The Insiders by Tijan

THIRTY-TWO

“We are never going to find these kids.”

I elbowed Matt later that night, tiptoeing through the mausoleum. Why I was tiptoeing, I had no clue. The seeker in this game didn’t need to be secretive, but there we were, at nine at night. After two large pizzas, after Ferdinand had been watched, after Marie and Theresa went home, after the night nanny was on duty, Kash had the brilliant idea to play hide-and-seek.

Seraphina and Cyclone squealed and took off.

And two seconds after they were gone, Matt rounded on Kash. “Are you kidding?! You grew up here too. This place has a million hiding spots. And we’re trying to get them to bed.”

Kash gave him a smug look. “Relax. What do you think happens to a hyper kid after pizza, swimming, a movie, and he has to stay in the same position while waiting to be found? He falls asleep.” He smacked the back of Matt’s head. “You’re it.”

“Hey!” Matt glared, ducking his head down, but Kash was heading down another hallway. “Hey! Where are you going?”

“Hiding.” Kash didn’t look back, jogging and turning another corner.

“We are really screwed if we have to find that guy.”

Kash’s idea was solid. I tapped Matt’s wrist, jerking my head forward. “Come on. Kids usually aren’t too brilliant about where they hide. Under beds, behind doors, behind a post.”

Matt snorted, trailing after me. “You’ve never played this game with a little genius.”

I started to laugh, but then stopped. He was right.

“Yeah. See.” Matt was reading my face. “This was a bad idea. It’ll take us hours to find ’em, and how do we know if they’re still alive by then? They could be hiding in a freezer. Or—”

I clamped a hand over his mouth, and on the echoes of his voice, there it was. Giggles.

Hearing it, Matt’s eyebrows shot up.

Turning. Turning. Pinpointing where those giggles came from. Bull’s-eye.

Then I crapped myself. The laundry chute.

“Oh my God!” Sprinting to the wall, I flung open the cupboard that led to the laundry chute downstairs.

“Cyclone!” Matt lunged for him.

He was wedged inside the chute, his hands and feet braced against the other side so he didn’t fall. “Aw, man. Seriously? You guys found me too quick.” And with a quick grin, just as Matt’s arms started to go for under his arms, he let go.

“Cyclone!”

We heard a “Catch me later, losers!” all the way down, until a thud.

“Curt!” Matt yelled down.

I was right next to him. “Cyclone!”

I couldn’t—ohmygodohmygodohmygod—and then Kash hollered up, “I got him.”

“Fuck’s sakes. How’d he know?”

Kash answered Matt. “Little punk found me one time hiding in the same spot.” He was laughing. “I hadn’t fully filled out by then. Can’t believe he remembered.”

I couldn’t get air in for a full beat. Then I lost it, curling my hands over the edge and leaning down, “Some of us are human, Kash! We can’t scale buildings and jump over fences and we don’t keep all our limbs if we fall down a two-story laundry chute.”

Matt’s lips pressed together.

“I’m fine, Bailey! I mean it.” Did he have to sound so happy, too?

I replied to Cyclone. “Just be safe!”

“I will. Promise, promise, promise.”

Matt whispered, “That’s the ultimate promise in this house. He’ll be careful.”

A second later, from Kash: “We’re going to hide again. Come find us.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Kash.

I had security send me the footage. Seraphina is already asleep in the movie room. Go and have a drink with Matt in the bar. Be there as soon as Cy falls asleep.

Relief flooded me. I nudged Matt, showing him. “This is why adults should always have a plan in every game.” Then, “You guys have your own bar?”

How had I missed that in the tour?

It was an actual bar. A long, sleek counter ran down the length of the wall.

Matt went behind it, pouring a drink. He slid it over to me, nodding at one of the stools. “The most family time we’ve had has been this week.” He leaned back against the wall, pointing his drink to me. “Because of you.”

“You serious?”

He nodded, slowly. “Why do you think Ser and Cyclone took to you so fast? Marie stays longer. Theresa sticks around. I’m here. Kash was around today. It’s all been you.”

“You called him Curt before. Is that Cyclone’s name?”

I knew, but I wanted to actually be told that. It seemed like information that should’ve been spoken, not read on a computer screen or in a file.

A second nod.

He was studying the bottom of his glass now. “Yeah. Quinn used to call him that. ‘My little Cyclone.’” His mouth tipped up. “Name stuck because, you know.” He looked up now. “The ADHD stuff.”

I noted, not knowing if I should, “He’s her favorite. It’s obvious.”

“Yeah.” His voice faded. He was looking back into his drink. “She’s hard on Ser.”

“Yeah.”

A sad grin at me. “You. Me. Them. Different moms. Dad got around.” His frown deepened, became more prominent. “I don’t know why he’s not claiming you. It wouldn’t be a surprise. He was with my mom, cheated on her with Quinn. Well…” He glanced to me before returning to that glass. “Cheated with yours, too, apparently. It’s been Quinn. She had Ser, and a couple years later, Cyclone. Funny thing is that he and Quinn were struggling. She went off with her family, then came back with Cyclone.”

I was quiet. I didn’t know what to think about any of it, the cheating, or anything.

Matt laughed abruptly.

His jaw clenched and his fingers tightened on his glass before he tipped his head back and drank the whole thing in one go. He never hissed. I was waiting. I’d watched as he poured the alcohol in there. It was almost all liquor. Then he motioned to my glass. “Want another one?”

He wasn’t waiting. He turned and began to pour himself a second drink.

I didn’t answer, just waited for him to finish and turn back to me.

He did, but he didn’t look at me. Instead of the glass, his gaze was fixed on the bar. His thoughts were elsewhere, that was obvious. “It was kinda messed up.”

“What was?”

He jerked his head up and jerked it back down, his eyes glittering in anger. “I overhead Peter talking to Kash one night. Quinn wanted to have another kid, but he’d been cheating on her. Quinn knows Kash’s family, actually, but that’s why she left. Because of the cheating. It ended how it was supposed to be, I guess. Quinn always wanted a boy.” He looked up now. “She got what she wanted, huh?”

I was hit with a wave of anguish. Not mine. Matt’s. It was so clear and so powerful that he couldn’t mask it. He was struggling to. His hand kept tightening, loosening, tightening again around his glass. I kept an eye on it, wondering if he was going to shatter it.

“Another boy.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t want a nine-year-old from another woman.”

“Matt.” My heart sank for him.

“She wanted a baby boy. A boy to match her perfect little girl.” Without warning, he threw his glass across the bar. It hit the wall and shattered. Matt just stood there, watching the liquid start to spread over the floor. His jaw kept clenching. His nostrils were flaring at the same time. “Fucking bitch. That’s what she is.” Suddenly, he looked over, piercing me with that same anguish that almost knocked me off my stool. “Watch yourself with her. She doesn’t like you. She doesn’t like having you here, and she might be gone all the time, but she knows what’s going on. She knows you and Kash have something going on.”

Crap.

“She doesn’t like that, either, I bet you. She’ll do something to get you out of here. Don’t know what, but something.”

“That’s enough.” A snarl came from the doorway.

Kash was there. “Nothing’s going to happen to Bailey.”

Matt laughed, the sound harsh. “That doesn’t mean shit with Quinn. You know it. Bailey can see it. Ser and Cyclone, they can feel it. Ser—Jesus, Ser. She’s terrified of her own mom, her mom that dotes on Cyclone more than she does her. Seraphina’s expected to be perfect. Always put together. Quiet. She’s supposed to have the popular friends, girls who are outright bitches. Have you been around when they come over? They’re horrible to Ser, and Quinn loves it. She gets off on it, I swear.”

“Shut up.”

“No. No, man. It’s time something happened.” Matt flung a hand in my direction. “Quinn’s going to take all the goodness in my sister and she’s going to gut her. She’ll take it out and fill her with nothing. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t di—”

He stopped, just stopped.

He blinked.

No one said a word. No one stopped him.

Then his eyes grew bleak. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his head folding down. “We’re so far fucked up. We’re ruined, Kash. All of us. We’re too damaged.” He saw me and blinked a few times, focusing to see me better. “You should get away from us, before you become like us. Get lost, Bailey. I mean it. For your own good.”

He moved past Kash. He started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

Matt paused, shaking his head. “Does it really matter?” Then he headed out.

I flicked a tear away, my throat closing up.

“His mom killed herself.”

What?That was a punch to my system. Matt …

I wanted to go after him, hug him until he healed, no matter how long that took. I’d hug him for years if I had to.

Kash moved to the stool beside me, sitting with his back to the bar behind him. “Report says car accident, and technically that is how she died. Report doesn’t say that she directed the car at a tree, or how security cameras across the street show her staring ahead. There was nothing wrong with her. She was like a statue. She turned that wheel, sat back, undid her seat belt, and pressed down on the accelerator.”

I sucked in a breath. My gaze flicking back to where Matt had gone.

“He doesn’t know about the footage, just that she wrote a good-bye note to him and she was dead. Death by tree.” Kash was looking too. “He’s smart. He’s always known, without asking. It’s something we don’t talk about.”

I was aching. For Matt. For Seraphina. For Cyclone. For Kash, too.

As I moved my hand to his, I wasn’t sure what he’d do.

I wasn’t expecting him to flip his hand over and slide his fingers between mine. I wasn’t expecting to suddenly be pulled into his arms, his head burying in my neck. And I really wasn’t expecting him to press a kiss there. “I will never let anything happen to you. No one.”

My legs parted and he was between them. Just holding me. I was holding him back.

We stayed like that.

Minutes could’ve passed. An hour. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Until we heard footsteps on the ceiling above us and Kash stiffened.

He cursed under his breath. “They’re back.”

Which meant we’d leave. I was starting to understand this family’s dynamics. Understanding, yes, but not liking it. How could I?

We were going past the kitchen, our hands entwined, when Peter appeared in the doorway.

Kash stopped. I stopped.

Peter seared me with his eyes before switching to Kash.

He clipped out, “Matthew took off in the Lamborghini. He’d been drinking.”

Another look my way, and then he disappeared.

His words echoed in my head first.

Worry for Matt hit me second.

And third, I was seared.

Peter had walked away from me again.

I should have been used to it by now.