The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(81)

She could not understand what she was looking at.

It appeared to be . . . a female with long red hair. Which was confusing, as she’d decided the Command was a male, a clear unconscious bias she was going to need to apologize to herself for later. But the sex of the figure was not the big issue.

The overriding problem was that her brain, for reasons she couldn’t understand, seemed to be extrapolating from the features of what was in front of her not just a resemblance to her dead sister, Janelle . . . but an exact copy. Right down to the cowlick next to the widow’s peak at her hairline. And the delicate cleft in her chin. And the arch of the brows, and the flecks of deep brown in the hazel irises, and the way the lips were slightly elevated on one side.

“You’re dead,” Nyx said hoarsely. “Why am I seeing—”

“Nyx?”

Hearing her name come out of that mouth was like a time machine. She instantly traveled back to before Janelle had been falsely accused and sent to prison, to when they’d lived together at the farmhouse, with Posie and their grandfather. And then she went back even farther, to before her parents had died. And farther back still, to when Nyx had just been out of her transition.

When she hit the last memory, it was with a slam: She saw Janelle holding Posie, right after their younger sister had been born.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Nyx whispered. “I saw your name on the Wall.”

“You . . . were the one who came in here.” Janelle—or the vision that appeared to be Janelle—shook her head. “You were the one. Who infiltrated us.”

Janelle put both hands up to her face, but she didn’t touch her cheeks. Her palms hovered there in midair, the fingers splayed out. Just like she had always done whenever she was stressed.

“It was you, then,” she repeated. Then she shook her head, that red hair shimmering in the light. “I don’t understand. Why did you come down here?”

“I was looking for you. I’ve been looking for you for fifty years.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Nyx frowned. “You’ve been incarcerated for fifty years for something you didn’t do. Why wouldn’t I look for you? I’m your sister.”

“I didn’t ask you to come after me.” Janelle’s voice got sharper. “Don’t put this on me—”

Nyx threw some volume into her own syllables. “Put what on you? The fact that I was worried about you? That you were lost and I was trying to find you? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I never asked you to come after me.”

“You didn’t have to! I’m your sister—”

“Not anymore.”

The dead tone to the words shut Nyx’s mouth. But not for long. “I’m not your sister?”

“Janelle is dead.”

“Then who the hell am I talking to right now?” Nyx went to rub her aching temple and winced when her fingers hit the place where she’d been struck. “Jesus Christ, Janelle, you’re in charge here, right? You’re the Command—so why don’t you just leave? If you’re the fucking authority, you can come home, come back to us. Why don’t you come home—”

“I don’t want to. That’s why.”

Nyx tried to breathe through the pain in her chest. “Why?” she said in a small voice. “Why wouldn’t you want to return to us?”

Janelle stepped back, but she left the door wide open. As she paced around the open area in front of the cells, the black robes drifted in her wake, flowing like smoke after her body.

As if she were evil.

Except that just wasn’t true.

“Janelle, come back with me—”

“Why the hell would I do that?” came the hard retort. “I don’t want to be stuck in that farmhouse, going nowhere, working minimum wage for the rest of my fucking life.” She stopped and looked over with a glare. “Please. What the fuck do I need that for. I’m better than that.”

“We’re your family.”

“You are what I left behind.”

Nyx shook her head. “You don’t meant that—”

“You don’t know me.” Janelle seemed to get taller, even as she stayed the same height. “I’m where I want to be, doing what I want to do. While you’ve been looking for me, I haven’t thought about any of you even once.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Like I said, you don’t know me—”

“I was there when you saved that horse from the flood. I patched the roof on our house with you in that snowstorm. You used to hold Posie in your arms and rock her to sleep right after she was born because she would only settle for you. Mahmen always said, ‘Give her to Janelle—’ ”

“Stop it.”

“‘—she’ll only fall asleep for Janelle.’ And after mahmen and dad died, you stayed up all day talking to me. You were the only reason I got through that—”

“Stop it!” Janelle put her hands over her ears. “That is not me!”

“It is!” Nyx rushed forward, to the point where she was almost out of the cell. “Let’s go. Let’s leave here together. You don’t belong here. You’re here under false pretenses. You were framed—”