Brother

by Ania Ahlborn

  Wade was as guilty as the rest of them. By association. By silence. By ambivalence.

  The axe blade connected with Wade’s chest.

  The crack of fracturing bone sliced through the silence.

  Wade sat up, his mouth agape, a loud hehhhh rushing from his throat as air flew from his lungs. Michael gave the axe a firm backward pull to loosen the blade. As soon as the cutting edge was freed from Wade’s chest, a geyser of glistening, moonlit blood poured down his stained tank top. His mouth worked like a fish’s—silent, opening and closing. Their eyes connected in the pale darkness as Wade waited for the next blow, but ­Michael stepped away from the bed.

  Momma had bolted upright, startled by the sound of her husband’s chest caving in.

  “Wade?”

  She strained to see in the dark for a moment, not noticing Michael, who was making his way to her side of the bed.

  “Wade?!”

  The emotion in her voice caught him off guard. There was more feeling in it than he’d ever heard before. Her hands flew to Wade’s chest and shoulders as her husband fell back onto his pillow with a gurgling sound. Blood bubbled up from between his lips. His eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. Momma gasped, her blood-smeared hands pressing over her mouth to silence a scream. Michael couldn’t help but watch her with baffled interest. It was strange to see a woman who had been so cold finally have a human response.

  “Momma.”

  Michael spoke the word from the shadows of the room.

  She jumped at the sound, reeled around, and stared wide-eyed into the darkness, but she said nothing.

  Michael stepped closer to the bed, showing himself, the dull metal of the axe blade catching the moonlight.

  Her face pulled into a taut look of surprise. She was expecting someone else. Since their numbers were low, Michael could only assume her suspicion had immediately landed on ­Rebel’s shoulders. He wished he was more like his phony brother just then. He wanted to manage a cold, ­emotionless smile, but he couldn’t pull it off. This was the part where ­Michael was ­supposed to say something witty that would ­terrify her even more, quips that Reb could deliver like a seasoned actor.

  Here’s Johnny!

  But Michael hadn’t ever been as witty as Reb, and his silence appeared to be frightening enough.

  Momma leapt from the bed. Michael was sure she was ­half-blind—her eyes hadn’t had time to adjust to the night. But she managed to grab the bedside lamp off the stand and tear the plug from the wall. She held it out in front of her, as though trying to invoke the spirit of Thomas Edison, but she called a different name.

  “Ray!”

  The syllable left her throat in an ear-splitting screech, but Michael knew Rebel wouldn’t come. This too was part of Reb’s design.

  A part of him wanted to revolt, to let Momma live just to screw up his brother’s plans, but he couldn’t do it. Letting Momma go raised too many what-ifs, and Alice needed a guarantee.

  “Michael,” she gasped, “what are you doin’?” She shot a desperate glance back at Wade, her face twisting with emotion. “What have you done?” she whispered. “What have you done?” She shook her head, as if coming to a realization. “It’s okay. Michael, it’s okay. We’ll take care of this. Don’t worry, Momma will make it right.”

  The question slipped.

  “Like you did with Misty?”

  “Is that what this is about?” Momma lowered the lamp an inch, as if finally able to see him more clearly now. She furrowed her eyebrows at the boy she’d stolen and called her own. “Misty Dawn got what she had comin’.”

  “I’d ask if she was even yours,” Michael murmured, “but she looked too much like you to belong to anyone else.”

  Momma’s eyes went hard. The pain of losing Wade only moments before drained from her face. The monster he knew to be his mother stared out at him from inside its human disguise. Michael tightened his grip on the axe, his mouth going dry at seeing the switch flip from distress to volatile madness.

  “We saved your life,” she hissed. “You best remember that, boy.”

  “Did you even know?” he asked, the axe pulled back over his shoulder, the blade hovering inches from the ceiling. “That woman from a few nights back, did you know who she was?”

  Momma narrowed her eyes, but it wasn’t a glare as much as it was her fending off confusion.

  “And Alice,” he said.

  “Put it down,” she told him, the lamp held high, her free hand stretched out ahead of her, ready to ward off any oncoming blows. “You wouldn’t hurt your own momma, now would you?”

  Michael’s heart knotted, squelching a few beats before starting up again.

  He stared at the woman he had considered his mother for the entirety of his memory and shook his head—a response that seemed to give Claudine a glimmer of hope.

  She lowered the lamp a little, taking a backward step toward the wall, waiting for Michael to do the same. But instead of reexamining his intent, he murmured a response—“Not if I had known it, no”—and brought the axe down in a wide, swift curve.

  The blade caught Momma’s shoulder, embedding itself an inch deep in flesh and bone. A scream tore from her, guttural and wailing, but that didn’t sway him. He’d heard those types of sounds all his life. She had taught him to ignore any pleas for mercy, and he didn’t intend on letting her down now.

  He swung again, but she ducked out of the way. The blade struck the back wall with a splintering crack. The lamp caught him on the side of the head, its heavy ceramic base thudding against his temple, but Momma didn’t have the strength to hit him hard enough. The lamp crashed to the floor, shattering at her bare feet. Michael crushed ceramic shards beneath the heavy soles of his boots and reeled back once more. The razor edge of his weapon lodged itself in the soft tissue of her side. Blood sprayed across the room in a sideways fan. It spattered the walls and the bedsheets, glittering in the pale light that filtered through the dirty window. She caught herself on the bedpost and cried out in agony, her nightgown blooming red. For a moment, Michael saw her not as his false mother, but as the girl Rebel had suggested she’d once been: terrified, abused, cowering in her own hell.

  As if reading his mind, she struggled to gasp a handful of words past her pain, pleading for mercy.

  “It ain’t my fault, Michael.”

  He wanted to feel sorry for her as she wept, wanted to be big enough to say that he understood. But he was done with lying.

  As he pulled the axe back, she raised her hands to protect herself, her sobs coming freely now.

  “Please,” she begged. “I never meant to hurt no one.”

  Michael squeezed his eyes shut.

  And then he choked out “I’m sorry,” and brought the axe down for a third and final time.

  Her cries came to an abrupt stop. Michael blinked against the back spray of blood that misted his arms, his T-shirt, his face. He wiped at his cheek with his forearm, then pulled at the axe handle to retrieve his weapon. When it wouldn’t come loose, he placed a booted foot against Momma’s chest, readjusted his grip, and gave it another tug, loosening it from her skull.

   • • •

  Michael stumbled out onto the back porch, the night’s heat mingling with the scent of blood and iron. He had to get down to the storm cellar, but he stopped to lean against the porch balustrade. The nausea steamrolled him. His chest heaved, the air so smotheringly hot that, for a moment, he was sure it was too thick to breathe. And now, with adrenaline at a momentary lull, his head started to hurt. Momma hadn’t knocked him out with that lamp, but a goose egg was already growing above his left temple, like an ingrown devil’s horn finally trying to break free.

  He forced himself down the porch steps and into the grass, stepped around the side of the house, and stopped in front of the cellar’s storm door. His queasiness intensified as he stared at the weatherworn wood and the rusted hinges. The deadbolt was unfastened, which meant Rebel was down there. He wouldn’t have le
ft it unlocked had he been anywhere else.

  A sense of foreboding washed over him, one Michael had become all too familiar with after a lifetime of threats of abandonment. But this feeling was stronger. More urgent. Almost paralyzing in its severity. So savagely intense it threatened to double him over again. The axe nearly slipped from his fingers as he stared at that door. He imagined Alice naked. Upside down. Half-skinned but still alive. That room, once a cold, dank gray, would now be a vibrant, living red. The walls and the floor would be painted in her blood while Rebel grinned up the staircase like a hyena.

  Another round of vomit roiled in his stomach, threatening to come up. He crouched in the grass and tried to steady his breathing. He reminded himself that those sinister images were nothing but a reflection of his own terror. They were his fears brought to life by a vivid imagination. “She’s alive,” he whispered, trying to convince himself that, after all this planning, Reb wouldn’t just kill her, not without an audience. Not if ­Michael wasn’t there to see it.

  He shifted the axe from his right hand to his left and hefted himself up to his feet, using the weapon like a cane. Wrapping his free hand around the rusted door pull, he was overcome by another wave of hesitation. If Alice was still alive, she’d have had time to process what had happened to Lucy. She’d been down there long enough to look around, to see the hooks, the chains, the knives, and put it all together. As soon as she laid eyes on Michael, fear would warp her features. He’d never see her smile again. If they both survived this, he would be the nightmare that would haunt her dreams.

  With his hand still thrust through the storm-door handle, he reconsidered going down there. He could walk away from all the madness—a move Reb would never see coming. Perhaps, in time, Michael could forget the way the axe blade had sunk into Wade’s chest and how Momma had begged for her life before she had died. Maybe, somehow, he could dull those memories with the knowledge that he’d done the world a favor, saving countless lives by wiping those murderers from the face of the earth. But that would still leave Rebel to prowl the streets, a man who would forever be a killer. And of course, it would still leave Alice—a girl he would never forget, no matter how much time passed or how far he ran. His taking off would still leave her in that basement, locked in with a monster, abandoned by Michael, who, for the first time in his life, had a shot at being the hero.

  He pulled open the door and let it slip from his hand. It fell back against the ground with a dry crack, the old hinges groaning against the shudder of wood. The light was on down there—a weak and sickly yellow burn of an old, bare bulb. ­Michael shifted the axe from his left hand to his right and began his descent.

  Halfway down, he spotted Alice cowering in the corner of the room. Her wrists were still taped together, but they were also bound by a length of rope that had been knotted to a metal O-ring screwed into the wall. She was covered in grime, as though Wade had pushed her into the dirt outside before dragging her down the stairs. Her jeans were ripped beneath her right knee. A gash winked in the muted light from behind dark denim, but otherwise she looked uninjured. Intact.

  Michael’s gaze darted from one end of the room to the other, searching for signs of Rebel, but his brother was nowhere to be found. His absence made the hairs on the back of ­Michael’s neck bristle. The last thing he had expected was one final chance to be alone with her. He hadn’t anticipated an opportunity to explain himself. To tell her how sorry he was.

  “Alice . . .” His voice was weak, but it easily breached the silence of the cellar.

  She jerked her head up from between her arms and stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Because how dare he show his face after what he’d done to Lucy? How dare he approach her ever again? Michael moved down the remaining risers, hesitating before stepping onto the concrete floor. She looked away, curling into herself as much as she could.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said, only to realize how ridiculous it sounded. He was covered in blood and carrying an axe. She would have been crazy to believe him, but he was still compelled to convince her. He let the weapon slip from his fingers and moved to the wooden bench where he stored his tools. Once there, he pulled open a drawer and retrieved a knife. Alice peeked up from behind her arms again. But this time, with Michael so much closer and the axe replaced by an even more frightening nine-inch blade, she began to struggle. A whimper escaped from behind the tape that still covered her mouth.

  Michael approached her with slow, deliberate steps. He squatted next to her and shot a look over his shoulder, checking to see if Rebel had finally arrived, knowing it was only a matter of time before he appeared. When Michael’s hand brushed her arm, Alice began to screech. Desperate to get him away from her, she kicked at him with her combat boots, the laces flying wildly as they whipped through the air.

  “Stop,” he said, trying to catch her feet with his free hand, but Alice kicked even harder, straight into the knife he had brought to free her from her bonds. The edge of the blade slashed across a denim-wrapped calf, immediately drawing blood.

  “Stop it!” he hissed beneath his breath, dropping the knife to restrain her legs with both hands.

  Unable to kick at him any longer, Alice threw her head back and sobbed.

  “You just did that yourself,” he told her. The cut to her leg was deep, bleeding fast into the dark fabric. “That wasn’t me.”

  He went back to the workbench, digging through one of the drawers until he found a dirty rag. Tearing it in half, he closed in on her again. He tied it tight around her leg, and when he looked up at her again, her expression had gone placid. He swallowed, reached out his hand, and pulled the duct tape from her mouth.

  Screaming would have done her no good, but Michael hoped she wouldn’t yell regardless.

  “I told you,” he said quietly, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Alice said nothing. She turned her head away from him and began to cry instead.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmured, the sound of her tears twisting him up. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I didn’t know. It was Rebel, he . . .”

  If she was listening, Michael couldn’t tell. His excuses made him feel stupid. They felt like hollow half-truths. Of course he hadn’t meant for Alice to get hurt, but claiming that he hadn’t known? That was nothing short of a lie. Reb and Michael had broken the rules together. And Michael had gone along with it because his emotions had blinded him. Alice had infected him with hope.

  “I’m gonna cut you free,” he said, picking the knife up from the floor. “But you gotta promise me you won’t run.”

  Alice shot him an incredulous look, as though he was nuts for asking her to stay put.

  “This isn’t my idea,” he explained. “But I don’t know where Reb is, and if you go out there . . .” He clenched the muscles of his jaw, his gaze meeting hers. “Just, please don’t run out there, okay? I don’t know where he is. We’re gonna get out of here together, but you gotta trust me. Okay?”

  She watched him with terrified eyes as he worked the tip of the knife beneath the rope and cut it free. Her still-taped hands dropped to the floor and she immediately skittered away from him, frightened, an animal in need of escape.

  “You killed Lucy.”

  The accusation tore out of her in a sob so raw it stung.

  “You killed my best friend, you son of a bitch!”

  She threw her weight against him, tried to barrel through him like a runaway semi through a chain-link fence. Still crouched, he wasn’t prepared for the sudden shift of weight. He had to catch himself to keep from tumbling backward. His momentary loss of footing gave her the opportunity to make a break for the staircase. For a split second, Michael was paralyzed by indecision. Was he supposed to stop her so that he could protect her, or let her run so she could get as far away from that house as she could?

  Alice’s boots thumped against the splintered risers. She was nearly at the top when a breathless gasp escaped her throat, and a single-word gree
ting made Michael’s blood run cold.

  “Howdy.”

  Rebel’s tone was weirdly jovial.

  Michael scrambled to his feet, the knife still clamped in his right hand. He looked at it as if seeing it for the first time, then shot a look across the room to the axe he had abandoned close to the stairs. That was a better bet. It would let him keep his distance. One good hit and Reb would be down for the count.

  The muscles in his legs tensed as he let the knife fall to the floor with a clang. He bounded toward the axe and the stairs simultaneously, ready to finish this once and for all. But he stalled out when Alice screamed. His eyes darted upward just in time to see Reb’s arms piston away from him.

  Alice cried out as she fell back.

  Michael flashed back to her mother, their mother—how her corpse had slipped and tumbled down to the concrete floor, her neck cracking in the silent gloom.

  Distracted by Alice’s yell, the tip of Michael’s boot connected with the axe handle and it went spiraling across the floor like a faulty boomerang. He jutted out his arms as Alice pinwheeled through the air, her bound hands offering no hope of purchase. For a moment, he was sure he’d miss her. She’d hit the ground and snap her neck—like mother, like daughter—and then everyone Michael had ever cared about would be gone.

  But he caught her. A momentary flush of victory swelled up his chest, but Alice cut his triumph short when she recoiled from his touch.

  “Oh, goddamnit,” Rebel muttered with a roll of the eyes. “My brother, the big hero.”

  “I know what you did.” Michael backed away from the staircase as Reb descended into the basement. His gaze skimmed the ground, searching for the axe. He caught sight of the handle peeping out from beneath his workbench.

  “Oh yeah?” Reb looked self-satisfied. “Ain’t it just brutal? Did you get a chance to tell Alice about it yet, or do I get to tell her the story myself?”

  Alice had run back to her original spot against the wall, as though repositioning herself where Reb had left her would somehow spare her punishment.