Perish: Book Three (bxb) ✔️

27. What's your secret?

ELIJAH LUNA

"Landon," Lennox smacked Landon's hand away from the touchpad of the laptop. "Your anxiety is giving me anxiety. Back up two paces. You're breathing too close to me."

"Just send the damn thing! Did you get the other emails in there? You have to make sure he gets it!"

"Landon, you're breathing on my face!"

"You spelled Family w--ow! Lennox, just send the damn email."

Lennox rolled his eyes as he tapped on the keyboard before clicking something. He clapped once and threw his hands up. "Sent, now please wait for my demise. Okay, who's helping me decorate for this shit?"

"What the hell are you people doing?" Every single person finally noticed I'd walked through the literal front door. I dropped my bag to the floor, kicking it next to the coat rack. My husband blinked once at me and narrowed his eyes before he curled his lip and turned back to his computer. "Thank you for the warm welcome."

"Warm welcomes are reserved for those who don't punish me by completely icing me out. August, I can understand. Even Salem. But you? You don't get a pass, nor do you get a warm welcome."

"Were you checking your personal phone or your work phone again?"

Lennox blinked, taking the phone from his pocket and flipping it over to see August's company logo on the phone case. "Oh, come the fuck on!" He tossed it on the floor. "Fine, I admit defeat. I'm raising my invisible white flag to you, Elijah. My fault; I have been running around doing work because August has gone on strike from work, too."

Yeah, I needed a little bit of time to clear my head, and my brother did have things he needed me to check on and organize because we were supposed to be on our way home days ago. However, now we were stuck here indefinitely due to the massive family conflict. We were never supposed to be split, and we were always supposed to try and understand each other first. I took that seriously after I almost lost the love of my life.

Who was pissed at me.

Everything went downhill out of nowhere, and I had told Lennox we should have called to tell August we were coming down there, but he wanted to surprise him. I had a feeling we would forever ban surprises in this family for the foreseeable future. 

While I understood that everyone operated differently, I couldn't get the voice of my oldest son out of my head. I had tried on different occasions to stop what I could see happening because we had no idea what was going on. We didn't have anything to actually prove Kayax was truly evil. I wasn't the hugest fan, but that didn't mean I was going to automatically write off August and be glad Kayax disappeared.

"Lennox, come talk to me in the bedroom."

Lennox slowly turned his head as if he was the main lead in a horror movie. "Sure, honey. I'll be right there."

Someone was still quite unhappy with me, but I was determined to prevent this family from becoming divided. After grabbing my bag, I walked upstairs. I hoped to apologize for the way my message came across, but not what I said. I shouldn't have yelled at him, but I knew that there was very little that would have stopped him from going on and on. He needed to listen, but I still should have found a better way to communicate that.

But everything was now so messed up, and I didn't know how to fix it. If we didn't figure something out, we were going to fall apart. August still had his phone off, and Salem, too, out of solidarity. Those two were like peas in a pod, and the only reason I haven't lost my damn mind was because I knew Salem was looking after August.