Lyric drummed her fingers on the table, the sound calming her just enough to stop her from grabbing her emergency bag and running. He was late, as he had been every day of his life, even in the moments that counted.

Especially in the moments that counted.

Three quick taps against the blacked-out window made her roll her eyes. Of course he would come to the window.  It wasn’t safer, but it was infinitely more dramatic. She had half a mind to let him wither out there, clinging to the windowsill.

Standing, she took her time getting to the window before opening it just a crack. Eyes so similar to her own, yet missing the weight she carried, cheekily greeted her.

“Lyric! My goodness, it’s been far too long! Mind letting me in?”

She cracked the window open just far enough for him to enter, but not without significant difficulty. She wanted to relish the sight of him squirming through, but her stomach was beginning to churn and she couldn’t properly enjoy it.

“Cyril,” she acknowledged him coldly.

“Oh, c’mon, baby sister,” Cyril exclaimed. “You can’t still be mad at me after all this time, can you?”

Lyric said nothing, arms folded across her chest.

“Apparently you can. Okay. How long has it been? Fifteen years?”

Lyric’s shoulders tightened and she retreated to the kitchen counter, gripping the edge with both hands. “This isn’t a reunion.”

“You were, what, fourteen when you ran off? So yeah, fifteen years.”

“I saw Mom yesterday.”

Cyril finally stopped in his tracks.

“That’s– that’s impossible. Mom’s dead. We saw–”

“I know,” Lyric interrupted. “But obviously, we were wrong. Or– I was.”

She could practically hear Cyril’s eyebrows furrowing.

“What do you mean, you were wrong? I saw the same thing you did.”

“No.” Her fingers found the handle of a knife on the counter – just a butter knife, smeared with peanut butter, but it made her feel a little safer. “You didn’t. You saw her dead, and I saw her die.”

“Look, if you want me to apologize again–”

“Of course not,” Lyric scoffed, eyes narrowing. “Why is Mom still alive?”

Cyril shrugged, although his discomfort was still visible. “It probably wasn’t even her.” He doesn’t attempt to answer the question.

“That was my first thought,” Lyric replied. “But then I ran that night over again in my head. You remember it, don’t you?” She stared directly into Cyril’s eyes, while he looked anywhere else. He waited a beat too long before he spoke.

“I told you that she was downstairs and that I’d catch up. You killed her. I took the body away. You ran off, and I didn’t see you again. Until now. Happy?”

Lyric shook her head, refusing to let the tears fall.

“No, I’m not. I ran away because at fourteen I had become a murderer. Now at twenty-nine, I find out that my big brother lied to me.” A singular tear escaped through her eyelashes, blurring her view of Cyril’s elongated, flustered expression. “You never let me see her face, because you’d told her about our plan and you let her get away. It wasn’t her.”

“Please, let me explain–” He began to put his hands on her shoulders, but she grasped the butter knife and held it at his eye level.

“Do you realize now what you did? She knows what I meant to do.  I can only guess you told her. And now she’s here to kill me. So you’re going to be here when she comes, and you’re going to make it up to me.”