"Came to see you eat breakfast," Bruno said.
Kev slowly took off the sunglasses. "Breakfast," he echoed, in hollow tones. "Uh-uh." He sank into a chair, rubbing the thigh that had gotten snapped in two places in the waterfall plunge.
"Played cards tonight?" Bruno asked.
His brother's tone put him on the defensive. "And? So?"
"Win anything?"
"Some," Kev admitted, reluctantly.
"How much?"
Kev rubbed his eyes. "Don't remember," he said. "Dumped it on the way home. I don't need it. That's not why I play. You know that."
"Yeah, I know that. Mr. Pure doesn't need money. He floats above the grotty obsessions of us normal folk. That's exactly the elitist, improvident thinking that's always driven me nuts about you."
Kev rubbed his aching head, feeling the thick ropy scars on his scalp. "I told you. It's not about the money. I do it for--"
"Yeah, you explained. I get it, insofar as a mere mortal could. You only cop a buzz when your brain is maxed to the limit counting cards. I'm not sure yet if that's technically cheating or not, but it definitely classifies you as a fucking weirdo. Not that this is any surprise to me."
Kev snorted. "Quit it with the 'mere mortals' bullshit, Bruno. I'm brain damaged, OK? I do the best I can with what I've got to work with."
"That's negative thinking, dude," Bruno said in a lecturing tone. "If you want to get your life back on track, you've got to--"
"I am trying!" The force of the words drove a hot nail of pain through his head. He held his fragile eggshell skull together with his hands until he dared to breathe again. "Or trying to get a life, period," he amended. "I've never been on anything resembling a track."
"What's wrong with your life?" Bruno demanded. "It was fine! So get back to it! You haven't worked since the waterfall, and you've been capable for months now!"
"You've got plenty of designs to develop," Kev pointed out. "When you run out, I'll come up with more for you. Whenever you need it."
"I'm not talking about what I need!"
Kev's lips twitched. "So this is to keep me busy? You think my mathematical masturbation will make me go blind?"
Bruno made an impatient gesture. "It's a waste. You need to get out, get some sun, get laid. You made us a fortune with Lost Boys. Are you going to just throw it all away to--"
"You made the fortune," Kev said, with quiet emphasis. "Go make the piles of money without me. I'll be OK."
Bruno looked frustrated. "But what the fuck? You're just sitting here in the dark, staring at your computer, obsessing about your past. Let it go! Start from where you are! Your life couldn't have been that good, considering how fucked-up you were when Tony found you!"
Kev couldn't deny it, but he couldn't agree, either. "I need to know where I came from," he said.
"Why?" Bruno yelled. "What would it help? What'll it prove?"
Bruno was right. There was no reason to think knowing his past would make the quality of his life better. And there were many reasons to think that it might make it worse. But curiosity was driving him bonkers. He'd always wanted to know where he came from, but since the waterfall, that want was fueled by raw emotion, like burning rocket fuel. If the truth should prove to suck ass, he still had to know it.
But Bruno was on a roll. "What's wrong with the life you've got? You've got plenty of money, or would if you'd stop throwing it at the widows and the orphans. You've got me and Tony and Rosa for family. What are we, chopped liver? Too lowbrow for you?"
"Don't be stupid. It has nothing to do with you, Rosa, and Tony."
"We're just not enough," Bruno raged on. "You're fixated on that hole inside your head, instead of the life you've built. Ever thought that what's in that hole might be a big disappointment to you? You were in shit-poor shape when Tony got you. Whoever your people were, they didn't stand by you! They left you to die! Fuck them!"
Kev gazed at the younger man. "I won't blow you off. Even if I find my former family. You'll always be my brother. No matter what."
Bruno looked embarrassed. "It's not about that."
Kev just looked at him.
"Oh, shut up," Bruno snarled. "Just shut the fuck up."
"I didn't say anything," Kev said.
"You didn't have to. It was the look on your face. Come on. Eat this." He slapped a plate with a fried egg on a roll, bacon draped over it.
Kev swallowed back the clutch of nausea. No way to let Bruno down gently. He shook his head. "I'll take coffee," he offered.
Bruno muttered something foul in Calabrese, and spun the loaded plate in the direction of the sink like a Frisbee. The crash of breaking crockery made Kev jerk, covering his ears. Jesus. That hurt.
He took off his coat and poured coffee, ignoring the anger radiating from the broad back of his adopted brother. He tried not to limp as he crossed the room. Any show of weakness set Bruno off.
He sat at his worktable and turned the computer on.
"Don't jerk off with that while I'm talking to you," Bruno growled.
"I'm not jerking off," Kev said mildly. "And if you do, I'll talk back."
"With only half your brain? That irritates the shit out of me."
Kev clicked his browser. "Half a brain's all I've ever had."
"Hah. You could solve complicated higher math problems while simultaneously operating a nuclear missile launcher, analyzing weather patterns, and shaving a poodle. But normal folk call that bad manners."
Kev tried not to smile. "That's funny, coming from a guy who just picked all my locks. Get out, Bruno. I'm working."
Bruno grabbed a chair and straddled it. "I'll leave when you eat."
Kev sighed. "It'll be hours," he explained. "My stomach's fucked up. No digestive fluids. I'm not being difficult. It's a timing thing."
"So I'll wait til you're better," Bruno said.
Kev rubbed his throbbing forehead. "Thanks for caring, but no. I love you, man, but I'm busy now. Fuck off."
"Make me," Bruno said.
Kev exhaled slowly, dismayed. He'd managed this badly, out of exhaustion. Now there would be no getting rid of him without a fight.
He looked at the challenge in the younger man's eyes, the set of his jaw. He looked like Tony, with that expression. Scary thought.
Kev had taught Bruno to fight. Consequently, Bruno was lethally skilled, with the advantage of being ten years younger, buff as an Olympic athlete, and not currently recuperating from going over a waterfall. Kev's bones were still knitting. He was far from a hundred percent. He might prevail, but he'd pay a price he couldn't afford.
He decided to suck it up. "Whatever. Be bored, then." He put the sunglasses back on. "Don't bug me, though."
Bruno stared at Kev's face, trying to see past scars, skull, into the brain inside. Bruno was persistent. And ferociously intense. Two things Kev loved and respected about his adopted brother. They were also huge pains in the ass. But life was like that. Full of trade-offs.
"Tony's been asking about you," Bruno said.
Kev stopped in the act of lifting coffee to his lips. He took a sip, not breathing so as not to smell the stuff. "Oh, yeah? And?"
"He worries about you," Bruno said. "He's your family, too."
Kev stared at the screen, but did not see what was on it. "Ah."
Bruno cursed under his breath. "C'mon, Kev. Tony didn't take advantage of you on purpose," he said gruffly. "He was just, you know. Being Tony. He can't help himself. And besides, he thought he was doing you a favor. Keeping you out of sight."
"While doing unpaid menial labor for him, for years? Yeah. He's a real prince," Kev said. "Tony doesn't do favors, Bruno. Nothing's for free. Not even for you, and you're his own flesh and blood."
Bruno didn't deny it, since he couldn't. "He worries about you," he repeated. "He really does. He's a mean old son of a bitch, but he does."
Kev's silence was more eloquent than words could have been.
Bruno's mouth hardened. "What the fuck
do you think he should have done for you, anyway?"
"Nothing," Kev replied. "He was under no obligation to do anything. I have no reason to complain. If he hadn't saved me, I would have died. If he hadn't given me a place to be, I would have been homeless. I would have frozen to death on the streets that first winter."
"So why are you so pissed?"
Kev shook his head. "I'm not pissed," he said wearily. "Sure, I owed him. I owed him big. But I think I've worked out my indentured servitude by now, in sweat and blood."
"He never thought of you that way," Bruno said. "And fucked if you're not pissed. You're mortally pissed."
Kev didn't have the energy to deny it again. He thought of those miserable, stifled years. Lying on a cot in the narrow, smelly room behind the restaurant where Tony had parked him during off hours. Freezing in the winter, roasting in the summer. Steeping in smells of stale boiled vegetables, and the reeking dumpster in the alley behind. Washing with a plastic bucket and rag because the squalid bathroom back there had no shower. Splitting headaches, night after night, so bad they made him vomit. Nights filled with horrific dreams.
Crying into the dingy, flat pillow every night. So fucking alone. Unable to speak, but wanting to so badly, it made him want to explode. A big rock was sitting on top of his mind, squashing him flat. He knew he did not belong there, but he couldn't get any grip on where he did belong. He couldn't think a straight thought through from start to finish. Couldn't focus, or orient himself. He was locked in a purgatory of tedium and fear. Tony had shoved a dishrag in his hand, pushed him in the direction of a pile of greasy plates, and there he stayed. For years.
Until Bruno came to stay with Tony and Rosa. He was their grand-nephew. Tony and Rosa's niece, Bruno's mother, had begged Tony and Rosa to take her son for a while, to get him away from his abusive stepfather. Just until she sorted things out and got free of him.
As it turned out, she'd sent Bruno away just in time. She hadn't sorted things out, or gotten free. She'd died right after. Badly.
As soon as he arrived, Bruno started following Kev around, talking incessantly. The fact that Kev was incapable of replying hadn't mattered to Bruno. He'd had enough talk for two. Twelve years old, traumatized by his mother's murder, jerked around by his hormones, bouncing off the ceiling. He'd desperately needed someone to listen, and Kev was the perfect listener. The quintessential captive audience.
Bruno's nonstop chatter and intense emotional need had been the first chink in the wall that closed Kev inside himself. Bruno had started the long, slow process of Kev's healing. It was no thanks to Tony.
He wasn't complaining. He had Tony to thank for his life, his skin, and a place to start healing. It was a lot. He had no reason to expect more. He couldn't blame Tony for not doing more, or caring more. There was no point. People were what they were. They cared, or they didn't. He was just damn lucky to have had Bruno.
This line of thought was making his gut cramp up. Who the fuck needed it? He turned his attention back to the computer.
After a while, Bruno got up and sprawled onto one of the couches, flipping channels until he found some sports event he liked. The squawk of the TV audio soon faded from Kev's consciousness as he systematically searched the vast pseudo-space of the Internet.
His current mode was to find data on all male Ostermans between the ages of fifty and seventy. He'd ruled out most of the ones in the Northwest. One still interested him; Christopher Osterman, research scientist, recently deceased. There were thousands of references to his cognitive research, but he hadn't found a photo yet. Many references were to "the Haven," a mysterious research facility dedicated to optimizing brain function. Reading between the lines of the promo material, he concluded that the Haven was a think tank for rich kids whose parents wanted high-achieving offspring to feed their egos. The project had been dismantled after Osterman's death, three years before.
Many of the young people who had participated in the Haven had since gone on on to brilliant careers in medicine, science, or business, or so the promo material said. Further research appeared to back this claim up, but that could be more a function of wealth and connections than it was a result of Osterman's brain massages. Who knew?
Kev was currently browsing some Haven alumni he'd found on Facebook. They archly referred to themselves as "Club O," and liked to reminisce online, exchanging pictures, memories, bragging and self-congratulation. In fact, he found them oddly repellent, as a group.
He was startled when Bruno spoke up from behind him. "It's been hours," his brother said, belligerently. "Hungry yet?"
He'd forgotten that his body existed. He located his stomach in time and space, assessed its condition. Not optimal. "Not yet," he said.
Bruno harrumped, and peered over Kev's shoulder. "Facebook? What, cruising for chicks now? Is it the lust thing, kicking your ass?"
Kev snorted. "I'm looking at online photo albums. Alumni of this place called the Haven. Dr. Christopher Osterman ran the place. He did cognitive research. Brain enhancement. Big network of alums."
"How did you get into these peoples' Facebook pages?"
Kev gave him a look, and Bruno rolled his eyes. "OK. Stupid question. Never mind. Cognitive research? Brain experiments? So you've been altered. Ah! Yes. That would explain what a whack job you are."
"It would," Kev agreed, unoffended. "This guy died a few years ago, though. A fire in his lab, they say. I want to see a photo of him."
"Excuse me? You want to look at a picture of this freak? The last time you saw someone you thought looked like this Osterman, you went into a fugue state and practically killed an innocent neurosurgeon!"
"Shut up, Bruno," Kev said absently, still clicking. "I'm busy."
Bruno subsided, grumbling. "If you freak out and attack me, I'll kick your sorry ass to hell and back," he warned. "I won't hold back just because you're a pathetic bag of bones. Be warned."
Kev clicked on yet another photo. His eyes flashed over faces, his hand already clicking to magnify them as a name in the caption registered.
The illustrious, late, great Doctor O explains it all for us.
His hand froze on the mouse. It was set to increase magnification by ten percent at each click, but with no new activity, it defaulted to one magnification per second, the center being at the cursor. The picture zoomed in on the guy in a white lab coat. Close-set dark eyes. His arms flung over the shoulders of two teenagers. Mouth open, in a big laugh.
Kev couldn't move. His muscles were frozen. He couldn't even blink. Switches were flicking on and off inside his brain, he could not control them. He observed, as the power grids in his brain started to go dark, that the guy really did look like Patil. Patil was darker, being Indian. Dr. O looked like the Greek or Italian version of the same man.
The pressure built in his brain. He struggled to breathe, to move.
Kev? What the fuck? Kev, what's the matter? Hey! Kev!
It was Bruno's voice, faraway. He couldn't answer. Couldn't look at the other man. Muscles frozen. Falling back, into the dark oubliette.
Oh fucking shit, man, no! Don't do this to me again...
Bruno's frantic voice faded into the distance. The photo got bigger. The face filled the screen. The mouth. Bigger and bigger.
Pop, pop. Something gave way in his eye. A hot rush of liquid down his cheek. Broken blood vessel. A haze of red obscured his vision. That red, toothy mouth stretched wider and wider, hungry to devour. The image widened still more, into a meaningless checkerboard of pixels.
Lights out.
CHAPTER 4
"Come on, you geek freak son of a bitch. It's me, Bruno. Not that Osterman turd, so don't try a fucking stress flashback when you open your eyes, or I'll rip your throat out. This bullshit is pissing me off!"
Bruno yelled the words, leaning over Kev's hospital bed, but there was no response. Kev looked like a marble statue. It made Bruno's stomach hurt. Over twenty-four hours, and no sign of waking. Another coma, or something like it
. The doctors were baffled.
Fuck this shit. Fuck it in every orifice.
Tony grunted from the other side of the bed. "Ain't you just a charmer," he said. "Whisperin' sweet nothings in his ear."
Bruno blew out an explosive breath and sprawled back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the plastic table. "We tried nice last time he woke up," he said sourly. "He didn't respond well. He liquefied Patil's face. It's safer to be rude. That way, there's no mistake about who's busting his balls." He leaned over Kev again. "Not the Osterman motherfucker, hear me? It's that pain in the ass, Bruno! Anybody home in there?" He tweaked Kev's nose. "Hey! Butthead! Hello! Anybody?"
Kev's face did not change. Bruno flung himself back into the chair, muttering. Tony sat on the other side, like a stone monolith, his slablike face grim. But Tony's default expression was always grim. He was a Marine, an ex-drill sergeant, a Vietnam vet. Habitually pissed off. Most of what Uncle Tony saw around him annoyed the living shit out of him. Bruno and Kev impartially included, for the most part.
Kev in a coma again? That pissed old Uncle Tony off bigtime.
Kev looked so pale and still. Like Mamma, in her coffin. The funeral parlor guys had been creative in covering up the damage Rudy had done to her face. She'd looked weirdly peaceful, lying there.
But unlike Mamma, Kev genuinely was weirdly peaceful. Even before he relearned how to talk, Kev was super mellow. He never lost his temper. Unless someone fucked with him, of course, at which point, he morphed into a demon dervish, and kicked that unlucky someone's ass to hell and back. Karate, kung fu, judo, aikido, jujitsu, all of them were mixed into in Kev's unique fighting style. He was un-fucking-beatable.
In fact, his fighting skills had inspired Kev's chosen surname. After the incident at the diner, Tony started calling him Kevlar. It stuck. And when Kev was talking well enough to want a surname, he went with Kev Larsen. It was Kev's weird, quirky idea of a joke, though it was also a bland, under-the-radar nordic name that fit him well enough. He could be a Swede, or a Dane. Tall, sinewey, lots of dirt-blond hair. A yellowish cast to his skin, rather than nordic skim-milk white, but with that stoic expression, he was a classic, battle-scarred Viking warrior. All he needed were braids, a horned helmet, and a mantle of shaggy fur.
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