The steam was still rising out of the tub. Marcus laid unconscious, a glass formally filled with whiskey and sleep aides set on the ground next to a kitchen knife. He didn’t snore and his breath was soft enough not to disturb a butterfly's flight path. His hair was tussled; he was clean shaven for the first time in weeks. Amelia could feel the lack of tension as she massaged on either side of his neck.
She worked his skin, fully expecting him to take up and break her plan. Part of her wondered if she kept kneading his neck in hopes he’d wake up and stop her. There would be no protest, no screaming or begging. A marriage that had never been absent of noise was suddenly suffocated with silence. Amelia picked up the knife and felt the weight in her hand before gliding it along a sharpening steel. Her eyes moved from her work to Marcus and back again.
It was half an hour later, she was standing in her bathroom with a gun in one hand. Her hands were coated in blood like a cherry in chocolate, making a mess of things with blood drops and smears lining a path from the bathroom to her feet. The plan was to shoot herself through the head, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in prison when she just sliced her way out of hell.
But she waited too long. And Instead of firing the gun she held in one hand, she dialed the cellphone she had in her other. “Lucius?” She spoke softly, a habit from when she was trying to hide something from Marcus. “I need you to come over. I need your help.”
Real late. Lucius had been asleep for hours, a good, dead-to-the-world sleep. He had two modes. Awake. Unconscious. He was either completely on alert or completely shut down. He had plenty of demons during the the day, but at night? Lucius Warren slept like a goddamn baby.
So when his phone went off, it didn’t wake him up, not right away, anyway. It wasn’t until Ruby nudged him, murmured his name, and then put both hands on his arm and shoved him hard did he wake up.
Lucius grunted, unwound from Ruby, and rolled over to fumble for his phone. When he finally got a hold of it, he checked the number and--
Amelia. She wouldn’t be calling unless something was wrong.
Panic shot up his spine. What the heck did his brother do now? He answered the phone, put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
Ruby resettled into his lap like a cat, hugging his thigh. Lucius? I need you to come over. I need your help. Her voice was strange--not the usual shaky tone she got after Marcus had shoved her around a couple times. It was hollow. Empty.
“Yeah,” Lucius said. “I’ll be right there.”
With that, he shut off the phone and climbed out of bed. Told Ruby to go back to sleep. Pulled on some clothes and left. It was an unspoken code between he and Amelia. Military code. One of them called. The other came running. No matter what. It was that way since they’d been overseas, always would be that way.
Marcus, though. He was a hell of a wrench in things.
Lucius’s pick-up truck rumbled off, weaving through the trees that stood on either side of the flat road like tombstones. His headlights spilled yellow light onto the Warren family house and then flickered off when the engine spat and died with a clunky cough. He got out, climbed the stone walkway, and pushed through the door.
Didn’t bother knocking. Family didn’t much need to knock and no one ever locked their doors in their town anyhow.
The house was quiet. Very quiet. Marcus had probably tired himself out and passed out upstairs.
Lucius glanced around. “Am?“