Puppet Master

Chapter Thirty Five

“Not when it’s my fucking money that paid for it you won’t!” He started towards her, before the realisation of his words crashed over him, and he groaned into the palm of his hands, throwing back his head.

Confusion quelled some of the fire in Tori as she watched him, “No... it was mum and dad’s money ... my inheritance?” She looked to Jayden for reassurance, as he avoided her eyes, watching Nate instead, who seemed to be staring intently heavenwards.

“No, Tor, it wasn’t.” He sighed heavily, and fiddled with the car keys in his hands, “But I haven’t got time for this, to explain everything. I need to get to Shannon, but later, okay? Later ... we’ll tell you everything. Both of you, I just need to make sure she’s okay, Tor.”

She’d known her brother for nearly twenty two years now, seen almost every emotion she could have done pass across his face, before the shutters had come down, just after Caleb died. But she’d never seen this one before. There was a bone deep sadness in his eyes, as though his heart was breaking under his skin and he couldn’t take it anymore, and he reminded her of a vulnerable little boy, suddenly miles out of depth.

“You’ve changed your tune, haven’t you?” her voice was monotone, still disgusted with him and his earlier behaviour, still more ashamed than she’d ever been in her life to call him her brother.

His grey eyes flashed sparks at her, lips drawn into a tense line, and his voice was cutting when he spoke, “I know you think you’ve grown up being out here in the big, wide world, but you don’t know shit, Tor. We’ve watched over you your entire life, and I know you’re hurting, you’re scared, but you can get to fuck if you think you can speak to me like this after everything I’ve done for you. Don’t ever think you can judge me on this. I’m not him, honey, you’re not wrapping me around your little finger, I had my own motivations, and you were the founding circle for most of them but there are things I did for myself as well.” He drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity before exhaling slowly, and reaching into his back pocket for a cigarette, “I say we’ll talk on this later, and I mean that, baby girl, but I’m not walking out of this room with us like this, okay?”

Striding across the oak floors, he took her chin in his hand, and smoothed back her unruly mane of hair with the other, clutching the unlit Marlboro between his fingertips, “I love you, I’d do anything for you, I pretty much already have, and you’re near enough the only person in the world I can say those words out loud to. Remember that, okay?” Mutely, she nodded, bewitched by the intensity in his eyes, by that unconditional love that she used to be surrounded by, and he turned and walked out of the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Do what?” she questioned, bemused, still watching the tiny reverberations run through the wood.

She felt his footsteps approach more than she heard them. She was somewhere beyond her conscious self, so lost in her own head that she was beginning to run purely on instinct, softening into his arms before she realised who he was and what he’d already put her through.

“He said he’d tell you later, babe, come on, let’s sit down. I’ll get you a drink, what do you want?”

He began to urge her into the soft cushions at the back of her knees, so that she sunk into the sofa, but just as he would have pulled away, she tugged on his hand sharply so that he fell down beside her.