3. June
June
At eighteen, the world was a collection of jagged edges that never quite fit together, but the weight of Cain and Julian was heavier than all of it combined.
For as long as I could remember, I had been a girl with a hollow centre, a byproduct of parents who had long ago prioritised their next high over their own daughter.
I was a ghost in my own home, a piece of furniture they forgot to pack when they finally drifted away into the fog of their addiction.
I never felt like I belonged anywhere until I was left on the doorstep of the only light I ever knew: Nana.
She was the most stable person in my life, the anchor that kept me from being swept out to sea.
I couldn’t imagine a world without her, but as her knees grew stiff and her hands began to shake, I saw the world starting to fray at the edges again.
Then came the boys from the manor on the hill.
They functioned more like beautiful, ancient shadows that had interlaced themselves into the very fabric of our lives.
They filled a gap that had been there since my infancy.
It started with heavy bags of groceries left on the kitchen counter and the sound of a hammer hitting nails as they fixed the shutters Nana could no longer reach.
They kept the lawn manicured and the house humming with a life it hadn’t seen in decades.
They were the family I never had and the protectors I never thought I deserved.
They wove their way into my heart before I even realised the stitching was being laid.
They moved through the world with an effortless, liquid grace that made my clumsy teenage life feel dull, in comparison, like a black and white movie playing against a high definition backdrop.
It wasn’t just that they were both extremely handsome, it was the terrifying knowledge that they watched everything.
They didn’t just inhabit my life... they curated it.
They were magnetic, but they pulled at me in entirely different ways.
Julian was attractive in a way that made you feel safe, a heavy, enveloping warmth that promised to shield you from the dark.
But Cain... Cain was attractive in a way that made it impossible to keep eye contact for more than a second without feeling like prey being cornered.
Looking into his eyes felt like staring straight at a trap you couldn't stop yourself from walking into, a beautiful tragedy waiting to happen.
Together, their energies formed a spectrum of ruin I was powerless to escape.
This year, however, I had found a momentary shield, Alex.
Alex was the new kid in my History class.
He was a spark of something human in a world that was rapidly going to hell.
He lived three streets down from Nana’s house, and for the first time in forever, I had a genuine friendship with someone my own age.
It felt like breathing in fresh air after being underwater for too long.
Every afternoon, Alex would wait for me by the school gates, clutching his worn backpack straps as if they were a lifeline.
As we began the walk home, like clockwork, the twins twisted protocol of surveillance would click into place, their obsessive need to track my every movement, resuming its predictable familiar routine.
Julian would usually tail us on the opposite side of the street, blending into the scenery like a well dressed stalker. He was the “gentle” shadow, the one who made sure no one bothered us, the one who gave me a sad, knowing smile if our eyes met.
Cain wouldn’t bother with pretences. He’d follow us in his black Pontiac Firebird, crawling at a walking pace just a few feet behind us. He didn’t care about subtlety. He wanted Alex to know he was being tracked. He wanted me to feel the heat of the engine on my heels.
“So… I’ll see you tomorrow, June,” Alex said as we reached the split in our roads, the final checkpoint.
He was shuffling his feet, staring at the pavement, the setting sun casting long, orange shadows across the asphalt.
The black pony car had pulled over to the curb, the engine idling with a low, predatory hum.
“Yeah, tomorrow,” I replied, shoving my hands deep into my pockets. I liked Alex. I liked the way his nervousness made my own constant anxiety feel less obvious and awkward.
I looked up, meeting his gaze, and for a heartbeat, it felt like staring into a mirror I hadn’t asked for.
His eyes were a striking, earnest blue, a shade that so cruelly resembled my own.
It was disarming to see such sincerity reflected in a colour I usually associated with the coldness of my own reflection.
He took a hesitant step closer, and my breath caught. He was going to do it. He was going to try and kiss me.
I should have stopped him. I should have remembered the rules, the unspoken laws written in the chill of Julian’s furrowed brows and the tight, lethal set of Cain’s jaw.
Alex leaned in, and I tilted my head up, anticipating the quick, clumsy peck of a first crush.
Then came the snap—a sound so sudden and deafening it seemed to tear through the very air between us. It didn’t belong to the idling engine or the people passing on the street, it was the sickening sound of a predator closing the gap at a speed that defied physics.
Alex didn’t even get his lips halfway to mine before he was ripped backwards. One moment he was inches away, the next he was airborne. He crashed into the rusted iron fence of my neighbour’s yard with a sound like a bag of wet gravel hitting stone.
I spun around, my heart hammering. Cain's face was a mask of cold, icy resentment. He no longer looked like the precise perfectionist who dictated our lives, he looked like the predator Julian always tried to shield me from. And right now, his eyes were locked on me.
Cain stood over Alex, who was curled on the ground in the dirt, clutching his side and whimpering.
“Are you tired of breathing, or just incredibly stupid?” Cain’s voice was a low, vibrating growl that didn’t sound human. “She isn’t yours to look at, let alone touch.”
He was on him in an instant, lowering himself until his face was inches from Alex’s terrified features. He pressed a blade to the boy’s throat, the steel glinting with a hungry, silver light.
“You’re a stain on her life, and I’m a man who likes things clean,” Cain warned. “Consider this your only warning. Stay away from her, or the next time we’re in the same room, you won’t leave it on your own two feet.”
He straightened up, the shadow he cast swallowing the boy whole. Before I could find my voice to beg, Cain’s boot connected with Alex’s ribcage.
The sound was sickening, a crushing snap that made me clap my hands over my mouth to keep from vomiting.
“Cain! Stop!”
Julian’s voice tore across the street. He was running now, his face pale with a mixture of fear and fury.
“Stop! You’ll kill him! You’re going to ruin everything!”
Cain pulled back, his chest heaving, and fixed me with a look that made my blood turn to ice.
I was trembling, my face pale with shock, but he didn’t reach out to comfort me.
Instead, his eyes raked over me with a clinical, predatory intensity.
It wasn’t a look of love, it was the look of a hunter who had just reminded the world exactly who I belonged to.
“If he has any survival instinct left, he’ll stay away,” Cain murmured, his tone ice cold. “You’re a rarity, June. You don’t belong with people like him. You don’t invite strays into our world.”
He gave Alex one last, scornful look, spat a curse in that strange language they sometimes used when they thought I wasn’t listening, and strode back towards the car.
Julian was instantly on his knees beside Alex, his hands hovering, visibly fighting the urge to help him.
I couldn’t move. I just stared at the crumpled form of the boy who had offered me a moment of normalcy, now ruined and broken on the cold pavement. The cost of my selfish needs laid out in Alex’s blood.
I ran. I didn’t stop until I was in my room at Nana’s, the door locked and the lights off. I collapsed onto my bed, the image of Alex hitting the fence playing on a loop. I felt like I was being buried alive, the dirt being shovelled on by the two men who claimed to want to keep me safe.
A half hour later, there was a soft, repetitive knock on my door. Three taps. Julian..
Cain never knocked.. he just entered. He treats personal boundaries like optional suggestions.
“June? Let me in, please.”
I didn’t want to see him, but the silence was worse. I opened the door and crawled back into a ball on my bed. Julian stepped inside, moving with perfect precision through the dark. He sat on the edge of my mattress, the weight of him making the springs groan.
“Why?” I sobbed into my pillow. “He was just a friend, Julian! He almost killed him!”
He sighed, a sound of profound, weary sadness. He reached out, his hand hovering before finally settling on my shoulder. His touch was warm, steady. “You know how Cain is, Junebug. He has… anger issues. He just cares about you so much. He thought he was protecting you.”
I jerked my head up, my eyes stinging. “Is that seriously the excuse you’re going with? He wasn’t hurting me! He was the only person who treated me like I wasn’t some… weirdo!”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said softly, but there was a hint of steel in the apology. He wasn’t sorry for what Cain did; he was only sorry I had seen it.
“I’m so lonely,” I whispered, the isolation finally crushing me. “No one talks to me. They see the way you both follow me…. And since Annie moved away, I have no one. I need someone to talk to, Julian. I’m drowning.”
His expression softened slightly as he moved closer, his hand moving to my face to gently wipe away a tear with his thumb. “You have me, June. You will always have me. I would never let anything happen to you. I would never hurt you.”
“I know,” I sniffled, though the words felt like a lie I was forced to tell.
“Sit up for me,” he commanded gently.
I moved like a puppet on a string. I always did. He reached for the hairbrush on my vanity and began to work through the tangles. His movements were soft and careful, working through the knots as if he could brush away the trauma of the afternoon.
I hated that I loved the way Julian touched me. It was gentle. It was the only time I felt seen instead of watched. But as he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the top of my head and promised to be the one to pick me up tomorrow after school, a sudden, icy shiver raced down my spine.
It had been a week since Cain had broken Alex’s ribs.
Around me, the hallways were buzzing with energy.
Graduation was only a few months away, and everyone was obsessed with prom themes, senior pranks, and University acceptance letters.
I watched them from the fringes, feeling like a ghost haunting my own life.
While they were busy planning their futures, I was just trying to survive the present.
My goal was simple, make it to the end of senior year without any more drama, any more blood, or any more rumours. But in a town this small, the stories were hard to outrun. Every time I turned a corner, the whispers died down just a second too late, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
I’d been avoiding Cain with a frantic, desperate energy, dodging that black car like it was a hearse.
I stayed in my room until the sun went down, ignoring the heavy, vibrating, ominous thrum of his car idling outside Nana’s house in the middle of the night.
At school, the whispers were relentless.
“Did you hear what her brother did to Alex?” “The Blackburns are psychos.” “Don’t look at her, she’s a curse. ”
Every time they used that word, I wanted to scream. Julian and Cain weren’t my brothers.
The only real brother I ever had was a foggy memory named Jack, a four year old’s recollection of a baby who was taken because my parents were too selfish to keep him, and Nana wasn’t eligible to take on a newborn in her later years.
I push him down, forcing the memory into a bottomless pit so I don’t have to feel the ache of his absence.
I always find myself looking at a blank space in my life, wondering if it belonged to him.
“It will all be okay, Junebug,” Julian had whispered to me that morning as he caught me on the porch. He’d tried to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering and warm, but I’d flinched.
“He’s been asking for you every day, June. He hates that you’re avoiding him.”
I felt a bitter spark of irritation. “He doesn’t need to ask about me,” I bit out, my hands shaking as I gripped my books.
“He never stops watching me anyway. I can feel him behind the tinted glass of his car, just staring, Julian. It’s like a physical weight on my skin, following me everywhere I go.
He’s like a goddamn stalker I can’t shake. ”
Julian didn’t even try to defend him. He just stepped closer, his expression softening into that protective look that always made my heart race.
He sighed, a small, weary smile tugging at his lips.
“I’m sorry, June… I know he can be… a bit much sometimes.
He’s intense, but I promise he’ll grow on you… eventually.”
I let out a dry laugh that felt tight in my chest. “It’s been years, Julian… It hasn’t happened yet, so I definitely won’t be holding my breath…”
He let out a laugh, the sound low and warm, breaking the heavy tension between us for just a second.
But deep down inside, we both knew the truth. Cain really did have some serious issues.