The Unholy Trinity III: The Final Battle

Chapter Eighteen

“You’re not bummed are you?” Lucian asked.

            Fallon knitted her eyebrows together. “Why would I be bummed?”

            “Isn’t this your first Thanksgiving without your mom?”

            Until he pointed it out, Fallon hadn’t given it much thought. In fact, she didn’t give her mom much thought at all anymore. Having gotten so comfortable in her new life, she sometimes forgot she used to be another person who lived in another house.

            “I’m over that,” Fallon assured him. “Why are we doing a real Thanksgiving dinner anyway?”

            Lucian shrugged. “Sim likes to play human.”

            The bathroom door opened, and Griffin stepped into the room. For a moment, Fallon’s heart pounded at the sight of his damp hair and the towel hanging precariously around his waist. Then she frowned to see the blood dripping down his chest.

            “What’d you do?” Lucian asked first.

            Griffin glanced down at his bare chest. “Damn, I thought I was done bleeding.”

            “Why are you bleeding?” Fallon asked.

            “You can’t see it?”

            “All I see is you bleeding.”

            Lucian peered at his brother’s chest. “I see it now.”

            “See what?” Fallon shrilled.

            When Griffin dabbed at the blood on his chest, Fallon finally saw it too. He’d turned the T into an F so that his chest now read I heart F.

            “How’d you do that?” Fallon asked.

            Griffin held up his index finger. As though he was a cat, a long and pointy claw shot from his fingernail and then retracted. “I figured I might as well turn it into something I can live with. Hope you’re not mad.”

            “I’m not mad, but you can’t ever show that to anyone.”

            “I wouldn’t have shown anyone the other way.”

            Fallon didn’t blame him for that. In the weeks since Tarilyn vanished, she’d become a distant memory for everyone else. People stopped talking about her and where she could’ve gone or if she’d be back. Even Christian seemed to have forgotten about his plan to expose their involvement in her mysterious absence. Only Griffin was left with a permanent reminder of her brief appearance in their lives. Though he’d changed it to be what he wanted, the stain of what she’d done to him would never go away.

            “So, what do you guys want to do today?” Lucian changed the subject.

            Griffin grinned at them. “I know one thing I want to do, but I don’t think Fallon will go for it.”

            “You’re such a pervert,” Fallon retorted as her face flushed.

            “Guess that’s a no then.”

            “Of course it’s a no.”

            “You know, maybe we should talk about it,” Lucian suggested.

            Fallon snapped her head around to face him. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not doing it.”

          “I didn’t mean we should do it now. I just mean we should talk about it since it’s something we’ve never talked about before.”