by Lissa Kasey
I jolted upright, eager to get out of the rain. He held the door for me. I thought about punching him, yelling at him or something, but instead I entered the apartment and put my phone on his kitchen counter.
He closed the door. I could feel his eyes on me, but the room blurred. I shivered as the air-conditioning cooled the rain drenching my skin and clothes. Lukas reached out for my shoulder and turned me to face him. I wanted to be mad, rage and scream out all my frustration, but he wrapped me up in his arms and hugged me tight while I sobbed into his shoulder. The stress of the flashback always fucked with my head, making it hard to know which way was up. I was floundering, and that meant I said and did stupid things.
“I’m sorry,” I kept saying over and over, although I wasn’t sure what for. Being me, maybe. It wasn’t the first time he stood witness over my tears. Hell, not even the hundredth time. It was what Lukas did, took care of me. And man, I felt so bad about that, about always being a burden to him.
“Can we talk about it?” Lukas asked after a while.
I pulled away. “About what? All the lies?”
“I have not once lied to you.”
“Like you found me a job working for Micah, but I’m not really?”
“I said working with Micah. With, not for. It’s not my fault if you don’t hear what I say to you. He does all the business management. Makes the schedules, does all the training, and you’d call him if you were too sick to go in. I simply own a large virtual share of his shop so he can stay here. I actually thought the two of you would be a good fit.”
I glared at him. “How are we a good fit? An ex-porn star and a broken toy soldier? We couldn’t be more different.”
“Don’t give me that self-pity bullshit. You’re only as broken as you allow yourself to be.” Lukas said. When I started to interrupt, he held up a hand. “No, we’re not debating this again. You think you’re crazy. I don’t agree.”
“Seeing shadow men tear apart your entire base isn’t crazy?”
“No,” Lukas said flatly. “Do I understand it? No. Do you? No. Do you need to understand it to heal? I don’t think so. What you need is to accept that there are things out there that defy explanation. Encountering them doesn’t make you crazy. It might make you confused, but not crazy. You focus on that because of all the damn therapists. That’s why I insisted on a new one when I brought you here. Someone who focuses on changing how you react to things rather than how you perceive things. Do you understand that?”
“I don’t know…” I answered honestly. “I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
“Right! They did that to you with their drugs and supposed therapy. Telling you to question what you saw, what you felt, what you knew, telling you it’s all false. I think you see shit fine, but then you go and panic if you think what you see might not be the norm. There’s no prize for being normal, Alex. If there is even such a thing as normal,” Lukas said. He ran his hands through his hair making it stick up in ways I knew would drive him nuts if anyone else were to see. “I’m so tired. From the job and dealing with all your stuff.”
“I never wanted to be a burden to you.” I’d actually thought I’d be in the military for life. It was easy following orders day in and day out. Breaks between were hard, when I had to find ways to socialize and have so much down time, I didn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re not a burden. Fuck. I don’t know why you didn’t show up on my doorstep the day you got out. No, I had to find out almost a year later you were in a psych ward after mom and dad were asked if they wanted to take over your care or give up your freedom. You’re not a kid. You’re not nuts, and they were going to lock you away forever. No crime committed. Why would you let them?”
“It felt safer there.”
“Safer from what? Yourself? Us? The world?”
I shrugged, not really having the answer to that.
Lukas sighed. “You need someone. Not me, not mom or dad. You need someone to take care of and to take care of you. I wanted you to have someone, something, to focus on. Micah is a good fit.”
Was he nuts? “You’re trying to set him up with me? Not only a job, but like a relationship?”
“Physical attraction is a good start, and I know you’re already attracted to him. Plus you have a lot in common.”
“Like what? We’re both nuts? We both hear screaming in the dark?”
Lukas frowned. “Huh? When?”
“At his house at three a.m. He told me to go to sleep because if I thought too hard about it, the screaming would get worse. Does that sound like someone you want me with? Someone who might be as crazy as I am?” And that was the kicker wasn’t it? I’d had a few moments of thinking maybe we did have that in common, not in the same way, but something from his disappearance that changed him in a similar way that I’d been changed. Our eyes opened even if we didn’t want them to be.
“I thought two lonely people might find something in common,” Lukas said.
“He doesn’t seem lonely to me. He has Sky, Tim, and Brad for starters.”
“Whom he keeps at arm’s length.” Lukas shook his head. “He may be sexually uninhibited, but he’s very careful with his emotions. A good showman, but rarely giving anyone a true look at what he’s feeling. Always has been, even before… And the disappearance only made it worse.”
“You knew him before?”
“Not really. The Micah you meet now is very different from the little boy who went hiking with his boyfriend and vanished in the woods. Brad is more like Micah was. I only knew him because Micah and Tim volunteered at the gay youth center. That’s where I met Sky too, though she wasn’t a volunteer, she was a kid in need. But that was after… the search. It was tough you know?” Lukas said.
He sat down hard on the couch, and I sank to the floor at his feet. “We all responded to the search, nearly every cop in the state. Combed the area for weeks, going through it over and over again. Nothing. Not a damn trace. People don’t just vanish like that. Not in a forest.”
“Micah said everyone treated Tim really badly.”
Lukas nodded. “Of course. He was a suspect. Micah’s boyfriend, older by a decade, and collecting money for a porn channel starring the young, hot, and barely legal boyfriend? Plus being gay put him on a lot of old cop’s radars. But nothing fit. It was the middle of the day. The group was together. They turned down a bend, Micah at the back of the group since he wasn’t used to hiking, and he was gone. No clothing, tracks, or anything left behind.”
“He says he doesn’t remember it.”
“Same song and dance he’s been telling for years.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“I think he remembers more than he’s willing to share, but since what he remembers doesn’t make sense…” he deliberately paused, “he hides what he does remember. I went with Tim to collect him from Reno. He came home and the whole thing seemed to start all over. Everyone asking questions, demanding answers. Micah was thin, missing his shoes and socks, but wearing the same clothes he’d vanished in. It was bizarre. He was treated like a criminal for vanishing, and everything fell apart. Him and Tim’s relationship, the channel, the money, and he was on the verge of having to go home.”
“That was a bad thing? He made it sound like his parents were supportive.”
“Of their kid being a porn star? Is anyone? If he went home, he’d have to become a teacher like his parents or find some other trade. Honor is still a real thing in Japan. Especially family honor. I’ve met his father, he’s very traditionally Japanese. Micah is really creative and a bit scattered. He was doing one of those cosplay boudoir channels when he met Tim online. Making his own costumes and posing in sexy ways for paying fans. He doesn’t do that anymore, but he has new projects all the time. Those are the things that make him happy, not technology and rule books set by family expectations.” Lukas looked at me. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
“I’m not crafty at all,” I said, thinking
back to Tim’s comment about how Micah found time to do all that stuff. Candles, shawls, blankets. The loft craft area made sense when I realized that Micah used it to make things to sell in his shop. He said it was stress relief, and maybe part of it was.
“Right? ‘Cause who built the tree fort out of those old barn pieces?”
It had lasted a couple summers. I was surprised he remembered it as we’d been kids.
“Then there was that Comic Con you went to when we were teens? The one where you became Optimus Prime by taping together and painting cardboard boxes? And who can dissect any weapon and put it back together in new and interesting ways? Do I have to remind you of a letter you wrote about receiving a reprimand for reconstructing pieces from broken weapons into the parts to fix a coffee pot?”
“Coffee is essential,” I said. The Optimus Prime thing had been inspired even if it had broken the first day and I’d spent the entire con weekend gluing parts of it back together.
“My point,” Lukas said, “is that you’re just as creative. Mind always working, thinking, analyzing. I think that’s why the rules of the military worked for you, as you could follow orders and still let your mind wander. It was a job that didn’t take you away from having the freedom to think. Not everyone can do that. You needed someone else to set the rules so you could actually commit to them. Now you need another project, and maybe you haven’t found your craft yet.”
“You make me sound flighty.”
Lukas looked at me incredulously. “No way? You think?”
“Asshole.” Okay, I was a little flighty.
“Tell me about these noises?”
I shrugged. “Started off sounding like some weird monkey. Then like an animal screaming in pain. I didn’t see anything when I left, but I was sort of in a mood.”
“Your flashbacks make you snippy,” Lukas agreed. “But at least you realized it sooner this time.”
“I will have to apologize to Micah. And I already quit, so I guess I’m back to the unemployment center again.”
“How about you talk to him? Tell him that you were being a whiny bitch and really do want to work with him.”
“I said not nice things.”
“I’m sure he’s heard worse.” Lukas sighed. “You know after he came back,” Lukas waved his hand like all the details were out there but he didn’t want to rehash them. “Was found, or whatever. He’d moved into a tiny apartment not far from here, and called in a report of hearing screams. Early morning. A half dozen callouts over the next few weeks and no one found anything. The cops joked that his place was haunted. There’s a lot of joking like that in this city. Other’s commented that his disappearance had made him crazy, hearing shit in the dark and all that. He moved; same thing happened. He stopped calling the police. No one else ever heard what he did, but I checked in, even stayed over a time or two to see if I’d hear anything.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
“But everywhere he lives he hears screaming?” That made no sense.
“I don’t think it’s always the same. It doesn’t even happen every night anymore. When I stayed, he woke me up when he heard it, but nothing else happened. I didn’t hear it at all.” Lukas rested his head on the back of the couch for a minute to stare down at me. “Sky’s heard stuff when she stays with him.”
“And you believe Sky, but not Micah?”
“I believe all of you,” Lukas said. “How many times do I have to tell you that I believe you. Not that my belief changes anything. Would I have seen the same things you did? Probably not. That guy Timothy, that Micah used to date, stayed over a million times at Micah’s, says he’s never heard a thing. Does that mean Micah is lying? Or is he just experiencing something that not all of us have access to?”
“I’m so confused right now.”
“Yeah I get that, and emotionally drained. I can see it on your face. You don’t manage stress well. I thought that this job would be low stress, some bullshitting customers and walking around the Quarter. Easy peasy.” Lukas said.
“I didn’t plan for a dead body.”
“No one ever does,” Lukas said. “How about you take a shower and get dry. You’re shivering like a leaf. There’s bacon in a bag in the fridge, maybe make yourself a sandwich. You’re still so thin.”
I wrapped my arms around myself feeling a lot like that homeless guy stuck in the ward that Lukas had come to see only to get mad because he thought they weren’t feeding me. “I’m okay.” Okay, that was a lie. “I should apologize to Micah.”
“He sent me a text. I was wondering when you’d make it back home or text me. He wanted to make sure you were okay. Said you seemed very upset and he was really sorry that he caused you all this trouble.”
“Um, I’m pretty sure the trouble started on my first day of work. Coincidence?”
“Or perhaps the meeting of two powerful forces in the universe.”
I glared at Lukas. “When did you get so corny?”
“I think it was in the fourth grade when you told me you had a crush on Hayden Louis and were so mad that he was dating Sherry Matthews. You wanted me to try to date her so she wouldn’t date him anymore. We pretended for months that Sherry was dating me and Hayden you. I got really good at roleplay and corny lines about how Hayden thought your eyes reflected rainbows or some bullshit.”
I gaped at him. “How do you even remember this stuff? What about this morning? You were supposed to pick me up,” I reminded him. “Convenient time for your memory to stop working.”
“I thought you’d be sexing up the porn star.”
I wanted to. Badly. “I don’t think we fit.”
“Use more lube.”
I choked on my own spit trying to find a reply to that.
“Hey you said you woke up twice… once in the middle of the night and then this morning, but didn’t mention another flashback.”
“Because I didn’t have one.”
Lukas looked me over, his gaze telling me a thousand things at once. “You came up swinging the entire first week you were here. Flashbacks nightly, the next morning a bear. Unfamiliar place, I think you told me.”
“I’d just gotten out of a mental prison,” I said and shrugged. “I was a little messed up.”
“And one night with Micah and no nightmares, flashbacks, or waking up cussing all of humanity?” Lukas quirked a brow at me.
“It doesn’t mean anything. I was tired. Had a stressful night.”
“Yep,” Lukas agreed while his posture said he knew I was being purposely obtuse. “Which usually makes you worse.”
“What do you want me to say? That there’s something about him? That he told me go to sleep and I did? That his presence relaxes me?” All while turning me on. And wasn’t that all pure truth. Fuck. “What about you and Sky? Maybe we should prod at that relationship for a while.”
Lukas laughed. “Right, ‘cause you have room to give me relationship advice? Go. Shower, food, and once you’re human again we’ll talk. Fuck, I’m so tired. Maybe we both could use a nap.”
“Don’t we need to talk about the case?”
“No. I’m not lead detective on it because you’re involved and the department is a little pissed at me.”
“Why?”
“Because while Micah was wrapped around you to keep you from getting shot, I was standing in their line of fire. Not all cops are that jumpy, but there are a handful that would rather have shot you and worried about the consequences later. Didn’t matter that you weren’t actually a threat to anyone. We need de-escalation training back, badly.”
I stared at Lukas wondering in that moment how I’d been so blessed and cursed to have a brother like him. Protecting me from death and setting me up with an ex-porn star of whom I used to be a fan was something special. And his deviousness knew no bounds.
“Detective McKnight is very professional, by the book, and careful. He’s had no complaints against him that have stuck, and does seem to get the answe
rs we need. Did you tell him everything you saw?” Lukas asked.
Not really. As I didn’t talk about the shadow at all. “Mostly,” I admitted.
Lukas narrowed his eyes. “What did you see?”
I threw my hands in the air. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it and as you so often point out, I don’t need to understand it.”
“But what did you see?”
“A shadow,” I said. “It reached for Micah. I pushed him away and it hit me instead. That’s when I blacked out.”
“Was this the same type of shadow as what you saw in the desert?”
Was it? No. This had been less defined. Weaker maybe? Or just different. “No. I don’t know how to explain it. I mean there were some similarities I think, but it felt very different… weaker, I guess.”
Lukas sighed and said, “But you didn’t see the body, right?”
“No. Not that I can recall. Just the animals…” That was enough of a bad memory even as vague as it was. At least all I’d seen had been a glimpse.
“Good. I’d rather you not have that as fodder for nightmares.”
“I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies in my life,” I defended.
“And how many of them still give you nightmares?”
A lot actually.
“That’s what I thought,” Lukas said, obviously reading the expression on my face. “Forget about bodies, focus on your new job.”
“You want me to sleep with the cosplay boy toy.” My body agreed with that idea too.
“Yep. You know you want to. Plus if you’re both weird, what could be a better fit? Go shower, you’re a hot mess and have nothing to show for it.”
“I’m not weird,” I said as I stalked to the shower thinking a thousand uncharitable things about my brother on the way. Lukas’s only response was to laugh. Bastard.
Chapter 11
We actually ended up in his bed, which would have sounded kinky except that as twins we’d always been that way. Curling up together, even as teens. It wasn’t sexual, more a comfort thing. Lukas needed sleep, and I needed to rest my brain in the safe proximity of someone I trusted. He told me he texted Micah that we’d both be taking a few hours of reprieve from peopling. I hadn’t planned to actually fall asleep. Instead, lying beside Lukas, with my eyes closed and meditating, focusing on pushing aside the negative and focusing on numbers. Which is why I fell asleep.
