by Ania Ahlborn
“I’m sorry,” he said, struggling to catch her flailing hands. “I’m sorry, Alice, I’m sorry.”
He wanted her to understand, was desperate for her to say something, anything that would assure him that she understood—this wasn’t his plan, it had never been. But she continued to shriek, her hands fluttering above her head in a tangle.
“Please stop,” he begged. “Just listen to me. I just wanna tell you—”
“You killed Lucy!”
“I had to,” he insisted. “I swear, I never would have if—”
“You killed my mother!” she screamed up to the sky. “You killed her and you killed my best friend and now I have no one!” Her frantic despair shifted in a way Michael had seen before. Her own words sank in deep, and suddenly she was drowning in an ocean of self-realization and defeat. All the fight drained out of her as she crouched in the middle of the road. She pressed her hands to her stomach and wept.
Michael wanted to believe that she was different from the rest, but she looked just like the other girls as she gave up hope.
“I trusted you,” she sobbed. “I thought you were special.”
He winced at her words. No amount of explanation would ever come close to describing how he felt. He wanted to sweep her up into his arms and hold her for the rest of his life, wanted to apologize a million times in a million different languages, to hopefully strike a chord. And at the same time, he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she went quiet. Because why couldn’t she understand? Why did she refuse to listen, to see that he wasn’t hacking her to pieces but releasing her back into the world? He had killed for her. He had destroyed his own life to make up for annihilating hers.
He stepped away from her to make it clear that he wouldn’t touch her, that he meant her no harm. Turning his back to her, Michael lowered himself to the ground and stared at the bank of trees lining the side of the road. His mind drifted a mile away to Misty Dawn. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be on that hilltop next to her, watching the sun rise over the vista of endless tree-covered hills. Of all the people in his life, he had meant to hurt Misty and Alice least—and yet, he had done them the most harm.
“I never meant any of this,” he said softly. “I didn’t know.”
If, on the day he had walked into the Dervish, he had been aware that this was his future, Michael would have let Rebel kill him before he had ever learned Alice’s name. He would have killed himself before he would have helped Reb drag Alice’s mom, his mom, out of her home like a sacrificial lamb. He would have killed Reb long ago if he had seen this coming, be it in a dream, or a nightmare, or a flash of divine telepathy.
Sitting in the middle of the road, he twisted to look back at Alice, three words balanced upon the tip of his tongue. But he faltered when she came into view.
Having gathered herself off the ground, she held the switchblade in her shaking, bloodied hands. He pulled in a shallow breath, his gaze flitting between the blade and her eyes.
“I’m your brother,” he whispered.
Something about saying that aloud made him feel at peace. He hoped it would bring her some comfort, some assurance that he was on her side. But rather than rocking back on her heels and letting the switchblade slip from her hands, she leaned into him—as if to give her long-lost sibling a hug—and buried the knife deep in his gut.
He gave a quiet grunt as a searing pain spread just beneath his ribs, but he didn’t jerk away. Rather, he eased into Alice’s arms, his own blood-sticky fingers drifting across the slope of her milk-white cheek. Gazing up at her, he admired her beauty, so strong it refused to wither beneath a veil of horror and pain. Her bowed mouth. Her big eyes. The way her skin seemed to glow in the moonlight. She was his Fate, delivering him from a life of horror, saving him from himself.
He tasted copper and winced when she pulled the blade free. She pushed him away and he fell back to sit slouched in the road—nothing but a broken-down Tin Man, wishing he had a heart. The knife fell from Alice’s hand with a soft clink into the dirt. She lurched to her feet, the palms of her hands pressed over her own wound.
“I was going to run away with you,” she said. “Now I’m just running away.”
Michael tipped onto his side as she left him behind in the darkness.
Pain metastasized from the center of his torso outward to his limbs like a fast-moving cancer, but he hardly felt it. He was too busy watching Alice limp her way down the road toward the Delta in the distance, leaving him to wonder what it would have been like to have been an older brother. How different things would have been if he had spent mornings around the kitchen table, laughing with his parents and his sister over bowls of Apple Jacks and stacks of pancakes. How it would have felt to watch movies in the living room, lying on the carpet with his chin propped up in his hands and a golden retriever or collie sleeping next to him on the floor. He imagined tearing into Christmas gifts, surrounded by his true family. Imagined how it would have felt to lie on a blanket in the grass and stare up at the fireworks every Fourth of July; a million fractured sparkles drifting back down to earth like falling stars.
But mostly he wondered if, growing up, Alice had been the type of girl to dance and twirl in her room just like Misty Dawn had.
Dancing and twirling despite the madness.
Despite the darkness.
Despite it all.
His eyes momentarily fluttered shut, but he fought the sudden urge to sleep. Opening them again, he saw Alice in the distance. She was only a few hundred feet from the car now, but her steps had slowed. She doubled over, pulling her hands away from her torso to stare at her palms. They shimmered wet and slick in the moonlight.
Michael willed her to keep going. To not give up. To fight.
She had to make it, or it was all for nothing.
She had to get to the car, or Rebel would win, even in death.
The world began to go dark and soft around the edges. For a moment he was sure that the shadows around the trees had come to life, slithering outward to consume them both. The night blossomed into grays and whites, like an overexposed photograph. The trees glowed niveous and pale. Alice’s ghostly skin shone ethereal as she desperately lumbered on toward the Oldsmobile, her arms wrapped tight around her waist. He could hear her distant, muffled sobs. He closed his eyes and imagined it was joy instead of sorrow. Him and her. Hand in hand. Laughing like kids.
And just as the world was about to fade, he felt his heart stop. Felt the world collapse. Felt himself dying as the hard bite of an eight-ball dug into his hip.
Because the keys to the Olds were still in his pocket.
They were still in his fucking pocket as Alice’s fingers drifted across the handle of the Delta’s driver-side door.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks go to all of the people who made this book possible: To my rock-star literary agent, David Hale Smith, who believed enough in this manuscript—and, I suppose, in me—to pitch Brother to “the big boys.” There aren’t enough clever T-shirts in the world to express my gratitude. Carpe grillem, good sir. To my fabulous editor, Ed Schlesinger—I’m now absolutely convinced that I’m in the company of a pop-culture expert. To put your mind at ease, I really do know the difference between an LP and a twelve-inch single. But details, right? To my husband and partner in crime, Will, thanks for getting frustrated at the powers-that-be when it felt like I was putting in twelve hour days, and for reminding me to stand up for myself (and my sanity) when I was on the edge of the edge. Don’t hassle me. I might smash some plates.
To Robert Smith and his incredible band, the Cure, who will absolutely never ever read this tidbit of gratitude . . . thanks for singing me through high school and, as it’s becoming quite clear now, continuing to inspire my weirdness with your weirdness. I couldn’t have picked a better role model for dark and spooky oddity. I mean, seriously, it’s pretty perfect. To Jennifer Chambers Lynch, Damian O’Donnell, and the cast of the incredible 2012 fi
lm Chained—a lot of people will read this and think The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but that’s inaccurate. It was Chained that inspired me to write this book. And I hope that my mentioning it here will give your fabulous film a little extra exposure. Because, man . . . so good, and so underrated.
And of course, there would be no book if it wasn’t for you, my readers. I love you, and I will continue to toil away in the dungeon for the sake of your entertainment. Until next time.
ANIA AHLBORN is the bestselling author of the horror thrillers The Pretty Ones, Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, and Seed. Born in Ciechanow, Poland, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their dog. Visit www.aniaahlborn.com or follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
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Also by ANIA AHLBORN
The Pretty Ones (novella)
Within These Walls
The Bird Eater
The Shuddering
The Neighbors
Seed
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Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Ania Ahlborn
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition September 2015
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Interior design by Robert E. Ettlin
Cover design by Anna Dorfman
Cover photograph © Hans-Peter Merten/Stockbyte/Getty Images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4767-8373-4
ISBN 978-1-4767-8378-9 (ebook)