Laiken

I want to run. I want to vomit. If I turn around, abandoning this scene, I can do both without either of them knowing. They would keep their secrets, and I'd be left to wonder how their relationship started. Was it like how we began - Dominic and I?

Running is easy and I'm amazing at it. But the confusion in my heart grabs hold of my legs and shoves me forward. That first, stiff step is the hardest. The rest are a breeze.

Dominic and Kara look up in surprise. “Laiken?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”

“That question belongs to me,” I say, snapping my eyes between the two of them. The distress in my voice reaches his ears and he manages to look worried. I expected guilt. He should be scrambling to explain what the hell is going on.

Kara turns towards me. She's still wearing that beautiful gown, and I think how unfair that is—how she can be so gorgeous while owning such ugly lies. “I'm guessing you want to talk,” she says.

“You're going to talk, I'm going to listen.”

My sister breathes out in exasperation. “Dominic, leave us alone.”

“No, I want him to stay.”

“Well I don't want him around me or you,” she hisses. Her eyes flash to him, like she can command him to go without him fighting back. I'm stunned when he inclines his head, walking around me towards the door.

I twist, grabbing his wrist as he passes. “You don't need to go.”

He frowns gently. “I do.” With a simple sway of his massive shoulder, he breaks my grip and leaves the room. I'm shut inside with Kara; it's the first time we've been alone together in six years. Since the day we made our promise.

She folds her arms, cupping her elbows. “Want to sit, or stand?”

“Don't act so casual!” I shout, marching closer to her. “I want to know how you and Dominic could possibly know each other. How is that—just how? When?”

Kara is emotionless. I don't know how she's capable of it. I'm losing my mind. “Really. That's what you want to know? Not what that piece of shit is hiding from you?”

I let my mouth gape. There's no way she knows what Dominic refuses to tell me. But the gleam in her almond shaped eyes is sharp. “You're talking like you want me to hate him.”

“I'm stunned you don't already.”

Bristling, I clench my fists. “Don't act like you know what I've gone through here. He never hurt me, he's the only one who's shown me any kindness.”

“It's all an act, Laiken. He doesn't actually care about anyone. He isn't capable.”

“You don't know him!”

“I know him more than you!” The cool sheet of ice that was covering her emotions shatters. It's water now, impossible to pick back up. For a second, she doesn't look like my sister, but a vile creature with bared teeth and gums. “Listen to me. That man is responsible for terrible things. I thought I wouldn't have to tell you, I was sure someone else already had! But now, after seeing the pathetic way he's drawn you to him, it's obvious you don't know what he really is.”

I'm shaking where I stand. This isn't the first time someone has spoken about Dominic like he's a literal demon walking the earth. But it's different when she says it. “Then tell me,” I say, trying to sound as confident as I want to feel. “Whatever you know about him, I want to hear it. It won't change my opinion on him one bit.”

Kara angles her head lower. She's staring at me through her fringe of lashes. Those bitter blue eyes used to shine with joy, especially when they were locked on me. This girl who would lie awake with me at night, our beds pressed together, whispering secrets that I was eager to hear, is about to give me one that feels like a curse.

“You think he's just rough around the edges. That military school made him big and hard and serious?” Her lips keep moving, unable to stop the landslide behind her teeth. “Laiken... he's more than some intimidating meat-head with tattoos. That man killed his own flesh and blood. He murdered his cousin.”

My heart parades until I expect it to collapse. I didn't hear her correctly, I couldn't have. “He didn't,” I whisper, my reply hollow in my ears. “He wouldn't.”

Kara's eyebrows lift a hair, her pink lips pushing outward. This is what pity looks like. She realizes that Dominic's hooks are so deep in my heart that I want to deny what she tells me because it will taint me.

It will taint him.

Also, if what she says is true, my life is going to change.

“Dominic killed Bernard,” she says. “Murdered him while they were alone on a ski trip.”

Bernard. I haven't heard that name in years. “How can you know this?” I ask, reeling.

Her soft features are marred by a sorrow I can't fully grasp. Her fingers come up, brushing through her hair, moving further like she's brushing the phantoms of longer pieces. “Because Dominic was the only one with him that night.” Then her anger returns ten-fold. “He denied it just enough to not get arrested, but he told his uncle he was responsible. He got away, free as a bird, while Bernard...” she trails off.

I reach for her, wanting to hug her and heal her pain. Her eyes go dull, unfocused, as she leans forward towards my touch like she has so many times when we were kids. At the last second she stops herself. I don't think there's room in me for more pain, but she proves me wrong. “Kara, what am I supposed to do?”

“Are you joking?” she hisses. “Laiken! He's a MURDERER! The only thing you should do is keep away from him. Nothing about him is good. It's all tricks and lies. All of it.”

I struggle to shout that she's wrong but my tongue is stiff as cement. I knew when Dominic came back into my world that something was different, something wrong, and twisted, and awful. He couldn't hide it. It winked at me from his black eyes... it simmered in his calculating, precise threats.

He was capable of dragging me back to this house when I tried to run.

He was capable of threatening me, terrifying me, interrogating me.

Again and again, he's told me lies.

I dig down, aching for a way to prove she's wrong but I can't find anything. Kara's words have struck my heart into silence.

These past few days with Dominic, I'd carved away the layers that hid his tender soul. I felt the warmth that burned between us even during a raging storm. I began to believe he was capable of loving me. None of that matters now.

Maybe some people are strong enough to love a killer.

But I'm not.