Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Stop it!” Cass shouted. “What you’re saying means nothing!”
I continued as if he hadn’t interrupted me. “When she picked up her tea, she held it perfectly still while she took a sip. Her movements were slow and graceful, like someone who’d been drinking tea from delicate cups their entire life. The rest of the time she was visibly trembling.”
“It proves nothing,” Cass said adamantly.
“Both times you went there, the gate guard, Owen, kept you waiting at least ten minutes. Enough time for someone to get themselves cleaned up. It would also be enough time to do the opposite… go from clean and finely dressed to disheveled and dirty. But things like muscle memory can’t just be turned on and off. Those things stay with you unless your body or mind have experienced actual physical damage. Something like picking up a nearly full, hot cup of tea from a delicate saucer, drinking from it without spilling even a drop, and returning it to where it belonged is an example of muscle memory.”
“Shut the fuck up, JJ. You’re just doing this because—”
“Because why, Cass? Because I want to hurt you? Because I want to confuse you or make you rethink certain parts of your life?” I took a few steps toward him but stopped when he put his hand out.
“Don’t,” he croaked. “Just don’t.”
I would’ve given anything to do what he wanted—to stop. But that wasn’t what he needed. He needed to accept the truth.
“You saw yourself in that little boy, didn’t you?” I asked. “Charles.”
Cass shook his head and dropped his eyes. “JJ, please,” he whispered.
“JJ,” Sully said from somewhere behind me. I could hear his unspoken warning for me to back off.
“Get out,” I said firmly as I kept my eyes on Cass. When there was no movement behind me, I shouted, “Sully, get out! Now!”
The sound of my brother’s heavy footsteps moving didn’t give me any sense of victory. I saw him in my peripheral vision but didn’t take my eyes off Cass. The second Sully was gone, I nodded to Boone who slowly shut the door. I strode over to it and flipped the lock.
I turned my attention back to Cass, who hadn’t moved. I suspected he was trying to mentally crawl into one of his little compartments. The fact that I was the one forcing him in there was killing me, but another box that he would have to learn to live in was unacceptable to me.
“Charles,” I said softly. “Chandler Charles Ashby the Fourth.”
Cass flinched with every name I called out, including the number at the end. “Weren’t you the fourth?” I asked. “The fourth Chandler who would live up to the name that had been bestowed upon him?”
When Cass didn’t respond or even look up, I continued with, “Mother Ashby. Mother Ashby. ‘Mother’ because that’s who she wanted you to see her as and ‘Ashby’ to remind you that she wasn’t your mother? Was that how it worked?”
“She loved me, you fucker!” Cass snarled and then he was in my face and shoving me back against the door. “She was… is my mother! I took you there to show her that I was—”
“Was what?” I interjected. Cass still had a hold of my shirt and my back was pressed painfully against the door, but I didn’t try to defend myself. “That you were happy? That you were okay?” I snapped. “Or maybe you wanted her to see that you’d made nice with the guy you supposedly tried to kill, and she’d let you come home?”
“That place was never my home!” Cass yelled. He shoved himself away from me. “She was my home,” he said quietly as he ran his fingers through his hair. “You and your family were my home.”
“We are your home,” I said softly.
If he heard me, he didn’t acknowledge my words. The way he held himself wasn’t the Cass I knew. The man before me was broken. Lost.
I had done that.
I had pushed too hard. I was trying to force him to admit something he wasn’t mentally prepared to do. “Cass, I’m sorry—”
“You have so much power over me, JJ,” Cass cut in. “I don’t think you even know how much.” He returned to the chair he’d been sitting in. I slowly returned to mine but didn’t touch him or dare to interrupt him. His words, his demeanor—they were scaring me.
Cass was hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his hands holding each side of his head like he was in pain. “I would do anything for you,” he went on to say. My throat felt like it was going to close up because his words had such finality to them.
“Cass, please,” I whispered. I’d promised myself I would let him talk without interruption, but if I’d brought about the demise of the most important thing in my life, the most important person in my life… “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I shouldn’t have been treating this like an interrogation. You needed me to—”