Brothers

by Helena Newbury

  When they finally decided to let me go, I introduced Louise. Carrick introduced Annabelle and Aedan introduced Sylvie. And then there was an awkward moment when Kian was left there on his own. “Emily can’t be involved in this,” he told me.

  “In what?” I asked.

  The others looked at each other. And that’s when I realized what Kian hadn’t told me on the phone. “We’re going after Bradan?” I asked. Even as I said it, I could hear a little more of the Irish coming through in my voice, the effect of being around them. “Do we even know where to start?”

  Kian nodded. “I might have someone who can help. We’ll need to go to New York. I’ve got a car that’ll take all of us.”

  But Carrick shook his head. “There’s something we have to do first, while we’re in Chicago.”

  Kian frowned at him, confused. Then I saw realization dawn and his face fell. “No!” he snapped.

  Carrick ignored him and turned to the women. “You girls okay grabbing a bite to eat together? We’ll be gone a few hours, then we can meet back here.” I saw Kian glare at him. Just like when we were kids, there was always a battle between them for who was leader.

  Sylvie shook her head and took Aedan’s arm. “I want to come with you.”

  Aedan put his hand on her arm and stroked gently down its length. “No,” he said slowly. “This is something we have to do alone.”

  “It’s something we don’t have to do at all!” said Kian, his voice jagged and bitter.

  I looked from one face to another. “What?” I asked, feeling stupid. “What are we talking about?” And then I got it and I felt my chest close up tight. “Oh.” I swallowed. “Oh, shit.”

  Louise pressed close to me. “What? What is it?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to quiet all the memories that were rushing up inside. “We’ve got to go visit my dad.”

  10

  Kian

  After years apart, you’d have thought we wouldn’t be able to stop talking. But the drive to the prison was almost silent, all of us caught up in our own thoughts. Through the windshield, I could see Carrick hunched over the handlebars of his Harley, powering through the gray morning rain. Beside me, Aedan sat in the passenger seat, staring out of the window. Behind me, Sean, looking out in the opposite direction. It was bitterly cold in Chicago and I had the heater going full blast but I couldn’t seem to warm up.

  I hadn’t seen my dad since the day I’d silently handed him the form to get parental consent to let me join the Marines. Aedan had muttered that he’d visited the jail a few times and I knew he was like Carrick: he didn’t blame our dad for what he’d done. Sean I wasn’t sure about but from the look on his face he was more like me: he couldn’t get past the sight of our mom lying on the kitchen floor.

  I understood why we were going. I knew Carrick was right: with all four of us only a short drive from the prison, we couldn’t not visit. Plus, we needed all the information on the cult that we could get.

  But that didn’t mean I had to like it. And this was going to be tough on all of us. I was meant to protect my brothers: was I doing that, by letting this happen?

  At the prison, we signed in, submitted to a pat down and then took our seats facing the thick sheet of Plexiglas, behind which sat a solitary chair.

  I looked around. Thick, unpainted walls, no sound or daylight from outside. Shambling men in chains, their spirits broken. Guards with batons in hands, waiting to hand out a beating at the slightest sign of dissent. And always that fear, the way the prisoners never stopped checking their surroundings, anticipating the touch of a homemade blade at their throat that would signal a quick death or the first quick stab into their kidneys that would signal a slower one. When I’d come here as a teenager to get him to sign my enlistment papers, I hadn’t taken in just how bad the place was.

  Good, I thought savagely, pushing back my sympathy. It’s what he deserves. I looked over my shoulder, towards the parking lot. I could go. Just tell them I’m not doing it, wait for them outside. But then I caught Carrick’s eye and he gave me a curt shake of his head. I glowered, hunched my shoulders and turned back to face the glass. I wished Emily was there. She was always good at calming me.

  And then he appeared.

  My stomach seemed to fall through the floor. I’d been ready for the anger, for the rage that had been burning in me ever since that day, but I hadn’t been ready for the shock of seeing him. For that indescribable feeling of being in the presence of absolute authority. That feeling only your dad can give you.

  More of his hair had turned silver but it was still thick and lush and he still carried most of his muscle. A quiet man but I had no doubt he’d been able to hold his own, even in this hellhole. We shared the same looks: everyone had always said how much we looked like him, Carrick and Aedan especially. Sean and I were meant to have a little more of our mom in us.

  He didn’t sit. He met my eyes: maybe he could see it coming before I did. But suddenly I was up out of my seat and turning towards the door, chest so tight it felt like it was going to explode.

  His voice caught me before I’d taken two steps. “Kian.” He had to shout to make himself heard through the Plexiglas and the whole room turned to look. The sound of my name rolled through me. I closed my eyes and I was a kid again. My dad had just come home from work and he was calling me to go outside and play and then we’d all run in for tea with my mom—

  My hands had formed fists. I stood there sucking in deep lungfuls of air, trying to calm myself.

  “Sit down.” That voice, the river of Irish silver that our accents merely tap into. Strong enough that some Americans had trouble understanding him, when he spoke fast. The sound of it could be fast and savage as an axe blade when you’d done something wrong, but soothing as a cold compress on your head when he told you he loved you.

  “...I’ve got nothing to say to you,” I managed at last, still not turning round.

  “You’ve got plenty,” he said.

  I whirled around to face him, mouth opening in a snarl. But when I saw the sadness in his face I just...stopped. A fierce anger had been burning inside me all these years, roaring higher every time I gave it the oxygen of his memory. Now the flames seemed to freeze in place, becoming ice and stone.

  He missed my mom even more than I did.

  My legs were shaking so I sat, taking the chair closest to the glass. And then, because I saw him doing the same on the other side, I picked up the phone. But I couldn’t look at him, had to focus on my own reflection in the glass or I was going to lose it completely. My brothers shuffled closer in their chairs and I held the phone’s mouthpiece away from my mouth so they could hear. But I couldn’t speak.

  “Talk to me, Kian.” The same voice he’d used when I messed up in school, or when I’d split up with some girl. He wanted to draw what was causing me pain out of me, even if it was so poisonous that it would hurt him.

  It boiled up inside: all my memories of her, all the memories I never got to make with her. All the times I’d needed a mom and didn’t have one, all the times in the future I’d want her and she wouldn’t be there. Emily. Our kids. They’d never even know her.

  “You took her away from us,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

  He leaned closer and I could feel his eyes on me, pinning me with one of his looks. “They took her away from us.”

  I finally looked up at him.

  “They took me away from you, too,” he told me, his voice thick with emotion. “Locked me up in this feckin’ place so I missed all of you growing up.” He glanced around at all four of us. “I missed...Christ, I missed everything. I don’t know who you are, what you’re doing, except Aedan, a little.” He looked right at me. “But I saw you. Saw you on TV. And I’m proud of what you did, Kian.”

  I felt something give and move deep inside me. The dam was bursting and the bigger the hole got, the less I could fight it. My hands bunched into fists, knuckles whitening where they held the phone’s handset.
My eyes were hot. And then I was up out of my chair, pressing towards him—

  And I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t hug him. There was no way to gather him into my arms and show him how I felt because all that was under my hands was cool, solid Plexiglas, scarred and misted by the fingernails of thousands of visitors who’d done the same. My dad and I stared at each other through the glass, both close to tears. I felt all the years pulling at me. God, he’d gotten old. He’d been stuck in here and I hadn’t even visited, not once, because I’d had so much anger. All this time, wasted.

  I looked into his eyes and nodded and he nodded back in understanding. It was all we could do. Then I moved back and Carrick took the phone. As I watched them, the anger came back, but this time the fire swirled and reshaped, forming a ring of iron around my heart, a resolve nothing could break. We were going to have our revenge for what they did to us. The cult was going down.

  Carrick and Dad had a long conversation, muttered and low, Carrick’s Irish accent thickening the more he talked. After a while, he placed his palm on the glass and my dad did the same. Like me, he was feeling guilty we hadn’t done this sooner.

  Then Sean. He was hesitant at first, turning away as I had done. But as they talked he began to nod, his lips pressed tight together. Then he suddenly stood and walked out, but not in anger. I could see him blinking as he pushed through the door to the restrooms, determined not to let it out in public.

  Aedan went last. Unlike the rest of us, he’d visited a few times but he still had a lot to catch dad up on. By the time he’d finished, Dad wanted to meet Sylvie...and Louise, Kayley, Annabelle and Emily. We all nodded but I found myself looking again at the cinder block walls, the orange jumpsuits, and when I looked back to Dad, he caught my eye and nodded. He wanted to meet them...but not here, not like this.

  I took the phone and sat down closest to the glass again. I had to take a few deep breaths and just get used to it for a moment: after so many years, not feeling that raw, hot anger when I looked at him or thought about him felt strange. Dad waited and then, when he saw my eyes focus, he asked, “Why now?” He looked around at the four of us. “Why come together now?”

  I took one final, slow breath. “Bradan,” I said. “We’re going to find Bradan.”

  Dad’s face fell. The hand holding the phone dropped to his side and when he spoke, it was through the Plexiglas.

  “No you’re fucking not.”

  11

  Carrick

  When he was angry or worried, Dad’s voice became a weapon, quick and razor sharp. When we were kids, it was always enough to pull us up short when we were about to run into the street or get into trouble with the law. Now, in a maximum security prison, it still cut through the air like a knife. He was surrounded by men who’d committed multiple murders, guys from street gangs right up to men with links to the mob. But that voice: granite-hard and coated in silver so cold it would freeze your skin...every man in the room glanced up and then studiously looked away. I saw the guards shift uneasily, ready to intervene but praying they didn’t have to.

  I stared at him, my mouth open. I’d thought he’d be pleased…. I took the phone from Kian. “We have to,” I told Dad.

  He shook his head. His skin had gone pale. God, he was scared—no, terrified.

  Terrified for us.

  “He’s out there, somewhere,” I said. “We’re not leaving him.”

  My dad’s chair creaked as he leaned forward and brought the phone to his ear again. “Listen,” he spat. “Listen to me. Those bastards took your mother from me. They took you away from me. They got me locked up in here. I’m not letting them take the one thing I have left.”

  “He’s our brother—”

  “HE’S MY SON!” Dad exploded up out of his chair, both fists slamming down on the table. His chair flew out behind and bounced off the wall.

  “Hey!” yelled a guard, one hand going to his baton.

  Dad stood there shaking and furious, his face inches from the Plexiglas. I took a deep breath and stared at him pleadingly, willing him to calm down before they dragged him away.

  I saw his hands grip the table as if he wanted to rip great chunks of wood out of the surface. Then he turned, grabbed the chair and sat back down, glowering at the guard. When he spoke, his voice shook with the effort of restraining his rage. “You have no idea what they’re like. How vicious they are. They’ll think nothing—nothing—of killing you and everyone you hold dear. Don’t do this!”

  I sat there staring at him, shell-shocked. Over the last few weeks I’d played this meeting out a thousand times in my head and it had never gone like this. I’d been expecting him to give us his blessing, to tell me attaboy, go get ‘em. I had to do this, to make things right.

  Stubbornly, I reached into the pocket of my cut and drew out a photo. Unfolded it and then smoothed it flat against the glass. Me, Kian, Aedan, Sean and Bradan as kids, arms around each other in a line, with dad beaming proudly behind us. It had been taken on a hillside just outside Belfast, just as the sun was setting. We’d been playing half the day, shins muddy and knees grazed from football and wrestling and chasing around.

  Dad shook his head and looked away.

  “Look at it!” I was struggling to keep my voice under control. I wasn’t angry with him, exactly: I just wanted him on our side. And I wanted to be wrong about the fear I saw on his face. Nothing, should scare our dad like that.

  He looked. I felt my chest tighten, praying this would be it, that now he’d support us. But instead he raised big, sorrowful eyes to Kian and me. “You two are the oldest,” he told us. “You have to look after your brothers.” He raised his chained hands. “I can’t do anything in here. I can’t protect you. You’ve got to do the right thing. You’ve got to let Bradan go.”

  He was so scared for us that he was prepared to give up on his missing son. My stomach lurched. For the cult to scare a man like our dad that much, they had to be far more dangerous than I’d thought. What the hell am I leading us into?

  A few hours later, we were back at the airport. The ride back gave me a chance to think. From the look of Kian’s face in my mirrors, he was doing the same thing. I knew we needed to talk but, when we arrived back at the terminal, I saw something that made me forget all my troubles for a second.

  I’d been worried about the girls. I mean, Annabelle had only met Sylvie a few times and Louise didn’t know either of them, but we’d just sort of dumped them together and run off. I’d gotten it into my head that it had been one long awkward silence since we’d been gone.

  But when we found them, they’d taken up residence in a booth of a diner, one of those places where the Americana is cranked all the way to eleven. They were munching fries and hot dogs under a Route 66 sign while waitresses in striped shirts brought them cocktails. They were all chatting away happily and looked as if they’d been friends for years. They didn’t notice us and all four of us stopped for a second at the edge of the open-plan restaurant to just...look.

  Annabelle first, of course, her pale skin gleaming under the perpetual twilight of the diner’s mood lighting. I wanted to slide my hand deep into that silky red mane and draw her to me, kiss all the way down that elegant neck.

  Facing her, Louise, her copper hair equally eye catching. And all those curves…. She put me in mind of some medieval maiden, some wench all the knights would bring roses to. I wouldn’t say any of that to Sean because he’d think I was going soft. But it was easy to see why he’d fallen for her.

  Then Sylvie, small and slender with a quick, urgent energy, the perfect counterpoint to Aedan’s brooding and raw power. She grabbed your attention and you didn’t want to look away and with those pert little breasts and tight ass…. I flushed, feeling bad thinking it because she was my brother’s girl, but damn, I bet she was a handful in bed.

  All three of them were gorgeous. I mean, obviously Annabelle was the best but...I said out loud what I knew all of us were thinking. “We all did bloo
dy well.”

  Sean and Aedan grinned. Too late, I remembered that one girl was missing and quickly looked across at Kian. He was smiling gamely but he caught my eye. “Wait ‘till you meet Emily,” he told me firmly. I nodded.

  The rest of us embraced our women and then we took over a second booth beside the first and joined them for dessert and coffee. The waitresses did a double-take at the weird mix: me in my biker gear, Kian in his suit, Aedan in his hooded top and Sean in his tank top and jeans.

  None of us had slept the night before and we all needed to refuel and recharge before whatever was next. Food and caffeine made me feel better but what happened at the prison was still going around and around my head and I caught Aedan and Sean looking at Kian and me. Just like Dad had said, we were the oldest and they were looking to us to lead.

  While we waited for the check to come, I pulled Kian into a quiet corner of the restaurant. “What do we do?” I muttered. It was the first time I’d questioned my plan since I’d settled on it, way back in Haywood Falls. “Dad was...he was scared.”

  Kian nodded. “He’s not the only one. I talked to the President about the cult, too.”

  My brow knitted. “You told the President about—”

  “He told me. He knew all about them. The cult’s bigger than we thought, much bigger. And they’re into everything: they’ve got people in the police, the FBI, the courts. He said the same as Dad: they’re dangerous. They kill people who mess with them.” He looked towards our table. Annabelle was splitting a huge fudge brownie sundae with Louise. Sylvie was devouring a stack of pancakes bigger than her head.

  My heart suddenly ached like someone was squeezing it in a vice. I was happy, dammit. I’d finally found a woman I loved and I had the sort of peace I hadn’t even been able to imagine a few months ago. And it seemed like Kian, Aedan and Sean were the same. When I’d set off to find Aedan, it had all seemed so simple. But now, looking at my brothers...what if we went after the cult and not everyone made it back alive? Bradan might already be dead. I could get all of my brothers killed for no reason. I tried to imagine explaining to a grieving Sylvie, or Louise, or Emily.