I Died to End Their Lie novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Since Tuesday

At two in the morning, I followed the only person in the house who wasn't crying.

I hadn't meant to follow anyone.

I had drifted out of the living room, away from my father sitting on the floor in a ring of photographs, and up the stairs.

Cade's door was shut, and a line of light showed under it.

I went through the wood.

It was easy, and I didn't think about how easy it was.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, fully awake.

His phone was in his hand.

The piano in the corner was closed, with the cover down and his competition music stacked on top.

He wasn't crying.

He had been crying in the morgue corridor, and in the car, and at the table that afternoon, in front of the detective.

Now his face was completely smooth.

He listened for a minute to the house below.

I could hear Dad moving in the living room, the soft slap of a photograph dropped into the box.

Cade stood and locked his door.

He sat back down and opened his phone.

I floated behind his shoulder.

His hands were steady.

He opened a folder of pictures, and the first thing on the screen was a photograph of a paper I knew.

The top said City Hospital, Hematology.

Under it, in black type, were the words Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

The date was Tuesday.

I had been lying on my hard bed that night with my face to the wall, and I'd thought no one in the world knew.

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