The Other Brother

by Brandon Massey

  Indeed it was a struggle just to stay coherent. But he hadn't forgotten Isaiah's promise of torture, and averted his gaze from the red toolbox sitting in the corner. He didn't want to know what terrible instruments it might contain.

  Listening to Theo's plea, Isaiah paced back and forth in front of him, his boots creaking across the floorboards. He had put away the gun. He held Theo's Rolex in his right hand and gently fingered the band. His actions perplexed Theo, but, then again, Isaiah was not exactly dealing with a full deck. His boy was crazy as a wood lizard, as Theo's mother liked to say.

  Nevertheless, he had to talk him out of this.

  "You're a smart young man," Theo was saying. "You've got your entire life ahead of you. You don't need to ruin it by doing something like this. I ... I can help you, son. Since you came to me, I've been trying to help you"

  "Who said I want your help?" Isaiah said. "When Mama and I needed you, you weren't there. It's too late to be offering help now. We're past that shit."

  "It's never too late to change course. Did I ever tell you about one of my VPs? Thomas Robinson. He didn't graduate from college until he was thirty-five, went and got his MBA, and didn't show up at our office until he was fortyone, and he has one of the sharpest business minds I've ever-"

  "I don't want to hear one of your rags-to-riches stories, all right? None of that pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps bullshit! You ain't Booker T. Washington, man" He glared angrily at Theo.

  "No, I'm not," Theo said softly. "But I know your potential. You can do great things, can accomplish something wonderful. When I look at you, I see a diamond in the rough. All you need is a little polish, a little time, and the world can be your oyster."

  "My oyster?" Isaiah scowled. "I hate oysters. Damn things taste like snot"

  "Bad analogy." Theo thought quickly. "The world can be like that Chevelle of yours. You can drive it wherever you want. All you need to learn are the rules of the road."

  "Like my Chevelle?" Isaiah smirked, but something in his eyes seemed to stir. He looked away.

  Theo's heart picked up speed. He dared to hope that he was touching a sympathetic nerve.

  Isaiah slipped the Rolex on his wrist. He admired it as though imagining what it would be like if he'd purchased the luxury watch on his own with legitimately earned money.

  "The world can be yours," Theo said.

  "Give me a motherfucking break, Pops. It's too late for me "" Isaiah threw the watch across the room. Wiping his eyes, Isaiah went to one of the windows and peered through the blinds. His shoulders trembled.

  I've gotten through to him, Theo thought. Now if I can talk him down, maybe I can convince him to let me out of here.

  "All yours," Theo said, close to a whisper. "I can help you. It's my duty to you, as your father, to help you reach your fullest potential. I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to say this, but I'd like for you to accept my offer."

  Isaiah didn't respond. He rubbed his chin.

  "Son?" Theo asked, worry creeping into his voice. Isaiah's mood had changed.

  Isaiah turned away from the window and strolled to the corner. He retrieved the watch from the floor. Dusting it off, he grasped it in one hand, running his fingers across the crystal face.

  "I don't want to talk about this anymore," Isaiah said. "Why don't you talk to Mama?"

  "Huh?" His son had truly gone off the deep end. Naomi, may she rest in peace, had been murdered months agoironically, in a gunfight that Isaiah had likely provoked.

  Then a voice from the grave spoke from behind Theo.

  "Hey, baby. Did you miss me?"

  An icy wind seemed to blow through the room.

  Shuddering, Theo looked over his shoulder.

  Naomi Battle, resplendent in her youth and beauty, smiled at him.

  Chapter 60

  C ruising slowly on the curving mountain lane, Gabriel passed by the mouth of the driveway that led to the cabin.

  He saw, through the dripping trees and shrubs, a white van parked in front of the house. Electric light, mostly masked by blinds, glimmered from one of the bedroom windows.

  Isaiah and Pops were still in there.

  Rolling past the driveway, he pulled to the muddy shoulder of the road. He parked far out of view of the house, under the wide arms of an elm. He hoped that he had the element of surprise on his side; he couldn't risk Isaiah checking out the window and seeing his jeep.

  Gabriel turned off the engine. He looked at the shotgun on the floor beside him.

  This was the point of no return. Once he climbed out of the Xterra, he couldn't turn back-not without forever seeing a coward when he looked in the mirror.

  He took Dana's makeup compact out of his vest pocket. He passed it underneath his nose. Her sweet scent clung to it, making his pulse run faster.

  He prayed that he would see Dana again.

  He snapped open the case to reveal the small mirror. He had turned off his link with Isaiah, so he saw only his own face reflected in the glass. But he wondered if Isaiah had psychically tuned in to him, saw him sitting there in the jeep, and was prepared to tangle.

  It was a risk he had to take.

  As tongues of lightning tasted the fringes of the mountains, Gabriel slipped the compact into his pocket, grabbed the Mossberg by its sling, and opened the door.

  The rain had subsided to a slow drizzle. But the sky, swollen with thunderclouds, kept a lid of premature darkness on the day. That might be to his advantage.

  He quietly closed the door. The soft thunk still seemed loud to him.

  No other vehicles or people were on the road. He might have been the only man alive.

  He pulled an Atlanta Braves cap low on his head, went to the back of the jeep, and opened the trunk.

  The cargo area contained a bag of brand-new golf balls and a set of clubs. He'd been keeping them in there in anticipation of playing golf with Pops sometime soon.

  He loaded his pockets with several golf balls and then closed the cargo door.

  Crouching, he crept into the woods on the same side of the road as the cabin. The forest was thick, damp, and fragrant. Armadas of bugs buzzed around him, bombarding his face, and he swatted them away from his eyes and slogged forward. He headed in a direction that would carry him toward the side of the cabin that housed the lit bedroom.

  During the last leg of his drive Gabriel had hatched a plan of attack. His ultimate goal was to rescue Pops without risking his father's life. His best chance of accomplishing that objective was to draw Isaiah out of the cabin. It meant that he and Isaiah would have a showdown in the forest.

  He couldn't think of anything else. If he attacked Isaiah while he was inside, Isaiah could hole up in a room and use Pops as a hostage. The crazy asshole already had demonstrated that he was willing to hurt Pops to make a point. He had to get Isaiah out of the cabin. Only then would he be able to deal with him.

  He didn't want to kill Isaiah. He just wanted to slow him down, disable him, perhaps. If he could shoot Isaiah in the leg, or blast Dana's pepper spray in Isaiah's eyes, it would incapacitate Isaiah sufficiently for Gabriel to assume control of the situation.

  Branches snapped beneath his shoes. He cursed under his breath. He didn't want to make any sounds that would alert Isaiah to his presence before he wanted to make himself known. He advanced more carefully, placing each footstep with maximum stealth.

  Through the trees and shrubs, the cabin came into view. He glimpsed the twinkling light in the bedroom.

  What was Isaiah doing in there, anyway? Was Pops okay? Alive?

  Gabriel's anxiety prevailed. He slipped the makeup compact out of his pocket, snapped it open, and gazed into the mirror.

  I want to see Isaiah....

  Chapter 61

  id you miss me, baby?" 1' -

  / Naomi, looking as beautiful and youthful as when Theo had first met her thirty-some years ago, seductively wrapped her lithe arms around his neck. She slithered onto his lap. She wore a tight-fitting black dre
ss as though ready for a night on the town.

  "Huh?" Theo blinked rapidly and repeatedly. Naomi is dead. How could he be seeing her so young and alive?

  She even smelled like he remembered from his youth. She wore a spicy fragrance, like jasmine.

  Isaiah must have slipped him some kind of hallucinogen, though Theo didn't recall Isaiah puncturing him with a syringe or feeding him anything. But a drug was the only explanation. Naomi could not possibly be real.

  However, he felt her weight on his lap, felt a feathery, tickling sensation as she traced her fingers across the back of his neck, could feel even her warm, minty breath on his face.

  She was so real that he'd forgotten all about Isaiah. The boy had retreated to the shadowed corners of the room, Theo's Rolex glinting in his hand.

  "Talk to me," Naomi said in the low, throaty voice that had seduced him the first time he'd met her. "Ain't you got something to tell me after all these years?"

  Although Theo worried that talking to this illusion would give it an even firmer toehold in his mind, he found his lips forming words.

  "I ... I don't know what to say," he said. "You look so ... so young"

  Her smile bent into a frown. "That all you got to say to me? After what you did?"

  His heart slammed.

  Naomi dug her fingers into the meat of his neck. Her nails felt like talons. Pain sizzled down his spine and fanned through his shoulder blades.

  "Ain't you gonna apologize to me?" she asked. "Don't you know what you did to me and my baby, you sorry nigga?"

  "I was married!" Theo shouted. "You knew that when you met me. I told you from the beginning that we could never have a life together"

  "But you left us. You living the good life down in Atlanta, kicking up your heels with your family, and we was starving. We might as well been dead to you"

  "That's not true," he said.

  She rose off his lap. She brushed off her dress as though being close to him had soiled her.

  "Ain't no excuse for what you did," she said. "You wear them nice suits and use big words, but you just like all the other ones. A low-down, dirty dog"

  He couldn't argue with her. In fact, he shouldn't argue with her. She wasn't real. In essence, he was arguing with his own guilty conscience.

  "My baby here, he all growed up now." She smiled with pride. "You left him, but he made it. My baby's a survivor."

  "I want to help him," Theo said. "He's lost his way, and I take the blame for that. I want to help steer him in the right direction."

  Naomi sneered. "He don't want that. He came to take care of your sorry black ass. He promised me he would."

  "Before you were gunned down-a situation you were dragged into because of him?"

  "Fuck you!" Isaiah exploded out of the shadows. "I didn't kill Mama. You did!"

  Naomi vanished as quickly as an image cast by a film projector. One moment she was there, fuming; the next heartbeat, she was gone.

  Isaiah thundered forward.

  "I didn't mean that," Theo said. "I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry-"

  Isaiah punched him in the face. Theo's head rocked sideways and he tipped backward in the chair. The chair lost its balance and he crashed against the floor, landing hard on his shoulder, agony biting deep into his body.

  Salty blood flooded his mouth, clogged his windpipe. He spat it out, sucked in a gasp of air.

  Isaiah leveled the gun at Theo's head.

  "Don't you ever say that again," Isaiah said.

  Theo spluttered. "I'm sorry."

  Glaring at him, Isaiah turned and walked to the toolbox in the corner. He dug inside.

  Whatever he was getting out of there, it would mean trouble for him, Theo thought. A minute ago his heart hadn't seemed capable of beating any faster-but now it whammed against his rib cage at a more frenzied rate than ever.

  Isaiah returned. Theo squinted at the small, pistol-like device in his son's hands. Was that a ...

  "Taser gun," Isaiah said. "You ready for fifty thousand volts of electricity to snap, crackle, and pop through those wrinkled veins of yours?"

  "Don't continue this." Theo was panting. "Whatever lesson you're aiming to teach me, I've learned, I swear it."

  "I'm not trying to teach you anything. I'm doing this be cause I want to see you in pain. This is punishment for what you did to us "

  "Please, no-"

  Isaiah pulled the trigger. Two probes, trailed by wires, zipped from the gun's muzzle and hooked on the front of Theo's shirt.

  And then the agony began.

  Chapter 62

  C azing into the makeup compact's mirror, Gabriel had once again seen enough.

  He closed the mirror with a loud clap and stuffed it into his pocket. Pops had made some terrible mistakes, had mistreated Isaiah, but he didn't deserve to be punished like this. Isaiah had gone way too far.

  Adrenaline flooded Gabriel's bloodstream, tightening his muscles, quickening his pulse. He was thankful that he hadn't called the police.

  Because he wanted to handle Isaiah himself.

  Power popped across his hands. But there would be no need to use his talent against Isaiah. Instead, he doublechecked that the shotgun was loaded and ready to fire. He had not fired the gun since last fall during a hunting trip with Pops and some family friends, but he was a good shot, with reliable aim from a respectable distance.

  Gabriel scrambled through the wet, clotted underbrush. As he drew closer to the cabin, moving in a circle around the perimeter of the property, thunder bellowed through the woods, the rumble echoing Gabriel's booming heartbeat.

  He found a spot to hide. Near an immense pine tree, about twenty yards or so from the cabin's front door. Hunched between the pine and a thick grove of shrubs, he had a line of sight to the porch and a partial view of the bedroom in which Isaiah was performing his sick deeds.

  Now he had to draw Isaiah outside.

  He dipped his hand into his pocket and grasped a golf ball. Focusing on one of the front windows, he flung the ball toward it.

  The ball fell several feet short of the window, bouncing into a heap of leaves and twigs beside the porch steps.

  He fished another ball out of his pocket. He threw it.

  The ball hit the window with a loud crack!

  That'll bring the asshole out of there.

  Gabriel lifted the Mossberg to his shoulder, slid his finger to the trigger, and waited.

  Chapter 63

  -,rack! -d j

  Isaiah was in the bedroom standing over his father, who twitched on the floor like a crack head suffering a serious jones, when the noise rang out from the front of the cabin.

  "What the fuck was that?" he asked no one in particular. It sounded as though someone had broken a window with a rock.

  He retracted the Taser's electrodes. His eyes rolling drunkenly, saliva foaming from his mouth, teeth locked in a grimace, Pops's limbs continued to spasm. He'd been thrashing so hard that he'd loosened the ropes that bound his ankles and wrists to the chair.

  Isaiah hated to be distracted from his quality time with his dad. But he had to investigate the noise. It could be the police. Or Gabriel.

  Whoever it was, God help them. Isaiah was in no mood for nonsense.

  Turning from his father, Isaiah went to the toolbox and dropped the Taser inside. He retrieved the Glock, ensured that it was loaded, and jammed another magazine in his pocket. He headed toward the doorway.

  "Be back soon, Pops," he said. "Sit tight."

  But Pops was unconscious, a puddle of spit spreading on the floor underneath his head.

  Isaiah's suspicions were correct: one of the living room windows was cracked. A spiderweb of fractures spread outward from a small rupture in the glass.

  Someone had done this deliberately. It could have been a bunch of kids playing pranks, but he doubted it. He'd been living in the cabin for a week and he'd seen fewer than a dozen people moving around the mountain paths near the house, and none of them had been child
ren.

  Intuition told him that Gabriel was responsible.

  Isaiah moved down the short hallway to the bathroom. He popped inside and looked at the mirror.

  At first he saw only his own reflection. Then he concentrated on seeing Gabriel, thinking maybe he could summon the vision on demand.

  Several seconds later he was rewarded with a clear view of little brother.

  Gabriel was hunkered between a tree and some shrubs. Dressed in a camouflage vest like a black Rambo, he had balanced a shotgun on his shoulder.

  "You must think I'm stupid," Isaiah whispered. "Think I'm gonna walk outside to check out the window so you can pop me? You gotta be better than that to smoke the kid."

  But he had to give it to Gabriel. His little brother had balls, coming up here like this, all alone. It was stupid, but brave. Isaiah could respect him for that.

  All the same, he had to take care of Gabriel once and for all. It was time to show little brother what the real world was all about.

  Isaiah smashed the butt of the Glock against the mirror. Shards fell away from the frame and clinked into the sink. Being careful not to cut himself, he picked up a crescentshaped sliver of mirror. It would help him keep tabs on Gabriel.

  He darted into the kitchen. At the far end of the room, a door gave access to the backyard.

  Isaiah opened the door and slinked outside.

  Chapter 64

  ' - idden between the pine and the bushes, shotgun held at -the ready, Gabriel waited for Isaiah to emerge from the front door.

  About a minute or so after he threw the ball, he saw a faint shadow move behind the broken window-as though Isaiah was assessing the damage and he tensed his trigger finger, expecting Isaiah to storm onto the porch, a perfect target. But after another minute, nothing had happened.

  "Damn," Gabriel said. "He knows something's up"

  He fumbled out the makeup compact. Focused on seeing Isaiah in the mirror.

  "Shit"