirt makes a wet sucking sound, and I realize the carpet is soaked through. The pungent smell of alcohol and something else—Acetone?—fills my nose and mouth.

  Nail polish remover. He’s doused the whole place. The smell sets off a chain of nightmarish memories.

  A moment later, my brother descends on me. A scream tears from my throat, and I grab for him, clawing at him with my fingernails. He swats my hands aside with ease, flips me over onto my stomach, and then his hands are under my clothes.

  I gasp into the booze-soaked rug, struggling to breathe. I can’t even cry anymore. His hands are on my bra and then at my hips. I understand what he wants, too late. He finds the lighter in my side pocket.

  My scream is so earsplitting that I’m surprised it came from me. I twist but he’s straddling me, pinning me down.

  “Your stepmother,” he says. “She should be able to identify this. We’ll both be dead but you’ll be the criminal. You won’t even have a real grave. Your ashes will be scattered through what’s left of this place, along with mine.”

  Silent sobs shake my body. Please, I try to say but the carpet muffles my efforts.

  “Any last words?” He threads his fingers through my hair once again and lifts my head up, straining my neck.

  I see my chance. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

  “You have no idea,” I gasp.

  “No idea of what?”

  “How much it hurts to burn.”

  His grip loosens. There’s hesitation in his resolve; I can feel it almost on a psychic level. He never had a problem faking being hurt, if it got him what he wanted. But when it comes to real pain, real agony, he doesn’t know a thing.

  “It’s the worst thing you can imagine. It’s the most painful death there is.”

  He hesitates. My hair slowly slips between his fingers, and the pain in my neck lessens.

  “I already know it,” I say. “But you—you’re in for the surprise of your life.”

  A chuckle escapes from him but there’s something hysterical about it. “I’m not going back to prison, Addie.”

  “It’s better than burning. Believe me.”

  He grabs my hair and slams my head into the floor. I didn’t expect it, and I don’t have time to draw a breath. He smashes my face into the carpet until I’m sure I’ll suffocate. When he eases the pressure and air rushes back into my burning lungs, all I can see are black splotches.

  “You liar!” he snarls, and I realize he’s leaning close to my ear, so close that I feel the heat of his breath, the spittle flying from his lips. “What the fuck do you know about it? I’ve been in prison for half my life. Half my life, gone! And what about you?”

  “And I”—I desperately gulp enough air to be able to speak—“I burned for you.”

  He lets go of my hair. My forehead hits the soaked carpet once more. I’m choking on sobs. “We’re even, Eli. You don’t have to kill us both.”

  Instead of an answer, I hear the lighter click.

  “Fuck you,” he says with a short, pained laugh.

  I twist and kick out as hard as I can. He wasn’t expecting it, and he falls off me, rolling on the floor. The lighter sails through the air, its blue flame nigh invisible until it connects with the heavy drapes, and then it clinks hollowly as it skitters across the floor.

  Fire licks at the drapes’ fringes and races across the drapes themselves with alarming speed. The heat blazing off it is enough to melt your skin off. From sheer instinct, I recoil, backing away and away, unable to stop looking.

  Eli gets to his feet. His expression has lost all pretense of humanity. It’s an insane mask, dead and hollow-eyed.

  “See?” he says. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

  Under my petrified gaze, he picks up the lighter. The heat has singed his hair and eyebrows but he appears not to notice. Behind him, the fire is spreading, jumping onto the bookshelves. I realize with dawning terror this whole place is practically designed to catch fire like the head of a match.

  “We have to get out of here,” I yell. “Eli! We can still get out of here.”

  “No,” he says. “We can’t.”

  His hand closes over my shoulder, fingers sinking in like a vise. “You first,” he says, holding the lighter inches from my face. He flicks it, and I scream, but all that comes out is a short burst of sparks.

  He curses. I take the moment to claw at his face, aiming for his eyes. With a scream, he lets go, and I scramble to my feet. It’s getting hotter and hotter, and I can’t breathe. We’ll suffocate before we can burn.

  No. Fuck that. He can die. I don’t want to.

  He’s yelling inarticulate curse words, his hand on his eye. I think I see blood. No time to take chances. I do what they taught us in self-defense class: I kick him as hard as I can.

  He stumbles back, choking on a scream. “Addie,” I think I hear him say but the roar of the fire drowns him out. He takes another uncertain step back, and in that moment, the burning drapes finally collapse, coming down in a fiery avalanche of sparks and charred fabric.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  My brother is consumed all at once. Everything bursts into flame, his clothes, his hair.

  I’m paralyzed, unable to scream or move. I just know I can’t look or the sight will stay with me for as long as I live, never fading, until it drives me insane. So I do the only thing I can—I shut my eyes. But not before I see his face one final time, the look in his eyes full of desperation and terror and pain. The scream that splits the air is hardly human anymore.

  I didn’t want this. Oh God, this is not what I wanted. I never meant for it to turn out this way.

  Yet it doesn’t really matter what I wanted, does it? This is how it played out. Intentions don’t count for much in the end.

  Please forgive me, I think. And I don’t know who exactly I’m asking for forgiveness: my brother, whose scream will haunt my every living breath, or my parents, who perished, choking on smoke, before they could burn. Maybe God, if I believed in God.

  Behind my closed eyelids, a memory comes back to me, but the more I try to hold on to it, the faster it fades, slipping through my fingers. My mother’s face. Her smile that didn’t match her eyes, always wary, always tired. I remember what she said—not her last words, just the last ones meant for me. I think it was, Finish your dinner, Andrea. Or something trivial like that. It’s not that important anymore.

  The scream dies. It’s just the roar of the fire now. When I open my eyes, I can’t find my brother, or what’s left of him. He’s become one with the flames.

  In the distance, I hear sirens. So someone called the fire department—about time. I have to get out of here.

  I draw a deep breath, though there’s so little oxygen left in the room that it hardly feels like breathing. And I run.

&nb
sp; With a hiss, the ends of my hair turn to charcoal. For a moment, I think I’m about to catch aflame and follow in my brother’s footsteps but then I blindly collide with the door. The handle scorches my palm, and I’m pretty sure I leave some of my skin on it, but the door swings open, and I’m outside.

  The air feels like ice on my burned skin. I breathe and breathe and can’t get enough. I run down the street as fast as I can and don’t stop until I can see only the rooftop of the house above the trees.

  I stop dead in the middle of the road. My legs won’t hold me anymore so I indulge them and sit down, right on the blacktop. I assess the damage. It’s not as bad as I thought; my palm has maybe a second-degree burn at worst, and my hair is a mess but it’ll grow back. My shirt is singed at the edges but my skin underneath is just fine.

  The pillar of smoke that rises into the sky is spectacular. The house is a funeral pyre my brother could be proud of. The sirens are growing closer, and I expect to see the fire trucks any moment now.

  Good. I’m ready for them.

  My brother always said we were two sides of the same coin but it never felt that way to me. The way I saw it, we were two sides of a mirror: He was luminous, shiny, containing within himself the entire world, reflecting onto people what they wanted to see and some things they didn’t. I was the other side: dull and rough, always hidden because no one ever cared to look at it. And when the mirror broke, everyone was so fascinated with the reflections of their own fractured selves, their perspective and their comfort zones and their assumptions, that they forgot about me, like they always did.

  And what does it matter anyway? Is it that important which one of us flicked the lighter? It was fifteen years ago. No one can be brought back from the dead any more than the waxy pink skin on my chest and arms can become smooth and perfect again. How long do I have to atone for a split-second decision? Leeanne was right. I was still on my brother’s leash all these years, bound to him by our shared story.

  But he’s dead now, and the story is mine and mine alone. Figueroa may know, or think she knows, what really happened but what proof does she have? Nothing. Besides, my story is better—it’s the one everyone already decided to believe. The story of the golden boy who became a monster.