by Rhys Ford
“He’s the one person you shouldn’t be mad at.” His brother whistled at Dude, calling the terrier away from the row of dumpsters lining the alley. Wood scraps and discarded drywall filled most of them, making the matte green metal containers look like giant vases bristling with avant-garde flowers. “Kane wants to keep you safe. Sionn wants to keep us safe. It’s not like you won’t have company in this. We’ll get a lot done. Or we’ll get nothing done and spend the entire time playing video games and getting fat on junk food.”
Damien was looking for a smile. Miki could feel that, but he couldn’t scrape up enough effort to put one on his face. The past few days overwhelmed him. Shit, he could say that about the past few years. His control was unraveling, spooling out around him and turning into dust whenever he tried to grab hold of anything, leaving him with powdery ashen fragments where he’d once had focused thoughts.
“What is Dude doing over there?” He couldn’t see around the dumpsters, especially with all of the overflowing debris from the other warehouse’s reconstruction. “Hey! Dude! Come!”
The dog—his dog—couldn’t seem to leave one in particular alone. They were too far inside the city for any wild animals, not like Kane’s parents’ home—something Miki found out one day at the Morgans’ house when he’d taken the terrier out for a bathroom break in the middle of the night and found himself in the middle of a possum party. But something definitely grabbed his attention, and Miki took a few steps toward the dumpster to look.
“Okay, he’s not listening.” Damien craned his neck, using the few inches he had over Miki to his advantage. “What the fu—”
It was the throaty click-click that got Miki into a full run. He couldn’t see anything but the dog—his fucking dog—scratching at the dumpster’s grimy wheel, but then Dude jumped back with a yelp. Miki came in hard and fast, his mind washed with a red sea of anger and frustration. And when he found a bearded man crouching behind the trash receptacle, his enormous hand wrapped around something black and long, Miki lost his mind.
Dude was moving, Miki was assured of that, but he didn’t know anything beyond his dog crying and finding someone sitting practically on his back door. Or at least he didn’t think past that. The man was getting up, rage forming in a cloud over his obscured face, and he swore when he spotted Miki, kicking out at Miki’s feet. The thing in his hand flashed silver, a brilliant line of white against the darkness between the overloaded dumpsters, and Miki’s mind—Miki’s fear—grabbed at the worst thought he could have.
A gun.
He didn’t know if it was because Dude spent his afternoon covered in Miki’s blood or if it was because Damien—oh my God Damien—was only a few feet behind him, but Miki wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim anymore.
Whatever he grabbed from the dumpster had a sharp edge. It could have been wood or metal. He didn’t care. It felt heavy and short enough for him to do serious damage in such a tight space. He let his anger fill him, an unfettered and wild beast who’d fed on Miki’s patience for far too long. Unleashed, it savaged Miki’s control, and his adrenaline surged with every pounding beat of his heart.
He tasted blood, but it wasn’t his. Miki knew the taste of his own flesh, his own skin, and his own anguish. This was different. This was sweet and justified, honeyed with the knowledge the man and his weapon couldn’t hurt Damien, couldn’t hurt Dude, wouldn’t be able to touch Miki. They would all be safe. No one could hurt anyone he loved ever again if he could just make this one man go away.
“Sinjun! For the love of God, stop!” Damie’s voice punctured the crimson fog, his fingers digging into Miki’s shoulders and pulling him away from the dumpsters.
Miki fought his brother off, fueled by his anger and Dude’s alarmed barks. Kane was inside their warehouse. So was Donal. Sionn was somewhere around, and a hot white panic pierced Miki’s brain. If the man was there, between their places, then something could’ve happened to Sionn. Damien’s Sionn.
He couldn’t let go of—Miki looked at what he had in his hand, startled slightly by the length of perforated metal dotted with pieces of crumbling drywall. Its dark gray surface was mottled with splatters of blood, and at his feet, an overweight man wearing a flannel shirt and jeans cradled his broken and deformed hand against his chest. He had cuts on his forehead, trickles of blood running into his sparse brown hair and thick beard. His eyes were wild with fright, and when he met Miki’s gaze, he whimpered.
A broken piece of equipment lay on the wet cement a few inches from his knees.
“He’s just a photographer, Sinjun,” Damien murmured into his ear, his brother’s arms wrapped tight around him, stilling Miki’s blows. “He’s not going to hurt you. He’s not going to hurt me. That’s just a camera, brother. Nothing more than a camera and not worth killing a man over.”
Chapter Six
A marble bowl was my coffin
Woke up to find my life dead
Thought I’d stopped my breathing
But it was our love that died instead
God I wish every other waking hour
I could spare a minute or two
Sometimes I think it should be me
Sleeping that final death, not you
—Marble Coffins
HIDING WAS the only thing left for Miki to do. After a swarm of stormtrooper-like cops descended on the cul-de-sac, Miki’s life, already in the shithouse, was now rolling in dog poop. He couldn’t keep track of who was asking him what, and after an hour or two, he also didn’t know who was a lawyer or who’d come to arrest him. He couldn’t turn around without bumping into a Morgan. They’d all swooped in, badges flashing and tempers flaring as they fought for Miki’s freedom. One of the suits seemed familiar, a death puppet of a man in black with pale skin and swept-back ebony hair. The only spot of color on him was his red tie. Even his eyes were a milky gray, just enough blue to tint but not enough to actually hold a hue. After about half an hour, Miki realized the man worked for him, or at least worked for the band, and he’d come out of a room with Damien, ready to do battle.
He didn’t know what had happened to the photographer. He also didn’t care. Miki washed blood off his hands, staining the water red before it swirled down the drain, but it seemed to be from his own skin rather than splatter he’d drawn out of someone else. Heavy circles lay under his eyes when he stared at himself in the mirror. Hell, it seemed like his eyes were bruised, and no matter how hard Miki rubbed, he couldn’t erase the shadows he saw within them.
The band’s lawyer argued in whispers, barely audible even though Miki stood close by. He spoke to another suit, this one polished up, gleaming like he was about to step in front of a camera and do the news. Damien told him in a low voice the other man was a district attorney, but Miki only had eyes for Kane, who stared at him from across the room.
He didn’t like what he saw in Kane’s face any more than he liked what he saw on his own.
There was a resignation there, and a detachment Miki had never seen before. It was more than the cop mask Kane wore once in a while. This look had such a finality to it, it chilled Miki’s guts with an icy clench. He barely stood there long enough to hear the Plasticine lawyer agree to drop the assault charges if the band didn’t prosecute the photographer for trespassing and invasion of privacy. They chattered about paparazzi laws, and Miki’s state of mind—already shaky considering the day’s events—but the other lawyer gave a good show of hemming and hawing before capitulating to the death puppet’s demands.
That was when Miki fled.
The rooftop was out. It was too open and much too comforting for his mood. He needed sterile, something closed in and without air, someplace he could scream and not be heard or cry and not be seen.
Luckily for him, he’d built a studio into the warehouse’s docking bay.
Windowless and white-walled, the recording room was large but still not quite homey. They’d done their best with a few Persian rugs to muffle the floor beneath their feet so they d
idn’t make any sound while they played, but other than a couple of beanbags and a couch too short for anybody to sleep on except for the dog, it was serviceable at best. He hoped that in time, it would become someplace they would hang out, warmed by shared experiences and inside jokes, but for now it was still cold enough a space for Miki to empty himself in.
He didn’t know how long he sat there in the muted space, the lights set too low and the silence nearly deafening behind a wall of soundproof glass and thick metal door. It could’ve been ten minutes. It could have been three hours. He couldn’t tell. Dude got up a couple of times to get a drink of water out of the bowl they kept filled next to the door, but most of the time, the dog lay at his feet on the couch, curled up into a ball Miki could scratch with his toes.
A tap on the glass surprised him, and he jerked up, laying a hand on Dude’s shoulder. Dude’s muzzle was damp, but his grin was wide, his tongue spooling out as he recognized the pretty-faced Irish man standing in the control room outside.
Quinn pressed his hand against the glass and gave Miki a gentle smile, then pointed at the doorknob. It was a question—a request—for permission to come in, permission to flay Miki’s soul. Or that’s what he would’ve thought if it had been anyone else besides the green-eyed Morgan.
The third Morgan son understood him probably more than anyone else in the world. To be fair, Quinn probably understood most people more than anyone else in the world did. Built more for swimming the channel than storming the castle, he was a fractured looking-glass bard among a—
Miki mimed opening the door, and a second later Quinn walked through it, closing the heavy panel behind him.
“What’s a group of paladins called?” Miki asked as he joined him on the couch. “A windmill of paladins?”
“I think they would be called a congregation,” Quinn replied, cocking his head. His expression went from thoughtful to puzzled, and he stared up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused. “I like a clade of paladins only because that would mean they have a common ancestor and are its lineal descendants, so they would be a branch off of that philosophy or God.” Lowering his gaze to settle on Miki, he asked, “Why?”
“Because I was thinking you were different than everybody else in your family, but I didn’t have a good name for what you’d call a flock of Morgans.”
The Irish in Quinn came out in his voice and in his smile. “That would be called a clan. We are a clan. And you are part of it.”
“I could never be a Morgan,” Miki refuted. “Did you see what I did to that guy? Kane says it’s lucky he didn’t lose an eye. None of you would’ve lost it like that. Don’t tell me you would’ve.”
“Have you met my mother?” His eyebrows went up, mocking Miki slightly. “Don’t discount the Finnegan blood we have in our veins. You’re not the only one with a stranglehold on their temper. I’m the same way. I can hold on for only so long and then… I see red. I don’t blame you for what happened today. I don’t think anybody does. The man was in your house, practically. On your feet. On your brother’s feet. He kicked your dog. If someone did that to Harley, I’d have taken him apart. Even if I hadn’t been shot at.”
“God, it doesn’t even seem like that was today.” Miki sniffed, then rubbed at the burning in his eyes. “I haven’t fed Dude yet. He’s probably hungry.”
Quinn looked down at the dog between them, who rolled over onto his back, stuck his legs in the air, and snored. “Don’t think he’s hurting for food. When was the last time you ate?”
Miki didn’t have an answer for him, but his stomach didn’t seem willing to entertain the thought of putting anything into it. He glanced at the door connecting the control room to the rest of the warehouse.
“How are you feeling? Physically. So far it sounds like your day has been like an action movie.” Quinn was careful around Miki’s knee, something he was very grateful for. “You look pretty good for somebody who has been shot. And in a fight.”
“It was more of a burn than a shot. What’s really hurting are my hands and my leg.” Miki flexed his fingers, not liking the pull of tight skin across his palms. “But you should really see the other guy. He got the worst of it. He tried to take sleazy shots of my dog.”
The joke fell flat, but Miki wasn’t expecting it to do much more than possibly turn Quinn off. However, the third Morgan son was made of much stronger material, and Miki was shocked when Quinn actually chuckled.
“I would’ve done the same thing if someone tried to take pictures of Harley. Especially since she’s nude all the time.” Quinn winked. “I don’t want to judge, but she’s kind of a slattern. She runs around naked all the time and leaves butt marks on everything I own. I mean, sure, she’s an exhibitionist, but that doesn’t give anybody the right to take photos. I’m sure Dude feels the same way.”
Quinn always did surprise him, and Miki smiled despite himself. Sobering, he pricked at the bubble of humor between them. “Did you draw the short straw? Is that why you’re here?”
“No. Damien wanted to come in, but I think he’s too used to bullying you into changing how you feel instead of letting you get there yourself. And I like him, but if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was related to Mom.” Quinn shrugged. “Forest might have wandered in here eventually, but I actually locked the outside door. Sometimes you need someone to agree that life can be shitty, and he is not good at that. Forest is always looking for the brighter side of things. It’s why he and Connor work together really well. They both have very sunny outlooks on life, even if they both pound on things for a living.”
“You know, I never thought of Connor as an optimist until right now.” Miki turned the idea over in his head and couldn’t find a flaw in Quinn’s argument. “I guess I always thought of Forest as glass half-full and Connor as half-empty.”
“Oh no,” Quinn said, shaking his head. “If it were like that, they wouldn’t have gotten married in Vegas without Mom knowing. They’re impetuous and only think of the consequences afterwards. One of us is going to have to propose to somebody else soon so Mom can have a wedding she can plan.”
“Wait, you know about them being married?” Miki scrambled through his memories, trying to figure out if he’d been the one who’d let slip the secret. “How long have you known?”
“Since the weekend they came back from getting married. The day after they did it.” Quinn shrugged. “Connor borrowed my car to drive over to Vegas because he wanted something cooler than the refrigerator box he drives. They left the license in my Audi.”
“And you haven’t told Brigid?”
“Oh, I can tell you didn’t grow up with any siblings.” The look Quinn gave him was pitying, as was the gentle pat he gave Miki’s knee. “Never ever, ever share a secret. They’re too good of a coin. You can either use them to get something—actually, you can use them more than once for that—or when you get into trouble yourself, if you have a really big secret, you can throw it out in front of you and they’ll forget all about what you’ve done and focus on what he’s done. Secrets like this are few and far between. You hold on to them and use them if you need leverage.”
Despite the pressure in his chest about the day, Miki was fascinated by Quinn’s confession. “Yeah, but there’s a flaw there. What happens when your mom and dad find out anyway? Before you can spill the beans or whatever?”
“See, that’s even better because what that does is shore up your loyalty. They think—the brothers, because it’s usually Kane and Connor—that since you weren’t the reason the parents found out, you’re good at keeping their secrets.” He grinned wickedly. “And if you do it right, if you are the one to tell Mom and Da about what’s going on, they won’t let slip that you were the one who told on him. It’s a win-win.”
“I’m not sure I could ever trust you with anything ever again,” Miki said. “I mean… that’s… what’s that guy’s name? That puppet master guy?”
“Machiavelli. But it’s different between you and me. I would never
use your secrets, Miki. Those aren’t the type of things you share. There’s a difference between leverage and betrayal of trust. I would never betray you. None of us in the family would ever betray each other. And that’s how we think of you, as a part of the family.” Quinn slid his hand under the dog’s back end and moved him so his legs wouldn’t dig into Miki’s ankle. “It’s why I came looking for you. Because you don’t need anybody to talk to you, you need someone to listen to you. And even though Forest is very calming, sometimes you need family to hear you out because they understand wanting to rip out someone’s throat.”
“Yeah, Forest can be a little bit too Zen about things when I just want to tear something apart.” He snorted and Dude opened one eye to look at him. Rubbing the dog’s belly, Miki murmured, “I really could have killed that guy today. I almost killed him. If Damien hadn’t been there—”
“If he hadn’t been there—that guy—he wouldn’t have been almost killed,” Quinn argued back. After pulling his legs up, he hugged his shins and rested his chin on his knee, his unblinking cobalt gaze focused on Miki’s face. “Sorry. I promised to listen. That wasn’t very good of me. Why don’t you go on?”
It was hard to feel sorry for himself with Quinn in front of him, but Miki’s dark thoughts were giving it a good go. Exhaling hard, he tried to find the beginning of his confusion, but everything was too tangled up in his head and he didn’t know where to start. The dog was warm under his fingers, a reminder of life Miki needed very much at the moment. If he’d lost Dude… he didn’t even want to entertain that thought, but it flew up anyway, slapping at him with a tortured reality.