Page 39 of Rattle the Cage

Stop torturing yourself, dickhead.

Instead, I pulled open my bank accounts. Examining the totals, my eyes caught on the $100k deposit I’d put in Tess’ checking account days ago. Despite it obviously being the incorrect amount, she hadn’t said a word.

Just a gold digger.

I rolled my eyes at myself. How ridiculous.

More like what we owed her for the psychological damage we’d done.

I still couldn’t make sense of it — how it wasn’t her that turned me in. There was no one else.

Besides, it was probably smartest for Tess to ignore the money. If she managed to look this gift horse in the mouth, she’d find a jaw full of rotted out teeth that I wasn’t so sure I could clean up.

It still pissed me off. It was impossible to get a reaction out of the girl. It bothered me that she didn’t want to confront me, that she would fix her relationships with Nash and Blade.

She would play princess to Nash and Blade’s knights in shining armor.

And I would be the evil ruler desperate for control.

Did I even deserve forgiveness?

I wasn’t even sure why I’d sent her the extra eighty grand. I owed her $20k and I’d already paid her forty thousand for the last Fright Night.

I’d go broke at this rate.

I just wanted her to ask. Maybe if she was mad at me, yelled and screamed, I could point the finger back at her instead of being left to stew in what I’d done to her.

It would have been easier if she was in the wrong.

A part of me thought it might make her leave. With her bills paid, she’d have no use for us Freaks. She could go back to her life and we could go back to ours. I’d never have to say I was sorry or ask who turned me in.

But I knew there was no going back.

Ever since that night in the cove, my mind had been overrun with confusion.

I’d killed off every soft part of myself years ago, only leaving an opening for Nash and Blade. My only family, my brothers in blood, sweat, and tears.

Over the years, I’d only been able to rely on the cold, calculated logic of my brain. Without it…

I didn’t know what to believe in.

Impulse and fear drove my every move. And if I wasn’t careful, it would put all of us in danger.

Closing out my banking apps, I put my hands behind my head and stared at the blank screens.

Stop obsessing.

I needed to figure out if what Tess had said was true. The girl certainly wasn’t an actress, otherwise she might have been able to pretend like she wanted to be trapped with us again.

But if she had told the truth, there was still the question that ate at my mind: who else knew my proclivities? Who would have wanted to tell Pastor Harris?

And why had the cards lied about my revenge on Tess?

Biting my lip, my eye caught on the wood box at the corner of the security desk. I wasn’t sure why I’d brought it down here with me, only Nash had the vision.

Maybe we read them wrong.

It was possible that the prophecy wasn’t wrong but that we had misinterpreted it.