Dead Cult

Chapter One

"Trey," I said softly, trying to keep the excited tremble from my voice as butterflies internally attacked my stomach. "How are you?"

It had been months since I'd heard his voice and the fluid, deep alto melody of his words made my knees weak. He didn't know it, or maybe he did and had chosen to ignore it for six years, but I'd been in 'serious like' with him since I'd turned eighteen. If it had been just him and me, I wouldn't have left for my uncle Elijah's flat in Paris to study art, but as it was, 'him and me' had never existed. Of course, it wasn't only me pining after a man for six years, a man who happened to be in love with my sister that had made me leave.

"Lins is in trouble!"

And there it was: Belinda or Lins as Trey called her.

"When is she not in trouble?" I mumbled under my breath.

The bane of my existence just happened to be my older, 'the-world-revolves-around-me,' sister. Once upon a time, she and I were like glue. Dealing with the satanic, ritualistic murder of our parents when I was sixteen only made the bond we shared stronger. At eighteen, Belinda had fought our estranged uncle—as in we didn't know we'd had one—for custody of me since I was still a minor. Thankfully, she'd won and when I turned seventeen we went to get two sets of matching tattoos to remind us of what happened to our parents, but also to remind us that they'd loved us deeply.

The first tattoo, we'd decided, would depict a yin and yang image of the sun and moon. I had the moon and she had the sun. To my parents, I was their 'little moonbeam' and she was their 'little ray of sunlight,' so it had been a perfect choice. The tattoo was only complete when we put the arches of our feet, my left, and her right, together. The second tattoo we'd gotten was placed just above our hearts. It was the Celtic 'circle of life' knot designed as two hearts, and it was connected together by the infinity symbol, honoring the brutal death of our mother and father.

I glanced down at my Batman, sock-covered ankle feeling remorse over my parents' vicious loss of life and at my ugly reaction to the mere mention of Belinda's name. She took care of me when she could've just been a teenager going to school. She put in the work to get me where I was and that's my reaction to her name?

Shame flooded my stomach. Lins was no doubt a drama queen, but she gave up her teenage years to raise me. I loved her, but sometimes enough was enough. It seems Paris wasn't far enough though.

"...brainwashed!"

I frowned as the last of his words registered. "Wait, what?"

"What don't you get? Aren't you listening? Lins-she's-sh-she..." his stuttering trailed off.

"Trey, stop," I said. "Take a breath. I can't understand you when you're stammering like that."

Over the phone, I heard him take a deep, shaking breath. The wheeze in his exhale sounded like someone was sitting on his chest, crushing a lung, but when he spoke again, minus the stutter, the tremor of fear in his voice was still there, "Bells, it's Lins."

I heaved a sigh and flopped on the pink floral futon in my room. "Yes, I got that part." It was always about Belinda when it came to Trey too. "What's wrong with my big sis now? You know, as the younger sister, I'm supposed to be the troublemaker, not her. It's my right!"

He didn't acknowledge my sarcasm when he spoke again, "She's gone, Bells."

Trey's whimper made me pause, but then I shook my head. It was a routine between Trey and Belinda that I'd fallen for too many times. I'd gotten away from Belinda's life-sucking ways and my crush on Trey was ebbing. I was in Paris, studying and perfecting my art... I wasn't going to fall for it this time. I was finally doing something that I wanted to do. It was something and somewhere where Belinda didn't dominate everything with her overzealous personality and creepy hunting stories about the paranormal happenings she'd caught on tape. I was making it on my own, and Belinda's dramatics wasn't going to change the truth, a truth Belinda now knew too—that I didn't need her as much as she needed me.