“Dermot, why would Mom get hurt? You and Mal were fighting, right?”
He looks back at me. “Uh, right, but she tried to get in the middle, and Mal was, like, being a total psycho. Just stabbing everything. And I guess he, uh, stabbed Mom by accident… and you know, just kept going… he couldn’t control himself. He didn’t mean to kill her. I think.”
He licks his lips and glances to the side. I follow his gaze and lean across him, but he grabs at me.
Finn whips forward. Dermot grunts in alarm and pain as the butt of Finn’s gun cracks across his jaw. My brother releases me and I nearly fall into a tangle of wires, my hand grabbing down on something hard and sticky.
My heart throbs crazily. I push more wires aside. Finn wheels Dermot back, the gun pressed against my brother’s skull, as I dig into the mess. It’s sticky and gross…
And there, buried, is a knife, drenched in blood. I grab it by the handle and slowly lift it out. The blade gleams with red as I turn.
Dermot’s watching with terror in his eyes.
“What is this?” I ask him gently.
“Mal left it! Mal did it, I swear!” He’s looking around like he’s trying to find an escape, but there are only piles of computer junk and broken hardware scattered all over his cluttered lair.
“Why would Mal leave his own knife here? Why would he bury it under a bunch of cables and crap on your desk?”
“He was… he was… trying to frame me!”
It’s a funny idea, considering that’s exactly what we were trying to do to him.
I lower the blade so it’s aimed at his chest. “Mal knew I’d come here and find it. And you just left it there?”
Dermot’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He looks at me for a long moment, panic bouncing across his expression, before he finally breaks down.
It’s beautiful to witness. He crumples like a napkin. His shoulders shake as he cries big, fat, ugly tears. His disgusting, snotty face stares at me in bewilderment. “It was an accident,” he wails.
I’ve never been more repulsed by a person in my life, and that’s saying something. Dermot’s done terrible things to me. He once shaved my head while Shane held me down, took pictures of my bald scalp, and posted them online for our classmates to laugh at.Just boys being boys, the school administration said. Which now I realized really meant they were terrified of my father.
This is a new low for him. I lean forward, pressing the blade to his chest. He whimpers, sniffing and wiping his face.
“Say that again.” I stare into his eyes, holding his gaze. “How was it an accident?”
“Mal and I were fighting,” he says miserably, like the words are coming out on their own power. “Mal was losing his mind, kept saying something about finding guns in my house and blaming me for trying to take him out. I had to defend myself, but then Mom tried to break it up, and she grabbed me, and I just…”
“You just stabbed her.”
He nods, sniffling. “Just the once!”
“I saw her, Dermot. Tell me the truth.”
“Okay, it was more than once… and then Mal helped me drag her into the office… and she wasn’t doing great, and Mal started freaking out again and then Dad got involved… and that’s when I got hurt. I don’t know what happened to Mom after that. I swear it!”
“You butchered her.”
“No, no, no, no, it’s not like that. It was a mistake. Just an accident. I was out of control, fighting for my life, and she got in the middle of it?—”
“You know what’s sick? I’m not even surprised anymore. After everything you’ve done to me, I’m not shocked that you’d stoop this low. That you’d do something so reprehensible.”
“Caroline,” he says, eyes wide, the tears threatening again. “I’d never?—”
I hit him in the face. I hit him as hard as I can. He grunts in shock. “Don’t you fucking lie to me. Don’t you dare.” I hit him again, mostly because it feels good, and press the knife to his neck.
“Please, I’d never hurt Mom, not on purpose.” Tears stream down his face.
“No, you save that for me most of the time.”