the spade brothers' little sister

twenty

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I felt frozen for the next few minutes, trying to soak it all in. My biological dad wanted to steal me away from my brothers and from the life I felt comfortable in. He didn't seem to care if that was what me and Brady wanted or not - he just wanted to beat out Jace and make him lose.

When Jace had told me more about our biological dad a few weeks ago, I was interested. I didn't remember much about him, and I was eager to know one of my parents. Since our mom had passed, I knew it would have to be my dad. But he left us by choice.

But now, all the curiosity that I had, had died. I had no desire to live with Spencer or even really see his face again. He hired someone to shoot Brady. Clearly, he didn't care about us.

After Benny broke the news, no one really talked for a little bit. Larson got up and stormed out of the kitchen, opening the front door and disappearing outside. Charlie squeezed my hand reassuringly. Benny shifted in his chair awkwardly. Brady's face was red and he stood up, knocked his kitchen chair over, left the kitchen, and ran upstairs. I heard his bedroom door slam loudly and the whole house shook from the force. 

Jace was just sitting there. He hadn't moved or formed a facial expression, even when Brady knocked over his chair purposefully. He cleared his throat and stood up. 

"Benny, can I talk to you in the other room?" His voice was quiet and empty. Benny nodded and followed Jace out of the kitchen. I didn't even bother to try and ask if I could know what was going on, because I knew Jace was in no mood to have to deal with me trying to know everything. 

After Jace and Benny left, me and Charlie were alone at the kitchen table. He spoke softly to me. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head in response. I didn't want to harp on the fact that Spencer wanted me and Brady and that nothing - even shooting his own son - would get in his way. Charlie nodded and we both stood up. 

"Then let's clean up, okay? Let's get our mind off everything that's happening." I nodded and started to help him clear the dishes off of the table. No one had really finished eating yet, but we both knew that no one would have an appetite anymore after the news we just heard. Me and Charlie cleaned and my head still swirled with horrible thoughts about what might happen. Charlie brought up school and seeing my friends again, and he told me a lot about his internship and what classes he was taking when he went back to school.

I didn't even want to think about Charlie going back to college. He went to a university that was local, it was only about a half an hour away and so he lived at home. Even though Charlie got a great scholarship because he did so well in high school, paying to live on campus was too much money, and Jace had to remember he still had me and Brady left to go to college too. Charlie lived at home for the past two years and commuted to campus, but I never saw him much during the week. He wanted to be a doctor and so he was studying all the time to get top grades so that he could hopefully get a scholarship for medical school. I was so proud of having such a smart brother, but I was dreading him eventually leaving us when he got a job.

Shortly after we finished cleaning up, Jace came back into the kitchen. "Benny just left," he spoke. He avoided eye contact with me, only looking at Charlie. 

"Is everything okay?" Charlie asked, even though he knew that everything was not okay. 

"No," Jace replied simply. "But I hope it will be." He sighed. "Where's Brady?"

"Still upstairs, I think," Charlie answered. 

"Okay, I'm going to get him. Brenna, can you please wait for me on the couch? We need to talk." He jogged up the stairs, and I made my way into the living room with Charlie to wait.