"Jazzy? I'm coming in." I knock softly on the door of the room my sister was being kept in. I had a bag of greasy fast food in one hand, and a chocolate milkshake in the other, courtesy of a quick trip from York.
I step inside cautiously, peeking around the door a little. She's on the floor, laying on a pad of blankets acting as a bed, her face turned towards me and her head resting on her folded-up arms.
She sits up as I walk in and close the door behind me, sitting crisscross applesauce.
"Is that for me?" She asks as her eyes lock on to the food I was carrying. I smile a little and nod and sit down on the floor in front of her.
"Thank God. I'm starving." I feel a pang of guilt at her words; I should have been
making sure she was being fed properly, making sure all her needs were being met. Just because none of us have to eat or drink, doesn't mean Jazzy doesn't. I felt like a shit brother.
Nevertheless, I was selfish enough to feel pleased when she took the milkshake and happily ate the whipped cream covered cherry off the top right away. She always did that when she was a kid, too. She'd even go as far to take mine. I always acted annoyed, like she was taking something precious from me, but I didn't even like them.
I open the bag and hand her a burger and fries and laugh a little at the way she's practically drooling.
I watch her dig in, remaining silent for the time being. I wasn't quite sure how to go about figuring out from her what I needed to know.
Aster had sent me in here to talk to her, try and get some more information out of her we could use to help get Henry back. He figured the best way would be to send in the one person here she knew and trusted and try to get her comfortable enough to open up. I'll be honest, I feel a little dirty, like I'm manipulating her. Especially since all my Reaper brothers had been giving me tips on how to best get her in a sharing mood.
But I have to try and get something out of her. For Henry's sake.
"Do you remember that time you dyed your hair pink?" I ask her, piercing the silence between us. She swallows her bite of food, and nods.
"Yeah. And mom was so pissed." She laughs a little. "She threatened to shave my head right then and there. She even got the clippers out."
I smile and nod. "And you came crying to me and she got pissed at me for harboring you, so I had to drag us both out of there."
"And we went and sat in that diner and got milkshakes." She says, smiling as she takes a drink of hers. "Yeah, I remember. Of course I do. I remember all the times you helped me when we were growing up." Her face falls a little, a sad expression taking it over.
I watched her for a second. "I didn't mean to leave you, Jazzy." I say finally. I can already see her lower lip trembling, and her eyes welling with tears. "I wasn't thinking. I got myself killed for someone I didn't even know, and your soul ended up being the one that was damaged the most from my decision."
"I-I was really angry at you." She sniffles as the tears drip down her cheeks finally. "People who had witnessed what happened all said the same thing: you had come out of nowhere, and pushed her out of the way, like some kind of hero. I kept thinking, that can't be right. I love you, but you're not the nobel kind of guy."
"Gee, thanks." I roll my eyes.
She sighs and gives me a look. "You know what I mean. You've always been very practical. Even when it came to fighting with mom and dad, you always made your moves carefully, in ways that wouldn't get you or me in more trouble. You always used to think about things so thoroughly, you never made rash, impulsive choices. I had such a hard time believing that you would sacrifice yourself for someone, especially when she ended up finding me, and told me you two didn't even know each other. I actually smacked the ever-living crap out of her the first time we talked." She chuckles a little, but it sounds bitter.
"Why?"
"I was so pissed off that she was the reason I didn't have my brother around anymore." She looks at me in the eyes finally, and I can see the true hurt and loneliness she had been feeling swimming in them.
"I'm sorry-"
She holds her hand up then. "I don't want you to be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. I realize that now. I should've let you go, I should've just forgotten I'd ever seen you that day. But I was still so hurt and angry, and I let myself be talked into things you would've never let me do." I feel another pang of guilt at the implication that if I had been around, she never would've gotten herself so tangled up in secrets she had no business being a part of. I felt so bad, because it was true. Not just because of the fact that if I hadn't died, she never would have had a reason to know any of this in the first place. And even if for some reason she had ended up mixed up in this bullshit anyways, we both knew I would drag her ass out of it before it could even really begin.
We're siblings. We never got along all the time, she pissed me off more than a few times, and I picked on her and teased her constantly. But she always knew if she needed me, I'd be there.
I sigh as I watch her wipe away the last of her tears.
What really sucks about knowing I'd do anything for her, is knowing that this time around, doing that means making her forget she ever even had a brother at all.