Free Dark Legacy by Anna DeStefano Page A

me from what?” she repeated. “The…curse you didn’t want us to know about when we were kids?”
    “What?” Phyllis eyed Jarred as if he’d grown three heads. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Don’t worry about Dr. Do-good.” Maddie jerked her head toward Jarred. “He already knows more about our family than I do. He’s the one who found out where Sarah was. He already thinks what happened to her might have something to do with what’s happening to me.”
    Phyllis rubbed her hands over the sleeves of her conservative oxford shirt. Then down the front of the khakis that had been her uniform for as long as Maddie could remember.
    “Mom!” Maddie shrieked.
    “What…What does your doctor think he knows?” Phyllis asked.
    Jarred stepped closer. Pulled Maddie’s hand from where it was scratching her already-abused wrist.
    “Ms. Temple—”
    “Honey!” Phyllis rushed closer, her hands shaking as she reached for Maddie. She gasped at the angry welts on Maddie’s inner arm. “What have you done to yourself? That’s…that’s exactly what…”
    “Is this something your other daughter used to do?” Jarred asked.
    Maddie flinched away from her mother, but closer to Jarred. She hated that a part of her needed him standing between her and Phyllis. Filling her with enough of his presence that there was no hint of Sarah now. No drive to hurt herself or someone else. He pressed some tissues he’d found into her hand, then pressed both against her wrist.
    He was always pressing. Closer and closer. His touch. His…thoughts…
    You can do this, Temple. You can face anything. Trust me…
    Another nod of assurance followed, and Maddie felt her own tears start up again. He really was there, in her mind. Then his gaze slid back to her mother.
    “How bad did Sarah’s cutting become before her final breakdown?” he asked.
    “Cutting?” Phyllis’s gaze dropped to Maddie’s wrist.
    “It’s an altered form of coping for children and teens who can’t process the pain and emotion they’re enduring.” Jarred stepped closer to Phyllis, blocking her from Maddie’s view. “It can become a lifelong compulsion, if not halted soon enough. But it’s very rare for it to present itself for the first time in adulthood the way it has with Maddie. Every time she’s forced to confront her memories of Sarah, as a matter of fact. There’s often an emotional connection between twins that isn’t clearly understood. There are likely other parts of Sarah’s childhood behavior that might be blending with Maddie’s worldview, even after ten years.”
    “What struggles?” Phyllis tried to get closer to Maddie.
    Jarred blocked her with his body.
    “It’s better if you talk with me for now,” he warned.
    Then he tensed—Maddie’s first clue that she’d laid a hand on his back, near his shoulder blade.
    “This is between me and my daughter,” Phyllis challenged.
    “Which daughter?” Maddie managed to stay. “The one you abandoned, or the one you convinced that she wouldn’t end up in a loony bin herself. God, Mom!” Maddie buried her face against Jarred’s back. Her arms snaked around his waist until she could clasp her hands across his belly, giving in completely to her need to keep him close. “Why not just let me go, too, when you did Sarah? Why put us through all this? Why pretend I’m any different, if you knew it was hopeless from the start!”
    Jarred turned to Maddie. “It’s not hopeless,” he insisted.
    “You are different, honey.” But there was defeat in Phyllis’s voice. “You’re doing so well. And you’re going to keep doing well. That’s why…That’s why I’ve let them study Sarah for so long. I thought—”
    “Study her?” Maddie shoved Jarred away. She found herself backing Phyllis against the wall. “You turned my twin over to a research facility, because you thought, what? That they’d find a cure? That they could fix me, fix what’s wrong with us?