Brother

by Ania Ahlborn

  “I heard you yelling at him,” Reb told her. “You killed Lucy!” He squeaked out the words, mocking Alice’s grief, then snickered. “But son of a bitch?” He cocked his head to the side, giving them a thoughtful look. “How ’bout that. Interestin’ choice of words, don’t you think?”

  Michael shot Alice a look, but he didn’t dare turn away from Rebel for long. Alice’s terror had faded a notch, just enough to make way for an ounce of confusion.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Reb asked her. “Because it’s fuckin’ complicated, that’s why. You know how long this thing took to put together? Or maybe you’re as stupid as your big brother, here.” He nodded to Michael with a snort. “Your momma wasn’t all that bright either, so maybe dumb runs in the goddamn family.”

  “Don’t,” Michael said, holding up a hand to keep Reb from coming any closer, from saying any more. “You wanna kill me, drive me out to the woods? Okay. Just leave her alone.”

  “Into the woods?” Reb scoffed. “We’re so far out of the woods it’s, like, epic. Fuckin’ epic. Now, what did you do up there?” He nodded up at the ceiling, signifying the house that sat above them. “Did you kill ’em? Chop ’em up like that crazy Lizzie Borden chick, forty whacks and all that?”

  Michael swallowed against the thump of his heartbeat, backing up with every forward step Rebel took.

  “I hope you did,” he said. “I know you did. Revenge is hard to resist. I got personal experience with that.”

  “How?” Michael asked, unable to stop the question from slipping past his lips.

  “How?” Ray almost sneered at that. “Shit, I don’t know, maybe because you killed Lauralynn? You don’t remember how it happened? You, sneakin’ around, stealin’ one of her rabbits, skinnin’ that thing in the forest and feedin’ it to her for dinner? Gotta say, that was dark. Hell, maybe you were the one who taught me everythin’ I know, not the other way around.”

  Michael stared at Reb for a long while, not able to process what he was hearing. He remembered the rabbit. Even though it was years ago, he was never able to shake that memory. The remorse that surrounded it kept it from fading like the others. But he had eventually been able to push it to the back of his mind, because at least Lauralynn had gotten out of the house.

  “Lauralynn’s in North Carolina,” he said softly, as though reminding Rebel of what really happened to their big sister.

  “Oh, she ain’t in fuckin’ North Carolina, you stupid shit,” Reb snapped, his eyes going black with resentment. “I watched Wade carry her into the woods that night, and the next mornin’ she was gone.”

  Michael opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t know what to say. There had been a moment when he had feared the worst for Lauralynn. But he always managed to convince himself that Grandma Jean and Grandpa Eugene were a better, safer option than home could ever be.

  “Though I guess it was better that Claudine bashed her brains in rather than sending her to live with them two psychopaths, to get raped by that dirty old fucker over and over again.”

  “I . . . I didn’t know,” Michael croaked, his hands still held out in front of him. He was nearly backed into the corner now. Alice was less than three feet behind him, her breaths coming in quick, terrified hitches. But Rebel refused to stall his steps.

  “Don’t matter,” Reb murmured. “It don’t change the fact that you did what you did. You took my sister from me, Mikey. Yeah, it pissed me off that she paid more attention to you than she did to me, but I could have lived with that. I could have roughed you up now and again and made peace with it. But then you went off and got her killed, and what kind of a lovin’ brother could let that slide? At first I thought I could take it all out on the girls, but Claudine . . .” He laughed, shook his head. “No, Claudine insisted on girls that looked like her, like Misty, like goddamn Lauralynn . . . and you can see how that could hurt a guy like me, can’t you?”

  “Yes.” The word was nothing but a dry grunt. Michael had noted the similarity between Momma’s girls and Misty Dawn too, but there was no point in questioning Momma’s tastes. Momma got what Momma wanted. If she didn’t, Misty was at risk. But during all that time, Rebel had been watching her kill Lauralynn over and over again instead, and it had slowly poisoned his already twisted mind.

  “Can’t blame me for turnin’ my interests to other things,” Reb said. “Can’t blame me for lookin’ away from the thing that hurt me and lookin’ toward the thing that would hurt you instead.”

  Michael blinked as his shoulder grazed something behind him. Alice yelped as he stepped into her, Rebel cornering them both.

  “Hey, Alice,” Reb said, a dark smile crossing his face. “I found your long-lost brother for ya, but I think you two have already met.”

  Michael couldn’t breathe.

  Alice’s mouth formed a surprised O.

  She stared at Michael, finally putting it all together. Finally realizing that Rebel calling Michael her brother wasn’t a euphemism. It was real.

  “Not sure you guys will wanna hang out after this, though.” Reb shrugged. “He helped me drag your momma out of the house a few nights ago. You know, outta that cute little place in the hills with the green shutters around the windows? He hung her right here.” Reb caught the chain hanging from the ceiling, directly above the drain in the floor. “Cut her throat, drained her blood, gutted her. He did that.”

  Alice’s face twisted with a kind of anguish Michael had never seen before. It was all-encompassing, so consuming that it seemed as though it would swallow her whole, tear her open from the inside out.

  “And then we had her for dinner,” Reb added casually. “Probably still have leftovers, if you’re hungry.”

  His jackal smile curled up at the corners, forming a devil’s grin.

  Michael’s chest heaved.

  Rage. It burned his stomach like battery acid.

  He knew he should have been devastated, but those emotions had hit him earlier. All he wanted now was to shut Reb up, to never hear his voice or see that hideous expression again.

  “So you see, that’s the beauty of all this, brother. I tricked you into killin’ your own family . . . and then I tricked you into killin’ your adoptive family too. Way better than leavin’ you in the woods to die, don’t you think? You just abandoned yourself.”

  A low moan drifted up from behind Michael. It was ugly, mingling with a ravaged sob.

  Michael wanted to move, but he was frozen in place. No matter how hard he willed himself into action, he couldn’t bring himself to step away from Alice and put her in harm’s way. He would derail Rebel’s plan by standing there forever, and Reb would be wrong—Michael wouldn’t have killed his entire family, because Alice would still be alive.

  But then Alice’s voice grew into a wail, the full understanding of what Reb had just revealed unspooling inside of her. She pressed her hands to her ears and shook her head so violently that Michael was afraid she’d break her own neck. The suffering poured out of her, her cries startling him into motion toward the axe.

  Dashing across the basement, he dropped to his knees and skidded against the smooth concrete. He snatched the handle from beneath the worktable with a quick sweep of the hand. Rebel spun around, momentarily caught off guard, and grabbed the knife that Michael had left on the floor.

  Stepping back to the thrashing, hysterical girl, Reb grabbed Alice by her short hair, the knife glinting in his grasp. “Go on. Put her outta her misery, Mikey. You killed her momma and her best friend. You ruined her life, man. You think she’s ever gonna forgive you for that? You think she’s ever gonna want to see your ugly face again?”

  Michael hurried to his feet and hefted the axe over his shoulder, making a run for them both. Rebel blinked, surprised by his younger brother’s sudden volition. His grip shifted to the front of Alice’s T-shirt, yanking her away from the wall as the axe came down. Had Reb not moved, the blade would have landed square against his chest, but with him gone, it only sparked against t
he stone wall.

  Michael pulled the axe back again and swung. Ray anticipated it this time and dodged it again—but rather than parrying away, he stepped forward, using Alice as a shield. The strategy immediately derailed Michael’s attack.

  “You always gotta make shit difficult,” Reb complained from behind her shoulder. “Don’t you get it? It’s too late. The damage is already done.”

  “Your stupid plan . . .” Michael spoke from between short, quick breaths, his grip readjusting along the axe’s handle. “It don’t make sense, Reb. For it to work, I gotta kill you too.”

  Alice whimpered between them when Rebel burst into sudden laughter, as though he was at a good party rather than in a basement standoff. For half a second, the sound of cold amusement threw Michael off. It simply didn’t belong, an affront to everything that made sense.

  “I guess that would be true if I wanted you to win,” he said. “Except that would be stupid—me thinkin’ a loser like you could win anythin’. You think a sorry sack like you could do somethin’ right for once?”

  Reb’s right arm jerked forward, as if punching Alice in the kidney.

  Alice’s whimpers went quiet.

  Michael took a single backward step, and though he couldn’t see it, he imagined his own expression matched hers. Shocked. Terrified.

  Her black T-shirt didn’t offer any clues, but the blood that pooled around the sole of one of her boots was proof that Rebel had just elevated the nightmare to another level. If Michael refused to finish the game, Reb would finish it for him.

  Reb’s lips pulled away from his teeth. He shoved Alice toward Michael, and she stumbled forward, her face in agony, her hands pressed to her abdomen in bewildered horror. The knife in Reb’s hand was stained red nearly up to the hilt, the wet blade winking in the sickly yellow light. Michael’s heart threatened to fail as Alice crumpled to the ground at his feet.

  “Shoulda known you’d be too yella to take care of business,” Reb said. “But this’ll work just as well. After she dies”—he nodded toward Alice with a smirk—“you won’t wanna live anyway. Dig a hole big enough for the both of you, brother. Dump her in first, kill yourself after; a regular Romeo and Juliet. It’s so fuckin’ poetic, Misty woulda loved it if she wasn’t already dead.”

  Rebel expected Michael to drop the axe and help her, and Michael wanted to. Alice’s cries were tearing him apart. But he fought the urge harder than anything in his life, and instead of collapsing next to her, a roar ripped from his chest.

  He fell into a run, the axe cutting an arc through the air.

  Rebel ducked to make himself smaller and rushed forward as well, slamming his shoulder into Michael’s stomach, knocking him off balance. The knife slid across the meat of Michael’s thigh, cutting deep through denim and flesh, but Michael swung again. He ignored the searing heat of his wound, pushed past the river of hot blood that pumped down the length of his leg and pooled into his boot. The axe made contact this time, catching Rebel on the shoulder. The knife tumbled from Reb’s hand, and he would have easily retrieved it had he not spun away to avoid another one of Michael’s attacks. And yet despite the red that soaked into his shirt, he was grinning as if savoring the pain.

  “It shoulda been like this from the beginnin’, you know,” Reb said, winded. “The night I saw what you did out there, stealin’ that rabbit—you and me, to the death. An eye for an eye.”

  That was when he pulled something from his back pocket. His switchblade. It slid into place with a smooth click. Rebel lunged, the switchblade held at arm’s length. The knife caught Michael across the middle, but before Reb could hammer it home, his eyes went wide with surprise. His foot skated out from beneath him on a streak of Alice’s freshly spilled blood. The knife flew from his right hand while his left grabbed for the axe in Michael’s grasp, either to steal it away or simply break his fall. The handle slid from Michael’s hand, the blade hitting the floor next to Reb’s prostrate frame.

  Michael moved fast.

  He dropped to his knees, shoved the switchblade away, and grabbed the kitchen knife Reb had previously dropped with both hands. He whipped around so quickly that he didn’t know whether Reb would still be lying there or not, and brought the blade down with such force that he felt the tip of the knife crack hard against concrete. Reb stared up at Michael with a look of surprise, as if stunned that the coward before him had enough guts to go through with one last kill. When Michael finally looked away from his face, he found his hands cupped against his brother’s chest. The knife was buried far enough into Rebel’s flesh that it was hardly visible from beneath Michael’s hands.

  Rebel coughed. A faraway grin pulled his face taut. The fingers of his left hand spider-walked across the concrete, searching for the handle of his switchblade or the axe he knew had to be somewhere close. Michael pulled the knife from Reb’s chest, ready to stab him again, but there was no need. As soon as the blade came free, a wheezing sound escaped Rebel’s chest—like air leaving a balloon. The rush of blood that followed from both sides of the wound left Michael staring in morbid awe. Reb’s face went ashen. He looked at Michael with a strange sort of confusion, as if bewildered by the fact that their battle had come to such a quick end. Baffled that Michael had actually won. He opened his mouth to say something, but he coughed again instead. Blood erupted from between his lips and stained his chin. His head dropped to the ground a moment later, his skull thumping against the bare basement floor.

  Michael backed away from the body. He swallowed hard, the knife still held fast in his trembling hands. For a moment, he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the man who had been difficult and cruel but who had been one of his only friends in life. What lay before him was falsehood personified. Rebel had never cared, and Michael had never belonged.

  But his rage dissipated into the dull ache of sorrow anyway. He couldn’t shake the heartsick feeling that overwhelmed him. Regardless of how he had come to be a Morrow, it was impossible to forget his life with them. Despite their insanity, they had still been his family.

  Michael crouched down, Reb’s blood pooling around his shoes. He reached out to brush his hand across his brother’s open eyes. He abandoned the kitchen knife, replacing it with Reb’s switchblade. For as long as Michael could remember, that knife was probably the only thing Rebel ever really cared about. But, like Momma, Reb wasn’t entirely at fault. He’d been led by the hand by grief, overwhelmed by the sadness he hadn’t been allowed to feel, the anguish he hadn’t been able to express.

  Michael turned his head away, unable to look at Reb’s lifeless face any longer. Pushing his heartache aside, he had to focus on the only thing he had left. Alice.

  Expecting to see her dead only yards away, his nerves buzzed when he looked to where she had folded in on herself and found that she wasn’t there.

  There was blood on the steps leading out of the basement. Somewhere overhead in the darkness, Alice was running in the opposite direction of the Morrow farmhouse, slowly bleeding to death.

  He bolted up the stairs and careened into the heat of the night. His injured leg tingled, as if half-asleep, red-hot needle pricks biting at the flesh beneath his jeans. The sweltering temperature served up a fresh helping of vertigo. He had to hold onto the side of the house until his head stopped spinning, until the fireworks ceased exploding behind his eyes.

  When he finally got moving again, he had no idea which way to go. Alice could have run anywhere. The trees would have given her cover, but the road leading away from the house gave a false promise of salvation. If she had any idea how far they were from the state highway, she would have broken beneath an onslaught of hysterical desperation.

  The rutted dirt road was enveloped in shadow, but it wasn’t dark enough to conceal the blots of black that dappled the path. She was hard to see—a good eighth of a mile ahead of him on the straightaway. Her black jeans and shirt rendered her nearly invisible, nothing but a pair of pale and disembodied arms floating in the
air. She stumbled, her wrists still bound with tape. Catching herself mid-fall, her palms pressed against the hard-packed earth. She tried to get up but only managed to stagger forward a few feet, then ended up on all fours once more.

  When she shot a look over her shoulder, Michael slowed his steps. He didn’t want to scare her any further, but that didn’t seem to matter. Despite his slow approach, Alice began to sob as she rose. Tapping into a reserve of determination, she began to run.

  “Alice, wait!”

  Michael fell into a jog after her. He pressed his hand against his wounded thigh, his jeans slick and warm with blood. Bleeding to death wasn’t only a possibility for her. Footfall after agonizing footfall, Michael started to think it was a reality for him as well.

  He gritted his teeth and increased his pace, pushing himself into a flat-out run despite the pain. He had to save her. Had to redeem himself so that she’d know, whether he lived or died, that he had never meant for any of this to happen.

  When he caught her by the arm, Alice began to scream. She tore out of his grip, her face a mask of frenzied indignation.

  “Wait,” he said, his words nearly swallowed whole by her cries. “Alice, please!”

  But she wasn’t listening. She turned around and around, her eyes impossibly wide, searching the night for some form of defense. Startled by the pool of blood that was gathering at her feet, Michael made another grab for her, but she ran on, her boots clomping against the dirt. She tripped, crashed to the ground. He dropped to his knees beside her as her arms flailed above her head, warbled yelps of refusal tearing from her throat. That was when he realized he was still holding Rebel’s switchblade. The knife glistened dark and wet in the moonlight.

  Seizing her wrists, he caught the edge of the tape with the tip of the blade and cut through her bonds. Then he dropped his weapon to the road, ashamed that he had been chasing her with a knife in his hand all while expecting her to not be afraid.

  Her hands flew apart, the strip of tape still clinging to her right wrist. But the fact that he had freed her failed to give her pause. Her hysteria overpowered reason. She continued to fight him off.