Claimed By Zade (Sons of Daniels Duet #1)

1. Running

Running

Zade

C harcoal stains my fingers, blending in with the black tattoos spiraling up them, past my forearms before branching out into grotesque images covering both of my arms from the elbow up. The black tattoos are flames licking my skin and transforming into the visions that haunt me daily.

Music thumps through the cushioned headphones pressed into my ears, but beneath the screaming vocals, I can still hear them.

“Zade.”

“Look at me.”

“Let’s play a game.”

“Your mother’s dead. Go play with her insides.”

“Your dad thinks you’re broken.”

“Useless.”

Scrunching my eyes shut doesn’t block them out, so I reach for my phone with stained fingers and turn the volume up high enough to risk permanent damage. Good. If my hearing goes, it’ll pair perfectly with my lack of a voice.

I rub a palm across my forehead, remembering all of the doctor visits and speech pathologists I had to visit growing up because my vocal cords didn’t develop properly.

Clenching my eyes closed, I can still see the white sterility of an operating room.

Once the breathing problems that came with damaged vocal cords were resolved, my mother did something every child psychiatrist urged her not to.

She let me decide. No one wants to spend their childhood in and out of hospitals. And that’s before my schizophrenia diagnosis. I stand, pencil clenched tight in my hand.

As a child, I used to awaken screaming from night terrors, but for a long time, no sound ever slipped past my lips, and I’d have to run to my parents’ room with tears streaming down my cheeks and demons nipping at my heels.

A child’s imagination, they said.

“You were a burden. A broken thing.”

“Break things.”

The pencil snaps in my hands, and I throw it across the room in a fit of frustration. Channeling my illness into art, sketching out the things I see, used to quiet the voices to a low murmur. Today’s a bad day. Today, they won’t shut up.

Snatching the headphones off since they’re as useless as my voice box, I reach for the mouse to my desktop, moving it around to wake up the computer screen.

A couple of clicks and the feed from Soriah’s room in a dozen different angles fills my vision.

Heart thrumming at the possibility of my parents walking in to find me spying on my sister, I cautiously ease the volume up, lips curling into a smile at her off-key humming.

She has her long black hair piled into a bun.

A few wayward strands brush her ears and forehead.

Pausing in folding clothes, she blows an annoyed breath, moving the strands without lifting her hands to re-do her messy bun.

Sunlight streaming into her bedroom hits her olive skin, making her appear more golden than she already does to me.

I sit back down, relaxing into my computer chair and flexing my fingers to work out the tension in them, I exhale a calming breath. Soriah—Siri, as I’ve dubbed her in my head—soothes me in a way no one other than my mother does.

Maybe because she’s my sister? Not by blood, but we were raised in the same house by the same couple, and while my twin, Zephyr, is an idiot, maybe some of my mother’s wisdom or aura rubbed off on my adoptive sister.

There’s a twenty-year gap between my parents, and when my mother wanted another child four years after Zephyr and I were born, my dad refused to risk her health with another pregnancy, so they spent months searching for someone giving a newborn up for adoption.

Soriah became a member of our family a year later.

I’d always seen her as my sister. I still do. But her effect on me is mystical. It’s the balm I need when the voices increase in volume. Fortunately, when my eyes are filled with her, any visual hallucinations fail to compete for my attention.

Sighing, I lean further back, rubbing at my eyes and remembering too late I’m smudging my face. Fuck. It can’t be helped.

“You know why it’s a bad day.”

“She’s leaving, and you can’t follow.”

Fuck off, I want to scream, but it’d be useless.

Getting up from my seat, I walk toward the door to exit the constricting atmosphere of my bedroom.

Soft carpet brushes the soles of my bare feet as I stalk out into the hall.

A low, masculine murmur comes from one of the bedrooms near mine.

It’s a four-bedroom house. Zephyr and I always shared a room.

My parents had the master room, and naturally, Siri had her own room.

The final room was my father’s “pet” room.

I walk past the door with a grin fixed to my lips. Zephyr and I are different in more ways than just our eye color. I’d joked once that we should’ve checked to make sure he wasn’t swapped at birth. My mother hadn’t been amused.

Zephyr's normal . He talks too much, but at least he can speak. His phobia of snakes is hilarious, considering our father fucking loves them. Sometimes, I’d help him feed his “other children”.

He loves his critters nearly as much as he loves us, but sometimes I wonder if he loves them more since they’re his balm.

Schizophrenia isn’t always genetically inherent, but for us Daniels, apparently it was.

Except for Zephyr. Normal cognitive functioning, no mental illness diagnoses, and zero problems interacting socially with others outside of our home.

Which is why he moved out at eighteen like a normal adult, and I’m still living at home in my twenties.

Twenty-two, to be exact. My parents never complained, at least not to my face.

My feet stop on the last step leading into the entryway, and my eyes dart around for a quick escape.

Sarah Bell sits on the sofa nearest the front door, a picture frame held in her hands and sadness bathing her face.

I’m not good at comforting. Usually, she’s the one comforting me. Emerald eyes jerk up to meet mine.

A wan smile pulls at her lips and the sadness in her eyes deepens into a whirlpool, threatening to suck me in.

“Hey, Zade,” her hand pats a spot on the sofa, “come sit for a second.” Tension drives my shoulders up to my ears, and with little choice but to obey, I close the distance separating me and my mother. When I plop down next to her, my eyes land on the photograph, pulling a grimace from me.

While I can help my dad any day of the week with his insects, I actually detest being outdoors. Mom had the grand idea of a family camping trip one year—as if families don’t notoriously get murdered on said trips—and piled us all into her minivan, buying supplies on the way.

She and Dad laughed while pitching tents. That was actually kind of nice, witnessing their laughter and easy affection outside of our home, watching them feed each other melted marshmallows like newlyweds. Zephyr and I were ten at the time, and Siri was six.

The photo in question is the five of us kneeling in front of a leaning tent with stupid grins on all of our faces.

Mom had set a timer, laid the phone on a rock, then rushed to slide between us and Dad right as the camera took a series of photos.

She framed the best one. Probably the one taken before Zephyr and I wrestled in the dirt because I’d put a spider down his shirt.

His high-pitched squeal sent me laughing to the ground, a stitch worming its way into my side.

After the hysterics, he’d wanted to tousle.

Dad had pulled us both apart, and carrying one boy over each shoulder, he’d tossed us into the lake and told us to cool off, that we’d be allowed to join him and the girls once we decided to behave like people and not animals. But that eerie grin on his face was firmly in place when he’d said it.

He missed the opportunity to grow up with his own brothers, and since Zephyr and I were always at each other’s neck, he’d insisted on us spending as much time together as possible to work out our differences.

I think he knew how much we hated being forced together, and it was his brand of punishment.

I’d say our parents prescribed to “gentle parenting,” but Uncle Deaton and Uncle Zac told us enough of their “extracurriculars” to instill a deep-rooted fear of pushing our parents over the edge. Combined with witnessing a few of our dad’s episodes and we knew when to not fuck around.

But Zephyr and I didn’t have any differences to work out. I was the freak, and he was normal. The end.

“What’s on your mind, Zade? You look troubled,” Mom says, breaking the reverie of the past. Or is it the past?

Outside of holidays and family dinners, I do not seek out my twin or spend time in his company.

He’s a nuisance I’m fond of avoiding when possible.

We definitely lack whatever bond Dad has with his twin and half-brothers.

Mostly his half-brother, our Uncle Zaine.

Uncle Zac is more insane than Dad, and that’s saying something.

Those two are like oil and water, but at least they make the attempt .

More evidence Zephyr is not like the rest of this family. Everyone’s more like me, and he’s not.

Nothing, Mom. I was just getting some air , I sign to her, waving my dirty fingers to show what I’d been up to.

She nods, a pensive expression on her face and the frame still held in her hands.

I sense a lecture coming on and avoid letting out a frustrated grunt.

Signing is tiring at times. It’s easier just avoiding people than quickly using my hands to communicate and sometimes I go too fast, having to re-sign shit which further annoys me.

“Soriah’s packing to leave,” she murmurs, dropping her eyes back to the photo. Very subtle, Mom.

I know. Are you hinting I should move out, too, so you can have an empty nest?

Her teeth gleam when her lips split wide, letting out a hearty laugh. One of her hands land on my shoulder, squeezing gently. She shakes her head, lips still curled upward.

“No, Zade. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get out of the house more. Maybe spend some time with your brother.” I make a face, and she sighs, hand sliding away. Fuck. Now, I’ve upset her more than her youngest daughter moving out because surely that’s what has her in a funk.

I won’t pretend my twin and I are besties, but I hate disappointing her, too.

We’ve always clicked. She’s my lighthouse, guiding me back to sanity, the same as she does for Dad.

His eyes hide too little. Guilt always swims in them when he looks at me, like it's his fault I’m defective.

It’s no one’s. Just shitty genes, but we give each other a wide berth as a result of our shared illness.

I’d read that in mental health facilities, nurses act quickly to calm down one patient because it catches. When one starts to act up, it’s like a disease, sprawling out to infect the others until the entire floor, unit, or facility is going nuts.

Mom doesn’t need Dad and I both experiencing an episode, forcing her to prioritize husband over son or vice versa. I can’t imagine the strain.

I think the feeling is mutual, Mom. He doesn't want to see me either. Besides, I have my art and work if you’re worried about me getting bored .

Her eyes narrow, and her face says she doesn’t believe me, as if I’d need my twin in my life for some odd sense of fulfillment. It’s absurd.

Movement flickers in my periphery, and my head turns slowly, air whooshing out soundlessly.

Head cocked at an unnatural angle, a creature crawls toward me with feet and wrist facing the wrong direction.

Blood leaks from its pores, and empty eye sockets stare straight at me.

My nostrils flare, silently sucking in air, body tense to not alert my Mom of the apparition grinning at me with rotted teeth and black lips.

The mouth opens wide, and I nearly bolt out of my seat as bees fly out of it, filling the air with their incessant buzzing. Oh, fuck! This is bad. Today is bad.

A hand lands on my lap, and I jump up, eyes darting around the room, blood rushing to all of my extremities.

I need out. Out. Out. Out.

I sign hurriedly, uncaring of the jerky nature of my hands.

I’m going out for air or a run.

I don’t wait a second longer, bolting for the door and scrambling across the threshold as soon as it's open. Faintly, my mother’s voice calls after me, but I’m already racing down the driveway, running from that thing , knowing that only more would crowd into the living room the longer I sat there, pretending not to see it.

A man can only take so fucking much before he snaps.