Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
I peeked at my side. Vivian still held Troy, although he didn’t wrap his arms back around her. Instead, he gazed up at Benny as if waiting for the best moment to leap at him.
Maybe I can keep him talking. Maybe we can kill him now.
“So my mother told you to take us?” I asked.
“Something like that.” Benny’s finger tapped at the trigger.
I was close to pissing myself.
He continued, “She set everything in motion and had already seen all the outcomes. She would’ve understood what would come next.”
“But did she tell you to kidnap us?” I asked.
“No, but she told me to never rest until Lucy was dead. She told me to bond with you three. Take a trip. She said she knew women, and that Lucy had something to do with those other deaths, that Chase was too blind to see it. She claimed you would be in danger as long as Lucy lived, and then she flirted with my monster, whispered to him about how good it would feel when I cut away at Lucy’s skin. She made love to my beast.”
Troy scooted closer to Benny, only an inch. They must’ve been a good six feet away, so that little victory probably didn’t matter.
“Can we go into the kitchen?” I asked.
“Vivian keeps saying over and over that Troy isn’t her brother.” Benny moved me out of the gun’s target and returned to pacing. “You missed quite a lot. For one thing, I was not in a good mood when I returned to the house, but that’s another matter. Imagine my surprise when loud moans are all over the house and I realize it’s my son.” He spat onto the floor. “And my daughter, the only one who never could seem to keep herself off her knees, is right where she always is, doing her woman’s work with her brother.”
“Fuck you!” Vivian cried.
I didn’t even turn her way as I took another step to Benny. “Calm down, Vivian.”
“Troy told her to be quiet. His eyes held fear.” Benny faced me. “I know a lot about eyes, especially Troy’s eyes. They held fear, and I’ve never seen them look that way before, not since the night he was a little boy and he stabbed that pedophile in your bedroom. That was a child’s fear. Tonight, he had a man’s fear.”
“Of course he was scared,” I argued.
“But why?”
“Because you’re Benny, and you scare us.”
He shook his head. “What is Vivian talking about?”
“She’s convinced we’re not related.”
He grinned some more. My stomach twisted with pain.
“She’s always been convinced of that, but this was the first time that Troy didn’t look disgusted or even like she was crazy. No. Things have changed. Something changed. And now he’s scared when she says it.” Benny returned to pacing. His feet scraped against the polished tile and set me even further over the edge. “Then your mother, who knows that I have her kids, has now connected with my enemy, shown him all of my things, robbed me, and commences to go on a great little holiday with him.”
“I don’t know what Mom is doing,” I muttered.
“Chase’s cock is probably deep down her throat right now.” He twisted his lips into disgust. “That’s how bad she desires power. She would suck him off, if he asked. That’s your mother.”
My body pulsed with anger, but I focused on staying calm.
“You told me you would handle this, Jasmine. You told me that Troy and Vivian would stop.”
My body quaked in hysteria. “You said I had three days. Please, don’t do anything. Let’s talk this through.”
Benny formed his lips into a sad frown. He raised his gun to Troy. “Son or not, this can’t go on.”
He pulled the trigger, right as Troy jumped up and charged at Benny.
But it was too late.
The bullet surged through the air.
Vivian’s screams filled my head.
How could a bullet be so small, when it caused so much damage? That tiny thing snatched my twin out of my life. It hit his chest, traveled through, and fled his back. Blood sprayed from both sides. But Benny didn’t stop there, and I didn’t move. There was no reason to do anything.
Life had ended.
Benny shot again and roared, “But you didn’t think of this. Did you, Sophia? You never thought I would hurt them. I told you I would!”
He shot at Troy’s head and chest over and over. My brother’s body leaned forward and then crashed to the ground.
Although Benny ran out of bullets, he continued to pull that trigger over and over.
Click. Click.
Blinking, I didn’t even turn my direction to the floor. Click. My brother lay there, and I’d done nothing to save him. Click. I stared at the cracked mural on Vivian’s wall and did something I hadn’t done in years.
Click.
I prayed.
I remember this one program that played on the television late at night. Some reverend with blond hair, blue eyes, and a huge diamond necklace on his neck. By twelve, I’d given up on God. What sort of supernatural being would allow a place like South End to exist? I’d been convinced that nothing existed after death.