Pivot (The Jack Harper Trilogy Book 1)
Page 10
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When I was going up the stairs, I considered Roland's words - and the cogs in my head made sense of it exactly as he meant. I wasn't really killing him, not really. The equaling was, and I happened to be there. But at that age, experiencing the goodness that Roland had to offer, I couldn't understand why he might need any equaling at all.
Cyrus was headed back down the stairs as I was headed up. "Goodnight, Jack," he said, and he stopped me, gave me a kiss on the forehead. I smiled. A sweet moment. A fatherly one. I told him goodnight.
I went up the steps to my room, opened the door, flicked on my light, and Alex was standing at the foot of my bed. He appeared absolutely dreadful - covered in dirt, eyes red. His hair was disheveled, his body almost lifeless. "What are you doing here?" I asked him.
"I just need to tell you something." He walked in a slouched manner towards me until his face almost touched mine. I could smell his salty breath, felt the hairs on my face tickled by it. I looked in his blue eyes, and his eyelids drooped just below the tops of the irises. He looked stoned.
"What?" I asked.
"I told you I'd do it better than you when Dad started teaching me."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "I could have killed five dogs. You didn't even kill one."
"But I made him feel it," he said. "I made all of you feel it."
"Why does that matter?"
"It's the only thing that matters," he said, and he shoved me.
I didn't even think. I pulled out the knife I always kept in my back right pocket and sliced his face with it. It was about a two inch cut across his rosy-red cheek, the same cheek that Cyrus had struck with the butt of the .357.
Alex slapped his right hand to his face and looked at me with wide eyes, shaking his head back and forth. "I'm telling Dad!" he yelled, and he dashed out of the room.
He did tell Cyrus.
Cyrus never brought it up with me. It was never mentioned. Instead, Alex was locked in his room for the night.
Yet it didn't calm me, Alex being shut away. I could hear him all through the night fiddling with the lock on his door, trying to pick it. And he kept muttering to himself, over and over, which I heard through the crack of the door, "Must do better. Must be better." I knew what it meant - that I must do better, as well. But I was beginning to get so tired.