Chapter 12

CHAPTER12

“Why would I lie to you?” Chloe asked the small girl who was making her life a living hell.

“Because you’re a traitor,” Katie bit out with a glare as she pushed her glasses back up her nose before dropping her hand away so that she could once again gesture for Chloe to get on with it.

“There’s nothing under your bed,” Chloe said as she slowly exhaled, praying that her little sister took pity on her and-

“Is that what they told you to say?” Katie drawled, watching her curiously from where she sat on the bed with her back against the headboard, the wiffle bat that Chloe gave her with the hopes that it would be enough to get her sister to take pity on her and let her sleep, hugged tightly against her chest.

“Yes, yes, it is,” Chloe said, feeling a headache coming on as she stood there, slowly rubbing her temples with her fingertips as she struggled not to think about just how exhausted she was or the fact that it was the first day of school and she was already falling behind. She needed to finish reading the first two chapters for history, read her notes, and figure out how she was going to be able to pay for college when she couldn’t even get a job.

Taking care of Katie was a full-time job and-

She wasn’t sure how she was going to do this. Even with scholarships and loans, she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage to pull this off if she couldn’t get a job. The money that her parents left for her and Katie had been spent on paying off the mortgage and covering the rest of their medical bills.

When she turned eighteen, she could sell the house, but Chloe didn’t feel right selling something that meant the world to her parents, which meant…

God, she didn’t know what that meant.

She just knew that she had two years to figure it out.

“I knew it!” Katie bit out as her eyes narrowed dangerously on her seconds before she raised the wiffle bat and gestured for her to get on with it.

“Please don’t make me hurt you,” Chloe mumbled as she dropped her hands away.

When Katie simply glared, Chloe slowly exhaled as she turned around and started the ten-minute process all over again, checking the hallway, the bathroom, the linen closet, and her room before making her way back to Katie’s room, where she checked the closet, under the bed, and when she saw the look that her little sister was sending the dresser, she looked behind it, under it and then, she checked every single drawer knowing her sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t be happy until she did.

Once she was done, Chloe turned around, opened her mouth and-

“You didn’t check the stairs,” Katie pointed out.

“Yes, I did. I looked the first five times that you demanded that I look,” Chloe said with a helpless gesture towards the hallway, already knowing that Katie wasn’t going to drop it until she looked again.

“You need to look again,” Katie whispered hoarsely as her gaze shot to her bedroom door right around the time that Chloe resigned herself to looking again and-

“There’s nothing there, brat.”

“You don’t know that,” Katie said as they watched Cole finish climbing through her bedroom window.

“I actually do,” Cole said with a satisfied sigh as he closed the window behind him before gesturing for Chloe to move out of his way so that he could grab the baseball bat that Katie liked to keep in the corner and dropped down on the chair that he kept in here for nights like this.

“How?” Katie asked, narrowing her eyes as she considered him.

“I can’t tell you,” Cole said with a sad shake of his head as though not sharing this secret somehow pained him.

Katie watched him for another moment before her gaze flickered to her closet and-

“Fine,” she said, slowly nodding as she sat back and then swallowed hard as she slowly laid down and after one last terrified look in Cole’s direction, Katie closed her eyes as she slowly exhaled.

For several minutes, neither one of them said anything as they waited for Katie’s breaths to even out, and once they did, they quietly made their way into the hallway, where Chloe said, “You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“Then, you’re going to tell your uncle what’s going on?” Cole asked, making her sigh as she made her way to her bedroom.

“He doesn’t need to know,” Chloe said, dropping face-down on her bed with a groan.

“He really does,” Cole said, dropping down on the bed next to her.

“We talked about this,” Chloe said, blindly reaching over to shove him off her bed, only to grumble when he stole her pillow instead.

“He should be here,” Cole said, shifting to get more comfortable.

“It’s fine,” Chloe mumbled against her comforter.

“It’s really not.”

“We don’t need him,” Chloe said, sighing heavily as she tried to find the energy to get off the bed and grab her book.

“You shouldn’t be doing this on your own,” the stubborn teenage boy who refused to let this go said.

“I’m not. My uncle is-”

“Never here,” Cole finished for her.

“We’re fine,” Chloe said, wishing that he’d just drop it as she gave up trying to get up and stole her pillow back so that she could bury her face against it and-

She missed her mom and dad.

God, she missed them so much.

Chloe missed her mom’s smile, the corny jokes her dad used to make over breakfast, the way that her mom burnt the toast every morning, and just how safe she felt when her father was here.

With Uncle Nick…

He was barely here.

When he wasn’t working, he was going out, leaving them on their own, and leaving Katie terrified that something bad was going to happen to him, too. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could do this, Chloe thought as she closed her eyes and slowly exhaled, knowing that she didn’t have a choice.

“We’re fine,” she said again, hoping this time that she believed it.

“No,” Cole said as she felt his hand wrap around hers, “you’re not.”