by K. L. Savage
“Come on, follow me. I’ll take you upstairs.” Zain locks the door and then turns off the porch light. “We’re going to go see Porter.”
“He is well today,” Apollo says, flipping a page of a thick book that seems to be a thousand pages.
I’d die trying to read that.
“If he’s related to me, he isn’t well.” I shrug off my jacket and hang it on the coat stand next to the shoe rack.
Zain bends down and kisses the top of Chloe’s head. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m going to make popcorn. You want some?” the blonde rises from the couch and sniffles. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her hair is a tad bit greasy.
“Make loads,” Zain says, licking his lips. “I love popcorn.”
“I’ll help you, Goldie.” A guy with stich crossings across his lips lays a hand on her hip.
“Thanks, Zipper,” she whispers.
He stares at her adoringly. They don’t kiss, but I can tell they want to. Why doesn’t he just claim her? Own her. Show her who she belongs to.
Instead, he guides her toward the kitchen, and she wraps the baggy brown cardigan tight around her waist.
“Ready?” Zain asks.
I whip out my knife. It glitters in the light of the living room. “As I’ll ever be.”
Apollo sighs on the couch, then licks his finger before flipping a page. “Violence fixes nothing but love changes everything. Remember that, Tongue.” His voice is calm and calculated, with a tinge of boredom and annoyance that he had to give advice to me.
“Well, maybe violence should be my answer when love fails me,” I snap.
He closes his book and turns around, placing an arm on the back of the couch, then bends his knee as he lifts his leg from the floor. “Do you choose to be oblivious, or has oblivion chosen you?” he asks.
What the fuck?
“Maybe tell Daphne you said love fails. See what happens when her heart breaks. Love has not failed you. It has found you, but you choose violence instead. You will be the ruin of your own future. The destruction of love by using your violence will be your deepest regret.”
“Come on or Apollo will keep giving you words of wisdom to live by. See you in a minute, Apollo,” Zain says, waving his hand as he walks away.
“I’ll be here, and when I’m right, you’ll thank me.” Apollo spins around and opens his book again, places a finger on the page, then drags it just below the sentence as he reads.
Interesting man.
His words find a way to the inside of my head, and I think about them as I follow Zain down the hall. We take a right down a dark hallway. Apollo is right. Love hasn’t failed me. It did a long time ago, but it hasn’t now in the present. I might get what I want from others, but I get what I want and need from Daphne.
Love failed me once, but damn it, it’s brought me back to life.
And the more time I spend with Daphne, the less bloodthirsty I become. It’s hard to change the core of who I am, when my core is damned and shredded. With one look, just by existing, Daphne is healing me from the inside out.
Let’s face it, the inside of me is way more fucked up than the outside of me will ever be.
I keep my knife out and at the ready. I don’t want Porter to try and get the best of me.
“Sorry it smells like paint. We just painted the hallway a few days ago, and the fumes will not leave, even with the window open.”
“These rooms are nice,” I notice to my left.
The metal doors to each room are open and they don’t look anything like the crazy room I imagined in my mind. They have big beds, hardwood floors, and fashionable rugs.
“They used to be the rooms the doctors kept patients in back in the 1900s. I figured I wanted every room as nice as it can be, just in case we get more people who need a place. I wanted it to feel like a home as much as possible. There are some areas that aren’t cleaned up yet but were used for the same purposes. Downstairs are the padded rooms, and the rooms upstairs are like the rooms here, but sparser. I don’t trust Porter not to hurt himself.”
“I don’t know why you have faith in him.”
Zain stops climbing up the steps and looks over the meat of his shoulder. “The same reason people have faith in you.”
“People don’t have faith in me. Faith isn’t a real thing. They either trust or they don’t. One person trusts me.”
“Sometimes, one person is all it takes, isn’t it? One person to make you look at the world differently?”
Damn, this fucking crazy house. Everyone is twisting my words and throwing them back at me. I rub my hand through my wet hair, stopping on the steps just below the one Zain is on. “Let’s just go.” I’m more confused than I have been in a long time. Do I give Porter a chance? Do I forgive him for everything he has done? I don’t think I can. Burying me, coming after me and attacking Daphne, I’ll never forgive him.
“I’m going to go. This was a mistake.” I pound down the steps and Porter’s voice echoes down the hall, making me pause mid-step.
“Come on, Wayne. You’ve come all this way.” He sounds so much like me, it unhinges me a little.
I twist my body to the left and peer into the darkness above the staircase. There’s a faint glow to the left down the hall, but it isn’t enough to illuminate the staircase. I want to know how he knows about me and I never knew about him.
Despite my better judgement, I haul up the steps and grab the rail, swinging myself around to the left. Zain softly pads up the staircase behind me. The light flips on to my right, and Porter is there sitting on his bed, reading a book.
Reading a fucking book. Casually.
The bastard. He learned to read and here I am struggling.
“Hey, baby brother,” he greets me, shutting the book and placing it on the nightstand next to his bed. He stands, placing his hands on his thighs as he pushes off the bed. He strolls toward me, wearing a white t-shirt and black sweatpants that do not have strings to tighten around his hips. He’d probably strangle himself or find a way to strangle someone. He lays his hands on the glass. We stare at one another. We’re about the same size, but I’m a little taller.
His eyes are brown and as I tilt my head, he tilts his in the same direction.
We’re too much alike.
“Oh, little brother, my, oh my, how I feel like I’m looking in the mirror. How are you doing?”
I slam my fist against the glass and curl my lip.
“You’re doing good? That’s great. Me too. How’s Daphne doing? She’s a strong little thing. I’m happy for you to have found such a strong woman.”
“Don’t you dare say her name after what you’ve done.”
He lifts his hands off the glass, the heat from his palms leaving oily prints against the window. “No harm. I am sorry for what I did, for what I’ve done. I hated you. I still kind of do, but I think it’s because you got the life I never had.”
“Got the life…” I repeat back to him, stunned by what he thinks. “You know nothing about my life!” I roar, hitting the glass as hard as I can. Cracks like spiderwebs run along the surface. “You have no idea what I went through.”
“I did you a favor!” he roars, banging his own head against the glass. He’s rabid, untamed, and a primitive killer.
Just. Like. Me.
Fuck.
We are alike.
I stumble back and Zain catches me before I lose my footing. “You did me a favor? What did you do? How did you know about me? I knew nothing about you.” I go to charge again, but Zain holds me back. It’s a failed attempt. I swing him off me without breaking a sweat. He hits the end of the hall, smacking his back against the wall.
Porter pouts. “Aw, Tongue so mean hurting the nice man. Careful, he’s my friend.” He sighs, lifting one leg and balancing on the other. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and whistles. “I guess we deserve to know each other, don’t we? Since we will be seeing so much of each other soon.” He dro
ps his leg to the floor, then sits down, cross-legged, right in front of the window. I could punch it one time and tackle him. Kill him like he deserves to be killed.
But then I think of Reaper and why he has been keeping Porter alive. It isn’t because he doesn’t want to kill him. He chooses not to.
For me.
Maybe he cares about me after all.
“Sorry, Zain,” I whisper, throwing the man a bone.
“I’m staying here to make sure you guys don’t kill each other. Porter is my friend.”
“Hear that?” Porter puffs out his chest, then jabs his finger in the middle of it. “I am someone’s friend.”
“You’ll never be mine,” I sneer.
“Oh,” He scoffs. “You wound me.” But there.
I see it.
The flash of vulnerability that he and I both seem to hide so well.
What’s beneath the violence, Porter?
And why do I fucking care all of a sudden?
I sit down on the floor, wishing I had something to drink in my hand. I want hard whiskey, the cheap kind; the kind that burns and unsettles my stomach. The kind that rips apart the back of my throat. Sipping something smooth and expensive is enjoyable.
And this moment is not.
I mirror his position, right on the other side of the barrier. What would life have been like if we hadn’t been brought into the life we were dealt. What if I could have had a brother, and he could have been there for me? What if he existed and my uncle never touched me? Would I be the same man I am today? What if we had grown up together and were close?
All the what ifs, all the what ifs that don’t matter because now we are on opposites sides of the glass.
“Porter? Stop with the taunting and just talk,” Zain warns as he walks behind me. “I’m going downstairs. Hopefully if you guys fight, you kill each other, so I don’t have to worry about killing the one that lives.” His footsteps are quiet since he is barefoot, and the stairs creak as he walks down the steps.
I lay the knife next to my leg. Porter follows the movement, then grins when he sees it. “Well, I’m proud. Little brother comes prepared.”
“Stop calling me that. We both know you hate me just like I hate you.”
The mockery on his face is gone, and I’m not sure if I believe his sincerity. “I did hate you, for a really long time. I wanted to take from you, Wayne. I wanted to take, take, take, until nothing was left for you to live for. I was jealous. So damn jealous, and mad at you. Mad at you for existing, mad at you for not knowing you, and mad at her.” He doesn’t look away from me as he starts to speak.
“Her?” I ask, watching an orange tabby cat jump from the top of the dresser in his room and onto the floor. The fur ball struts toward Porter and purrs, rubbing his body against his side.
He scratches under the cat’s chin. “Our mother.”
“I don’t remember much of her.”
“Good. She was a lying whore. There isn’t much to know.”
I bang my fist against the glass again, causing another crack. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She was a good mom. She—”
“She was with my old man for a long time, you know. The president of an MC. She was one of his whores at first.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like I’d ever tell you a lie. The truth always hurts more than a lie ever does, baby brother.”
I grit my teeth and any good memories of her I had start to tarnish. “I don’t remember her much. She died when I was young.”
“I know. I killed her and your dad,” he says nonchalantly, leaning back on his hands.
The blood drains from my face and my hand curls around the knife. “What did you just say?”
“That little accident you were in. All of you were supposed to die, but only she did, and that man—”
“My father!” I slam my shoulder against the glass. The damn thing holds more than I expect it to. I try again and again.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
But it won’t give.
“He was a good man!”
“Wayne, do you know nothing of them?” He scoots closer to the glass. My mind is whirling from the shock of his words. He has to be wrong. I know my parents. I know… I know…
Fucking damn it, I don’t know anything.
“Your mom married my dad and got pregnant with me. They lived happily ever after for a while. Dad was a real asshole and hit me every chance he got. She fucked around a bit. Dad didn’t care if she slept with other members. She got passed around. Then Dad died on a club run and she finally took that as the escape she needed, so she left. She left me behind. Me. Her own son, to start another family. And then you came along.” He curls his lip in disgust. “I followed up with her the best I could, watching this family build themselves in suburbia.”
I don’t remember living in the suburbs. I don’t remember much before my uncle. It doesn’t sound like the kind of life I’d live. Look at me. I don’t look like I mow the lawn every Sunday and play golf with the guys every Wednesday.
“Come to find out, your dad wasn’t so straight and narrow. He loved drugs. He worked for a cartel, smuggling all sorts of good stuff over the borders, which the MC loved by the way. Our mom knew.” He continues to pet the cat with gentle stokes. I expect him to stop and to wrap his arm around the cat’s throat and choke it to death, but he doesn’t. He seems as though he loves the cat.
I didn’t think such evil was capable of such a thing, but I suppose the same could be said of me.
“I came to visit once.”
I jerk my head up from where I was staring at the cat, fighting… tears.
Of anger.
Nothing else. If this fucking glass wasn’t in my way, I’d kill him.
“What?”
“Yeah, it’s what kind of made me spiral out of control.”
“You’re lying. Mom would have never let you leave. She would have welcomed you—”
“Tell me, Wayne. What do you remember of Mom?” he folds his hands in his lap. “I want to know. You were a kid. I’m a little older than you, remember? I think I know more.”
As much as I want to argue with him, he is right. Gritting my teeth until they might crack, I study the groove in the wood framing the window. Rings upon rings, which tell me the wood they used is older. It’s a beautiful piece of wood.
“You don’t remember much, do you? And what you do remember, I bet if you’re wondering if you’ve made it all up in your head. Listen, baby brother—”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t give a fuck about me being your brother.”
“I didn’t use to. I had a vendetta to grind, that’s for sure. I’ve had a lot of time to think in here. Zain makes me take my medication and I’ve leveled out. I’m not perfect, but I’d like to try…”
“You said you visited?” I force him change the subject. I’m not trying to get emotional with him when he is nothing but a liar.
He seems hurt that I don’t want him to continue his confession, but it would fall on deaf ears. He nods and clears his throat. “I did. I had been watching you guys for some time, and I decided I wanted answers, the same way you want answers now. I wanted to meet my baby brother.” He gives a low chuckle as he stretches his neck to the side. “Don’t look so surprised. I wasn’t always like this. I knocked on the door and no one answered, but I heard you crying. You were fucking wailing, so I checked the knob and it was unlocked. Man, you lived in this typical fancy rich house. Two stories, white picket fence, the works.”
I still find that hard to believe.
“Anyway, I turned the knob and I let myself in. It was unlocked because every person leaves their house unlocked when you’re in a safe neighborhood. You were in the middle of the floor. Dirty like you hadn’t bathed in days. You had a diaper on, even though you were too old for one. The house reeked of meth, and you were probably crying because of the drug you were in
haling. I saw that and realized I had all the answers I needed, especially when I saw them passed out on the couch, naked. They couldn’t even hear you. I went to take you, you know. I was going to get you out of there. I had no idea what kind of life I could give you, but it had to be better than the one you were living. A neighbor came over and caught me and threatened to call the cops. I had to get out of there. I regretted it for a long time, but then the regret turned to hate. This deep hatred. I blamed you for ruining her.”
I probably did. I ruin everything I touch.
“I had to kill them for so many reasons. Her for turning her back on me, him for corrupting her, you for being involved, and because it was the only way to save you. I found you there and thought, ‘I can still save him. I can still figure out how to bring him peace.’”
“Peace?” I choke out. “You have no idea what your actions did to me and what kind of life I lived after that. Maybe they were everything you said they were, but at least they weren’t my uncle. Who I had to go live with, by the way,” I shout at him, slamming my hand against the glass again. Even though it is cracked, it still won’t budge. “Do you know what he did to me?”
I hit the glass again, wishing it was the memories I could shatter, then rip my shirt off and spread out my arms. “He burned me with cigarettes. He scarred my tongue. He raped me,” I roar in a broken guttural shout. I ball up my fist and punch again, causing a crack in the glass to spread further. “Over and over and over and then again.” With every word I slam my fist into the glass, throwing my whole weight into it.
Images of everything Justine did to me send fear clawing through my gut. I get up off my knees and slam my entire body against the glass wall. It shakes in an empty vibration from the weight of me but doesn’t allow me inside to strangle Porter. “I wish you would have killed me in that accident. I wish you would have.”
“Wayne,” he gets up off the floor and shakes his head. “I’m not perfect. I never claimed to be. I’ve done fucked up, unforgivable things. I never expect you to trust me. I never expect you to be my baby brother, but I want you to know I’m trying here. I didn’t know about your uncle. I’m sorry.”
