4: 4
4
In the end, Brian never did buy the stun baton.
I made a loud show of threatening to leave him a bad review.
He just popped the lid off an iced coffee and slid it over, grinning like a little brat. "You never placed an order. Where exactly are you gonna leave that review?"
Then the grin faded fast, and he looked at me, serious now.
"Sis, you're the first in line to inherit, the one Grandma named herself."
"But if you actually get committed to a psych ward, you lose all rights to the estate."
"I'll just take some time off work and stay with you until the inheritance paperwork's all sorted."
I pinched up a bit of the cream and dabbed it on the spot between Brian's brows.
"Take time off? Just quit."
"Your sis is about to be old money, the stuff of legend. All you have to do is lie around and be a useless bum."
Brian gave a bitter little laugh. He clearly wasn't feeling that optimistic.
"Sis, you were probably still little when you got taken, so you've got no sense of the numbers."
"What Grandma left you isn't three or four million. It's three or four billion."
"And that whole fortune goes to you, and you alone. Even an outsider like me, no blood tie at all, would be tempted. So imagine that whole crew, the ones who actually share your blood..."
I was too busy shoveling strawberry cake into my mouth to worry, and I promised him with my eyebrows dancing:
"Relax. Your big sister's got an ace up her sleeve."
"Nobody but me is walking off with Grandma's estate."
Brian forced the corners of his mouth up and wished me luck with all of it.
But out of the corner of my eye, I caught it. He never mentioned quitting. He just quietly put in for three days off.
This time, though, I really wasn't lying.
Trouble was, Brian's gut instinct was terrifyingly on point.
Late that night, thick smoke choked me awake.
I could hear it clearly, the Masons shrieking downstairs.
"Somebody help! My daughter's gone insane and set herself on fire in the middle of the night!"
I rolled out of bed and grabbed for the door handle, and found the door bolted from the outside.
The smoke poured in, choking me until my vision went black.
Only when my strength gave out and I collapsed did I dimly make out a blurred voice appearing in front of me, calling out again and again:
"Sis, don't fall asleep, I'm here to save you!"
In that moment, I swore something to myself.
If I made it out of this alive, I'd raise Brian like my own son for the rest of my life.
When I opened my eyes again, I hadn't been reborn, and I wasn't in the morgue.
There was a ring of people around me, cops in caps or people in white coats.
And that so-called family of mine was gathered around the burned neighbor, weeping and wailing:
"This poor child suffered so much inhuman abuse out there, her mind broke, that's why she lashed out at society..."
"Whatever we owe, we'll pay! We will never dodge our responsibility!"
Edna and Thaddeus stood in the corner, wearing the smug look of the ones who'd started it all.
The next second, I caught the white coat trading a glance with my parents.
They were going to hand me over to psychiatric first.
I braced myself on the arms of the wheelchair and pushed myself up, swaying on my feet.
I walked over to my parents, and I said just one sentence.
The moment they heard it, the two of them almost on instinct spun around and shoved Edna forward, terrified someone might miss it:
"We got it wrong! We got it wrong! The one who started the fire was this daughter!"
"Not our Agnes! It was never her!"
