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)
My heart sank in a thick sludge of black.
I hadn’t said much today. All I did was wrap my arms around Vivian and rock her to sleep. Benny’s cook Lou brought a sedative tea. I gave it to Vivian. She needed the sleep. I had to stay awake and deal with the pain.
Had it somehow been my fault? Was Troy’s blood on my hands? Sure Benny played his part, and Vivian did, too, but what could I have done?
Alternatives ran through my head like a B-list film that remained on repeat—the same ole cinematic action scene. A slow motion bullet flying through the air. My frozen body. The cries. The screams. The blood as it splattered. Troy’s blood. His body slumping to the floor. My brother’s corpse.
Death was fucked up.
There stood a body, a husk of something that was filled with so much amazingness. And then with a click of a madman’s gun, he lay lifeless on the ground, hollow and empty. I’d seen so much death in these past months, but not one of them prepared me to handle Troy’s.
My twin was gone.
A part of me lay dormant.
It had happened before.
When he went off to jail, I could swear that somehow, someone had cut something out of my insides—whether a lung or kidney, maybe even a bit of my liver—something left me, when the police took him away. And although I’d learned to live on without those empty parts of me, I always knew that it would return once I saw him again.
And it did, for that short moment of time, in these past months.
He spent most of his life in jail, and now ... he’ll never get a chance to make it up.
“The tour is going to start in twenty minutes.” Benny turned to me. “Are you as excited as I am?”
I didn’t respond. By now, he probably didn’t expect me to. I hadn’t said anything more than a few sentences to him.
Hours ago, the first statement to Benny was an answer:
“Why are you holding that knife?” Benny asked, when he walked into my bedroom.
I folded the blanket over a sleeping Vivian, stuck the pocketknife in my pocket, and then zipped up my jacket. “I have a knife because you killed my brother, and if I get a chance I’m going to stab you in the neck.”
Nodding, he turned his view to the bed. “Vivian isn’t going with us?”
Earlier, after he and his men buried my brother behind the mansion, Benny had announced that we all needed a break. He decided that we should go out and see London.
“No, Vivian’s not coming,” I said. “I finally got her to go to sleep. I think she deserves that. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” He turned away from her sleeping form. Maybe the guilt hung too heavy in his mind. Perhaps, his psychotic brain had a tug from something greater than himself. “Where do you want to go tonight? I feel like we should get out of the house. We’ve been cooped up in here all day and I can still smell ... I ... we should get out of here for a while. Get some fresh air. Where do you want to go?”
With no hesitation, I said, “The Jack the Ripper tour.”
He widened his eyes. “The Jack the Ripper tour? Are you sure?’
I nodded.
“But—”
“You asked me. I told you.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
I said nothing else and thought of the knife in my pocket. How fast could I take it out and pierce his neck?
“And maybe afterwards we can check out my favorite restaurant in the area,” Benny said. “Lou told me you haven’t eaten all day. I understand, but we need to make sure you get some food. I can’t lose you. I can’t ... I can’t lose you, Jasmine.”
He didn’t deserve a response, so I didn’t give him one.
“I’m so sorry, Jasmine. If I could bring him back, I would. Right now. It’s killing me. I lost my temper. I went crazy for a few seconds. It’s killing me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t ...”
I guessed that he stopped talking, once he realized that I’d gotten up from the bed, walked right past him, and left the room.
He’s sorry? If he could bring Troy back, he would? Fuck you, Benny. You’re going to die slow, and I don’t mind dying right along with you. We can die together, if we have to. Chase would probably be better off without us all. I wish I hadn’t even told him about the tour.
Benny brought several guards, but left most of them at the house. Earlier during the moment when he’d wielded his gun in front of Troy and babbled his evil-man monologue, I’d thought that he knew about our phone calls to Chase. But he hadn’t known anything. He was just mad about Chase and Mom getting together, and figured I knew about the union the whole time.