Brothers

by Helena Newbury

  I shut my eyes. I’d always been taught, ever since I joined the military, that in a crisis calm people live, panicked people die. I knew I had to think. But I honestly didn’t see how any amount of being cool and rational was going to get us out of this one. They had us. They had the girls. We didn’t have a single person left on our side.

  This is all my fault. If I hadn’t let Sean and then Carrick convince me to put the family back together. If I’d listened to the President, or my dad, or Calahan. Everyone had tried to stop me taking this path, everyone. Now we were all screwed: for what? To find a guy who’d turned out to be a hundred percent loyal to the cult. We’d thought we were rescuing him but the Bradan we’d known died a long time ago. I’m so stupid!

  I kicked the bars with the side of my boot, which did nothing except make them rattle. In the silence that followed, Sean said, “Louise is pregnant.”

  We all turned to stare at him. Sean just nodded. We hadn’t misheard.

  So many emotions welled up inside me. My youngest brother: the first of us to be a father! Jesus, I was so proud of him: he’d found an amazing woman, gone straight, saved Kayley, settled down. He was going to have a family!

  And then I remembered what they did to families, in Aeternus. By the time the child was born, Sean and Louise would willingly give it up, just as our mom had given up Bradan.

  And it was all my fault.

  54

  Louise

  The man was in his fifties with thinning gray hair. He had a kind smile: he reminded me, more than anything, of a dentist. It was unnerving, that someone so unthreatening could be so evil. He isn’t, part of me insisted. He’s no more evil than Sylvie was, when they brainwashed her. He was just some normal guy they’d sucked in.

  But that didn’t help me, right now. “Please,” I said as he sat me down on the bed. “You can’t give me a drug. I’m pregnant.”

  He blinked just once, taking that in. Then he nodded. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s just something to help you relax.”

  Except he wasn’t that good of an actor. He’d probably initiated hundreds of people, had it down to a fine art. But he’d only had to deal with this problem once or twice and I caught the flicker in his eyes. The flicker that said, shit.

  The flicker that said, well, that’s sad.

  I erupted off the bed. “Nooo!”

  “It’ll be fine!” he insisted, pushing me back down. But he knew now there was no hope of convincing me.

  “No!” I knew there was no one to help me, no one who could come. But I kicked and screamed for all I was worth. I had no leverage, though, with my hands bound, and he easily wrestled me until I was sitting on the bed with my back against the headboard. Then he wrenched my chin up. “Open your mouth,” he said.

  I saw the pills in his hand and my stomach contracted in fear. I clamped my jaws shut as hard as I possibly could, hysterical, now, tears filling my eyes.

  The door opened and Bradan walked in. “Problem?”

  “Not if you get her mouth open,” said the man holding me.

  Bradan straddled my kicking legs, pinning them to the bed, and then gripped my head. I thrashed and twisted, hair lashing at his face as I tried to avoid looking at him. But his hands were like iron, locking tight around my skull and slowly turning it. I clamped my teeth together as hard as I could.

  He put his thumbs at just the right place, either side of my jaw, and pressed. My jaws opened an inch. Tears were streaming down my face, now. I wanted to beg him but I couldn’t speak.

  “Pill,” said Bradan with terrifying calm.

  I tried to press my lips together to seal the opening but then the other man’s fingers were pulling them apart and—

  I felt three flat, chalky pills slide onto my tongue. I bucked and twisted, knowing this was my last chance, but they had me held tight. Then a bottle of water was pressed to my lips and my whole head was tipped back. My mouth filled with water and I was coughing and choking, trying to find the pills with my tongue, fighting my own swallow reflex—

  I felt the pills slip down my throat.

  They let me go and I fell on my side, coughing, water spraying from my lips. I pulled up my legs and pressed my stomach with my knees, trying to force myself to be sick, but nothing happened.

  Bradan got up to leave. The other man sat down beside the bed.

  “How can you do this?” I sobbed. “They’re your brothers!”

  Bradan turned and stared at me for a second, frowning. And then he left and closed the door.

  55

  Bradan

  I closed the door behind me, leaving the sobbing, red-haired woman on the bed. But I didn’t let go of the door handle. I stood there in the hallway frowning, the lie that she’d told me echoing around my head.

  It wasn’t the lie itself. Outsiders will say anything to try to draw us away from The Group. But down that dark hallway in my mind, I could hear the memories banging on the other side of the glass, and….

  I swayed a little on my feet. And they sounded the same as the lie.

  I stumbled down the stairs. I suddenly needed some air. I passed the tree, blackened and scorched from the fire, and had the front door open when I saw something on a side table. Someone must have dropped it there since the fire, or it wouldn’t have survived.

  I picked it up. It was a photo of five boys together, in their early teens, all of them with black hair and blue eyes. I didn’t recognize them, at first, but then I squinted and started to see familiar lines in the cheekbones, the chins...if it had been only one of them, I wouldn’t have got it. But the faces of the biker, the fighter, the criminal and the one in the suit gradually emerged.

  Four brothers.

  Who was the fifth?

  The noise from behind the glass was growing, becoming deafening. I stood stock still in the hallway but, in my mind, I was retreating further and further back into the darkness, hands over my ears. No!

  I stared and stared at the photo. I could hear Mr. Pryce—dad—telling me to stop but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  In my mind, I heard the first crack as the glass began to break. I backed frantically away into the dark. Another crack. A hole opening up. Voices. Boys. A woman. An older man. A father.

  Deep in the dark, I fell to the floor and threw my arms protectively around myself, covering my eyes and ears.

  The glass shattered. A million tiny jagged shards of pain dug into me, opening me up. And waiting behind the glass was an ocean of memory. It swept over me, filling my lungs. I was drowning in it.

  I locked up. I just stood there like a statue in the hallway, staring at the photo, my eyes unfocused.

  And without thought, all that was left was instinct. I couldn’t process, couldn’t make decisions. But I knew there was something I had to do, right now, or it would be too late.

  I turned and marched up the stairs. Threw open the door to the room where I’d left the red-haired woman. The Guide who was going to initiate her looked up in irritation from his chair. “We haven’t even—”

  I hit him as hard as I could. He and the chair tipped back and he crashed to the floor, out cold.

  The woman was lying sobbing on the bed. I rolled her over, took a knife from my pocket and cut the zip tie binding her hands. Immediately, she turned away from me, leaned over the side of the bed and stuck two fingers down her throat. When she’d brought up the water and the pills, she slumped on the bed in relief.

  The door banged open again. One of the other Guides ran in. “What the hell is going—”

  I turned and he met my fist coming the other way. He went crashing back against the wall and slid to the floor. I looked down in surprise at my hand. I couldn’t explain where the anger was coming from: I didn’t even know what I was doing.

  I heard the final two men pounding up the stairs to investigate. I strode out of the room and kicked the first one under the chin just as he reached the top of the stairs. He fell backward and toppled the other one and toge
ther they crashed all the way down to the bottom.

  And then I just sat down on my ass at the top of the stairs. Whatever instinct had been driving me, it had just run out.

  I was only dimly aware of the red-haired woman squeezing past me, her eyes wide and fearful, and running downstairs. She returned with scissors and started going from room to room. The other women appeared, together with the teenage girl and the man who’d fought me. They all slowly approached me, staring into my eyes.

  But all I could do was stare blankly back at them. Everything I’d been suppressing since I was a kid was flooding out and I was sinking deeper and deeper beneath the black surface. It wasn’t just the memories of my family. I’d learned to lock many other people behind that glass wall: all the ones I’d hurt or killed. And now they were all rushing towards me, an endless black tide, screaming in pain.

  My mind sought for something, anything, to shut it off. The truths of Aeternus, the gorgeous simplicity of Beautiful Order: they were like a huge, heavy stone door under my hand. All I had to do was push it closed and the flow would stop. Everything would be back to normal. I placed my palm on it….

  But I couldn’t bring myself to push. It felt wrong. Those voices inside me had to be heard.

  And so I immersed myself in it. I let it all sweep over me and carry me deep, deep down, and I stopped being aware of anything outside my own mind.

  56

  Sylvie

  “I think he’s locked up,” I said. “Catatonia...or something like it.” It was unnerving, seeing the guy who scared me so much just...sitting there. “What happened?”

  “I told him who he was,” said Louise.

  “You think he didn’t know?” asked Kayley.

  “He was in the cult for years,” I said. “God knows what lies they told him.”

  “And now we...broke him?” asked Alec. “By telling him the truth?”

  “Or he’s processing it all,” said Louise uncertainly. “I don’t know.” She sighed. “What now? This can’t be a coincidence, them showing up here. It means—” She bit her lip.

  “It means they’ve got them,” I said quietly.

  We all looked at each other. “Call the police?” said Louise.

  “They have people in the police,” I said. “We know that. They’ll tip off the cult and the guys will be dead and the bodies gone long before the police show up.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Annabelle.

  I thought hard. What would Aedan want me to do? What would they all want us to do? I could hear Aedan’s voice in my head, as clear as if he was standing in front of me. He’d rest his warm hand on my cheek and he’d say, Run. Go somewhere the cult can never find you.

  They’d want us to hide.

  They’d want us to stay safe.

  “They’ve got our men,” I said. I looked at Louise, then at Annabelle. “We’re going to get them back.”

  “The three of us?” asked Annabelle.

  “Four,” said Alec immediately.

  “Five,” I said, and nodded at Bradan. “We’re taking him with us. We need all the help we can get.”

  Alec shook his head. “When he comes out of...whatever this is, how do you know he’s still going to be on our side?”

  We glared at each other for a moment, but he had a point. “Compromise,” I said at last. “We’ll take him but we’ll tie him up.”

  Bradan didn’t resist at all when we zip-tied his hands. We’d already tied up the four unconscious men and taken their Tasers. Louise persuaded Kayley to go to Stacey’s house and called a cab for her. Meanwhile, I called Emily.

  “I’m coming,” she said immediately. “I can get on a plane—”

  “There’s no time,” I told her gently.

  “I’m the only one of us who can use a gun!”

  “I know.” I looked at where Louise was hugging Kayley goodbye, then at Annabelle. Alec and I could fight but, really, none of us were cut out for this. “I wish you were here.”

  I could hear the Texan coming through in Emily’s accent, now. “Goddammit, I should never have let him send me back to DC!”

  “We’ll get them back,” I told her. And hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

  Annabelle found a large wrench in the garage and then slipped behind the wheel of the Mustang. Louise took the passenger seat and Alec and I climbed into the back with Bradan between us.

  I leaned forward and put my hand on Louise’s shoulder. “Maybe you should stay here,” I said softly.

  She squeezed my hand but shook her head. “This baby needs a father.”

  “Ready?” asked Annabelle, gunning the engine.

  I opened my mouth but stopped as I saw her eyes in the rear view mirror. Louise was looking at me, too. And Emily: she might not be with us, but I could feel her. We were together. We were a team.

  It suddenly hit me: we were friends. The thing I’d always been missing: I’d found it at last. A deep swell of emotion reduced my voice to a croak. “Ready,” I said.

  And we roared off.

  57

  Sean

  Whoever designed the cell had a cruel sense of humor: the one tiny window was too high to see through. But I’d jumped, grabbed hold of the bars and hauled myself up, feet braced on the wall, until my face was up against the little square. The only view was of the alley outside but it meant I could feel a breeze on my face. And that reminded me of nature and that reminded me of the woman I loved.

  The morning had crept by, the only sound the grunts and curses of the men doing the construction work down the hallway. I figured it was noon. By now, they’d have Louise. They’d have Kayley. They wouldn’t let us stay together. Louise wouldn’t need me to grow and Kayley would only be a distraction. I’d be used as muscle, the only thing I was good for. And Kayley...my stomach twisted as I tried not to think about what use they might find for her.

  And the baby. My hands tightened on the bars, my whole body shaking with rage. I’d been worried about whether I’d be a good father, whether I had it in me to raise a child. Now I was never going to find out. There was an upwelling of pain and fury inside me, geyser-strong and scalding hot. I’d worried about Louise plenty of times before but this was different and new. Paternal. I was already protective of that tiny life. And I knew, now: if I’d only been allowed to try, I could have figured it out.

  But no. We’d give the baby up happily, compliantly. Because all we would care about would be the good of The Group.

  And there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.

  “Which one of you works construction?” A voice from behind me, from the other side of the bars. I drew in a shuddering breath, trying to control my anger. But I knew that if I didn’t play ball, they’d use their nightsticks on one of the others until I did.

  I jumped down from the window and turned to face them. It was one of the guys who was working on the police station, a big guy in his fifties with greasy black hair, his t-shirt stained with sweat and mortar dust. He seemed to be the leader of the crew: the others were clustered behind him, all of them looking sour-tempered and exhausted. Next to them, one of the cops. “You him?” the guy almost spat at me. Kian and the others were getting to their feet, curious.

  “I’m him,” I said. I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

  The guy nodded for the cop, who looked to be about thirty years his junior, to unlock the cell.

  The cop shook his head doubtfully. “I could get fired!”

  “No one’s going to know,” snapped the guy. “Look, Pryce wants the damn station finished this week and we’re behind. My guys are exhausted. He can do some damn work.”

  The cop sighed, considered...and then unlocked the cell door and waved me out. Immediately, Kian put himself between me and them. The big guy growled and stepped forward but Kian ignored him. He looked at me and shook his head, still determined to protect me.

  “It’s okay,” I snapped. I’m not a kid anymore! Let me do my part! Then, more gently
, “I’ll do it.” I didn’t relish spending my last few hours of freedom working for the enemy but I wasn’t going to watch him get beaten. For a second, I thought Kian was going to keep arguing. Then he seemed to remember something, nodded and stepped out of the way.

  I heard the cell door clang shut behind me as they led me down the hallway. When I reached the area where they’d been working, I saw what it was they were doing. The area had been a row of smaller cells. They’d removed the bars and were replacing them with a solid wall, and were knocking down the walls between each cell to make it one big room: probably an office. No need for so many cells when no one broke any laws.

  “We’ll build the new wall,” the guy told me. “You get the rest of the old ones cleared.” He pointed me at a wall that was half-demolished: I suspected that had been his job before he’d thrown down his tools in frustration and come to get me.

  I stalked over to the wall. With every step, the anger inside me boiled higher and higher. This is how it ends. All four of us prisoners, Bradan still part of the cult, our women captured, Kayley and the baby torn away from us...and there wasn’t a fucking thing any of us could do about it: not Aedan and his fists, Carrick and his shotgun or Kian with all his connections and experience. And certainly not me, the big dumb lunk who even the cult knew was only good for smashing stuff.

  And then I reached the wall and saw what was lying on the ground beside it.

  “Well?” grunted the guy in charge. “What are you waiting for? Pick it up.”

  I just stood there staring at it. It can’t be.

  “We ain’t got all day,” said the guy.

  I ignored him, still staring. Fate was sending me a message. Maybe, just once, just this once, my skills were exactly what we needed.