Slade: A Stepbrother Romance

by Sienna Valentine

  The front door to the center was, predictably, unlocked. We both went through, Slade first—neither of us had any idea of what to expect in here, and judging by how things had gone back at Kellan’s drug den, we had to stay on our guard. My brother might not be the only one here. Abandoned shitholes tended to attract drug addicts, I’d noticed.

  Slade guided me around a patch of collapsed ceiling and squinted up into the hole. Motes of asbestos fluttered through the air as the building settled. He shook his head. “Well, if he doesn’t kill himself, that stuff will get him just as well.” When he saw my look, he winced. “Sorry. I just…”

  “I know,” I said. For Slade, being an asshole was pure reflex, a defense mechanism. He was just as worried as I was. It was weird—I was starting to take comfort in him being a prick. It let me know how he was really feeling. “Come on, the room we want is this way.”

  We walked down one of the long halls flanked on either side by doors to what once were patient rooms. My stomach turned with each door we passed. Even though I’d only been here once, I could still remember that trip like it was yesterday: the bright, fluorescent lights buzzing and blinking above our heads; Mom’s pale, grim face, drawn taut around her lips; the orderlies and nurses meandering through the halls, not a single one of them in a rush—and why would they be, when your business is waiting for death?—and finally, the door we’d taken to Dad’s room, where we’d seen the waxy, jaundiced corpse trying to pass itself off as our father. Standing in front of it now gave me a chill that bit into my bones.

  Was that what was waiting on the other side for us now? Only this time, would it be my brother’s body instead of my father’s?

  Slade pushed the door open slowly, standing beside me with an arm across the threshold. We both peered into the darkness, past the dust and hanging cords, the moldy ceiling tiles, the assortment of rusted medical equipment still lying around.

  My heart threatened to burst. “Kellan!”

  My baby brother was lying on the floor on a stained mattress, curled up on his side in the fetal position. His eyes were closed, his face was pale, and his long, dark hair was a disheveled mess across his face. I couldn’t see him breathing. I clawed at Slade’s arm, trying to get by.

  “Kellan! Kellan, wake up! Kellan!”

  Slade pushed ahead of me, forcing me to hang back as he rushed to Kellan’s limp, unresponsive side. He knelt, pushing two of his fingers into Kellan’s wrist. After a moment, he did the same to his neck and his shoulders slumped.

  “Oh, God, he’s dead,” I sobbed, kneeling at my brother’s feet. “He’s dead…”

  “No,” Slade said, and I recognized his tone as relief. “He’s not dead. Pulse is weak and thready, and I can’t get one in his ulnar artery, but his carotid’s working fine. And he’s in the recovery position.” He pulled away Kellan’s hair—there were flecks of foam and vomit around his mouth. Slade said, “This is good.”

  “Good?!” I was practically shrieking, every cell inside my body burning up with the need to help my brother, to pull him into my arms, to chase all those bad dreams and feelings away until he was all better again. But Slade was in the way, preventing me from even touching him. “How the hell is any of this good?”

  “Because if he’d been on his back,” Slade said in a cold, clipped tone I knew was the doctor in him speaking, “he wouldn’t have made it this far. He would have aspirated. But by the time I get him to a hospital…” He paused, a flicker of something like recognition illuminating his eyes. He turned to me. “Where is the nearest hospital to here, Iris?”

  I was shaking, numb, and nauseous all at the same time. “Just under a mile,” I whispered.

  Slade grabbed Kellan. His muscles bulged as he lifted my brother—my very large, sturdy, well-built brother—over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, his head hanging down so that his hair drooped like Spanish moss. Although as big as he was, I could see that he’d lost weight in the last couple of weeks. He used to be bigger. He was becoming as strung out as the junkies that he’d been hanging around with so often lately. “Let’s get him in the car. If it’s as close as you say, I can save him.”

  I recoiled. “We’re not going to call 9-1-1?”

  “And wait fifteen minutes for an ambulance to show up to an abandoned building on the wrong side of town, if it even shows up at all? Kellan will be dead by then. We’ve got to take him to the hospital ourselves. I can save him, Iris,” Slade said again, looking into my eyes. “I swear to you, I can save your brother. But we have to go. Now.”

  Everything I’d ever heard or read or been taught told me to call 9-1-1 and wait, that Kellan shouldn’t have been moved, that the paramedics would keep him breathing on the way to the hospital and without their help, Kellan might not make it there. But Slade was a doctor—and if he was to be believed, he was one of the best. In my gut, I knew he was right. He could save Kellan. He would.

  “I’ll drive,” I said, pulling myself to my feet and racing out to the curb.

  Slade moved deceptively fast, even with Kellan’s weight bearing down on him. I got the back door open and he let Kellan down onto the seat, first on his ass, then on his side. Slade got into the backseat with him to monitor his vitals while I hurried into the driver’s seat and stepped on the gas.

  “Don’t brake. Don’t stop. Not even if a cop sees you,” Slade told me, and I obeyed. I wasn’t going to fuck around with rules when my baby brother’s life was at stake. Not today. Not ever.

  Goody two-shoes, my ass.

  That less-than-a-mile ride was the longest of my life. Slade directed me to pull into the emergency lane and “let the ambulances go fuck themselves” so we could drag Kellan’s body straight into the ER. I tossed my keys to the valet on the way in, and by the time I’d caught up with Slade, he was already shouting orders.

  “Got a twenty-year-old male, drug overdose, unresponsive with shitty vitals—gonna need some help, here.” Security approached and Slade sneered. “I’m Dr. Jarvis, I got this, okay? But somebody needs to get me a gurney and some goddamn nurses, stat.”

  Kellan was wheezing. His eyes fluttered for just a moment, long enough for me to see the whites. My breath caught in my throat. “He’s dying, Slade. His lips are blue…”

  “I got this,” he said, heaving Kellan onto a gurney as soon as one was wheeled through the doors.

  I could barely see my brother for all the people swarmed around him. Slade wasn’t even moving the gurney out of the ER lobby—he was issuing commands right there. Oxygen. An IV line. And something called Naloxone.

  “We’re losing him,” someone said. And that’s when the gurney moved.

  They were pushing my brother past the doors and into the hallway beyond. I tried to run after them but the security guard stopped me, holding me back as I screamed Slade’s name over and over again.

  The last I saw of them before they turned the corner was Slade kneeling on either side of Kellan on the gurney, his hands pumping my brother’s chest, beating his heart for him, breathing life into his lungs. I collapsed to my knees on the lobby floor, reaching out for Slade and Kellan long after they’d disappeared.

  Goddammit, Slade. Save him.

  ~ SIXTEEN ~

  Slade

  “It was a little touch and go there, at first,” the doctor explained “but I think that your stepbrother is going to be just fine, Dr. Jarvis. It was lucky you got him here when you did, or we might have been in a much tougher spot. Thankfully, we were able to get him a dose of naloxone just in time.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” I said as I breathed a sigh of relief, running a hand through my hair. Then I offered him a handshake, grateful that together, we’d managed to save my little brother, even if he did have a long road ahead of him.

  Dr. Kane nodded, returning the gesture with a tight smile on his face. I knew that look. I’d given it to patients’ families before. It was one that said, it’s not over yet, bub. Junkies—drug addicts—didn’t exactly have sterling re
putations with hospitals. Everyone was betting on a relapse, despite their hopes to the contrary.

  “We can send a counselor by your brother’s room after he’s feeling a little better to talk about any rehabilitation opportunities that he’d be interested in,” Dr. Kane said. “But I have to say, he’s lucky to have family like you to watch his back.”

  If only I’d acted like it sooner, I thought, watching as the doctor turned and continued on his way to attend to other patients.

  I stood out in the hallway of the Intensive Care Unit, watching nurses and doctors bustle by on their way to see to their very high-risk patients. Kellan had only just been downgraded from Intensive Care to Progressive Care, where he’d be receiving a much less rigorous form of medicine, one focused on getting him back on his feet. But as I stood there in what would normally have been a familiar setting for me, I felt like an outsider—a stranger in a strange land.

  If I’d never left, then none of this would have ever happened, I thought, rubbing my hand over my face to hide the grimace pulling at my lips. From the moment we’d found Kellan until now, I’d never realized just how scared I was at the thought of losing my brother—someone I’d abandoned just to get back at my father, and at a stepmother who’d never done anything but try to love me.

  I was an idiot.

  But now that I was back home with Iris and Kellan, maybe I could start making things right again. I’d already resolved to stay in town, especially now that Iris and I had officially gotten back together, but as I stood in that hallway I vowed that I’d make helping Kellan my number one priority.

  I owed it to him. I’d put him through so much—the whole family, even. I’d already let him waste too much of his life mourning over me when I wasn’t even truly gone. I had responsibilities here now, and I was going to take them seriously. I was going to make sure I was the big brother Kellan deserved, even if he was an adult now.

  I steeled my nerves and headed down the hall toward my brother’s room, where I knew Iris waited. I had no plans to leave my brother’s side until he was clean and back on his feet. I didn’t care if that meant I’d camp outside his room until visiting hours kicked in every day. From here on out, family came first.

  I stepped through the open door, closing it behind me as I turned toward Kellan’s bed. Iris was sitting beside him, just like she’d been when I’d left, except the look on her face was one of panic and frustration.

  “You!” I heard a familiar voice shout from the other side of the room. I turned my head, only to find my father standing there, his eyes narrowed in the most venomous glare I’d ever been given by anyone in my life. And I’m no stranger to venomous glares. Beside him was my stepmother, who looked only slightly less perturbed. But could I blame her, after what she’d heard?

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing back here?” my father said, the vein in his forehead bulging. “Don’t you think that you’ve done enough to this family?”

  “I didn’t do any of this!” I snapped, clenching my fists. Dad got to me like no one else did. Already, I could feel my face filling with color, the heat on the back of my neck flaring. I tried to take a breath, tried to calm myself down and come at my father like a rational, grown man, but he wasn’t giving me a reprieve. He started at me, held back only by Evelyn’s grip on his arm.

  “You’re responsible for all of it!” he screamed at me, pointing at Kellan. My younger brother just sat there, probably still reeling from the slurry of medications he’d been put on to fight the effects of the overdose of opiates he’d endured. Hopefully, it would also help to wean him off the stuff. “None of this would have happened if you had kept it in your pants—and away from your own sister!”

  “Oh, so we’re just throwing that around now, I see,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. Kellan didn’t need this shit. “And Iris is my stepsister. She’s not related to me. We’re not exactly blood. So don’t act like this is some big, soap opera-style scandal. We didn’t even meet until we were adults!”

  “It’s wrong, Slade,” my father said, jowls trembling as he vehemently shook his head. “And you know it. Which is exactly why you did what you did to her. I can’t believe I have to explain this to my own son!”

  “Gabe,” Evelyn said, looking up at my father. Her voice was soft and soothing, but firm, too. Lightly, she wound her fingers tighter around his wrist. “You need to calm down. Kellan’s still recovering.”

  But Dad wasn’t letting up. He lowered his voice, but the arguing continued until both of us were doing nothing but talking over one another. Gradually, it stopped being about who was right and instead devolved into who could scream the loudest and the longest. Iris had her face in her hands and Evelyn looked like she was about to slap the both of us. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I just couldn’t seem to keep my anger under control whenever my father was involved.

  “Enough!” Iris shouted, cutting in between the two of us, practically nose to nose with one another. My father and I were both red-faced and practically steaming with anger. I felt her fingers entwine with mine as she forced my father back away from me. “You need to stop—both of you!”

  “I can’t forgive him, Iris,” my father said, waving his hand angrily between us. “Don’t you remember what he did to you? He forced you to—”

  “No!” Iris cried, stopping him mid-sentence. “Slade never forced me to do anything that I didn’t already want to do.”

  “But—” my father tried to interject, but every time, Iris cut him off.

  “I wanted him! Don’t you understand?” she said, squeezing my hand tightly. “I was in love with him. He was everything I ever dreamed of. And I still want him, Dad.”

  My father’s jaw sagged. He stared down at me and Iris’ hands. “I don’t understand this,” he said, his voice beginning to falter.

  “Slade may have done a lot of stupid things and made a lot of dumb mistakes,” Iris continued, shooting a tepid glare my way, “but he never forced me to have sex with him. I was an adult when we got together, an adult who was more than willing to do the things we did. Maybe it ended badly, but that doesn’t make it assault. It just makes Slade prone to being an asshole, which I’m beginning to see runs in the family.

  “So next time you feel like telling anyone that Slade is a rapist—like you told Kellan—you’d better think twice. You are just as responsible for what happened with Kellan as Slade is, and it’s time you started owning up to it.”

  My father stared at her, mouth moving, but no sounds emerging from his throat. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he looked from her to Evelyn, who’d gone to Kellan’s bedside and was holding his hand. She gave him no quarter, only stroking Kellan’s hair and whispering softly to him as the rest of us raged on. Slowly, the color in my father’s face began to die away, leaving the faintest touch of pink where there had been a deep, shiny beet-red moments before. I knew that look—the way his gaze softened. He’d just realized what was actually important here. He knew Iris was right.

  “I was wrong for what I did,” I told him, unable to stand the thick, stifling silence that hung in the air. “I was angry that you’d found someone—someone to take Mom’s place.” I shifted uncomfortably as I stole a glance at Evelyn, who regarded me with a wary gaze. “It all felt like it was happening too fast, and I didn’t stop to think about how lost you must have felt without someone there the way Mom always was. I wasn’t being fair to you, and I left because in the end, I wanted to hurt you more than anyone else.”

  My father straightened, like he was physically taken aback by my confession. That wasn’t so surprising. I’d spent the past several years acting like a spoiled child. I don’t think he imagined this day would ever come.

  “It… means a lot,” he said slowly, blowing a gust of air through his nose, “to hear you say that.” I knew he didn’t like having to lay down his pride in order to make things right. Iris had a point—maybe this kind of hubris did run in our family. “A
nd I might not be happy with this,” he added, indicating Iris and me, “but maybe I can learn to accept it… in time.”

  It’s something, I thought, squeezing Iris’ hand. Warmth and comforted settled through me as she squeezed back.

  “But I’m warning you, Slade,” my father continued, making my guts coil with apprehension again, “this doesn’t erase the past. What you did to our family—how you almost ripped your stepmother and I apart—I haven’t forgotten that. Perhaps you aren’t deserving of the kind of hell I’ve spent years wanting to rain down on you, but I’m not ready to forgive and forget just yet. This is a process—one you can only complete if you don’t run away again. If you don’t screw up again.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, trying to swallow the defensive anger rising in my gorge. Dad was right, as much as I hated to admit it. I couldn’t just expect everything to end up all roses and sunshine now, just because I’d come back. Showing up was important, yeah, but I had a lot of bad behavior to make up for as well. I have to prove I can change. Not just to them, but myself as well.