The Deadly Sister Read Online Free PDF

but little Maya, clutching two kitten mugs of gone-cold chocolate. She didn’t need to explain: In the emotional torture they were putting themselves through that year, my parents forgot appointments all the time. Maya had had plans to go camping with her best friend’s family that weekend, and she missed out just so she could come console me with those watery cold chocolates. We huddled together on the edge of the field, my shoulder against hers, and I was so glad that my otherwise annoying eleven-year-old sister had totally come through when it mattered most.
    Two years later, I walked down those basement stairs intending to return the favor. I meant to convince her to stay, to make her feel like she belonged. But she was already gone. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that everything since has been my fault.
    I wouldn’t have thought anyone could have hidden in Keith’s bed, but here she was, emerging from the stale airspace beneath the comforter. The sheets must have gone weeks without being made, their wrinkles thickened into deep ridges. She cringed in the pale light. It struck me that maybe she wasn’t avoiding me; she was just embarrassed to havebeen found in this guy’s slimy bed. She hit the ground unsteadily, jostling a side table and spilling empty prescription bottles that pinged and rolled on the floor.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked. The emphasis was on you, like she couldn’t care less about my reasons—it was my very presence that had her pissed. “What exactly are you trying to save me from?”
    She moved into the brighter light of the window, which cast her green. She hadn’t slept in a long time—the skin beneath her eyes was rumpled. She looked like she’d just dodged a speeding car that was turning around for another pass: unsteady, panicked. But did she look all messed up because she’d just killed someone, or because that was the way she always looked? Both our fates would hang on what people decided was the answer.
    Every time I saw her, I tried to find the little girl underneath.
    Every time I saw her, I failed.
    Maya liked to wear a lot of pink and a lot of black. Her panties sported both colors, in tight horizontal stripes. Her thighs looked red and sore. I was embarrassed that Cheyenne was seeing my sister like this. And I was angry that Maya had waited for Keith’s permission to come out. She was passive, easily led—another way we were different.
    “Hey, Cody,” she murmured. The dog had found a stretch of her exposed heel and begun to nuzzle.
    “Is there someplace private where Maya and I can talk?” I asked.
    Keith looked at Maya. “Take my studio. I’m not using it until four.”
    Cheyenne followed Maya and me downstairs, then squeezed my arm, said “I’ll meet you outside,” and kept moving toward the front. Cody reluctantly allowed herself to be dragged behind her.
    The plywood wall shuddered as Maya closed us into the studio. A tattoo needle droned next door, cut off, then droned again.
    “So this is where you spend all your time?” I asked.
    “One of the places,” Maya said. She eased herself onto the tattooing table, paper crinkling under her. She was still in her underwear, though she’d thrown on one of Keith’s T-shirts to cover her breasts. It had a chicken on it, of all things. I wheeled away a cart with needles and little tubs of ink, took the artist’s chair. Maya clutched one of her elbows, a forearm across her belly. It was an insecure and intimidating pose, making it look like she was both closing herself off and preparing to use her arm as a club. Even clutching her bicep, her fingers shook. It made the grayer skin near her elbow quiver. She was so thin. Effortlessly, sickly thin. Like a model, or someone soon to be deceased.
    “No one can hear us, right?” I said.
    Maya nodded, eyes still suspicious.
    “Jefferson Andrews,” I said.
    She flinched. “What about Jefferson Andrews?”
    “He’s dead.”
    There it was again,