Twenty-five #2
“What are you . . . ?” The only person in the clan who knew Cella wasn’t speaking to me was Annalisa.
A few nights ago, maybe Saturday, she had asked if things were any better between us, and I’d responded with an emphatic no.
Annalisa’s room was in the opposite wing of the basement from Cedric’s. Even vampire hearing wasn’t that good.
My fingers clenched around the doorknob. “Have you been spying on me?”
“You showed up smelling like sheep,” said Cedric. “You drove an hour to see a football game, of all things. And you stayed two nights. It isn’t hard to figure out who’s on a football team. Do you think I’m stupid?”
I thought you were sane, actually. For all of the times I had written him off as crazy, I’d never really believed it. I hadn’t known what it would look like for my brother to be lost. Now I could see it all over his walls.
“I tried to warn you,” he said. “You remember what I said I’d do, don’t you, if any of them laid even a finger on one of us? I get the feeling we’re well past that point by now.”
After the game. I’d been foolish enough to think he was trying to bond with me. He’d only wanted to scare me straight.
I hissed, “You manipulative—”
“Me?” asked Cedric, smiling confusedly. “I’m not the one lying to my entire family.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My hand had barely begun to twist around the doorknob when something lodged into the door an inch above my fingers. I snatched my hand away with a yelp; if Cedric had wanted to hit me, the arrowhead would already be embedded in my skin.
“I asked where you were all break,” said Cedric. His smile had wiped away so completely that he looked as if he had reset. “I already know, so you might as well come clean. I want to hear you say it.”
“I’m telling Dad,” I said, meekly, every bit the little brother. “About all of this. This is crazy. Shit, you’re really crazy. He’ll never let you be chief. Your little war will be over before it gets started.”
Because that was what this was, wasn’t it? Cedric was going to take over the clan and long outlive most of its members. He was already preparing his arms. He would rear his own militant generation. Whether in my lifetime, or the next, or the next, he would have his fight.
“Yeah?” said Cedric. “Because you want to be chief so bad?”
I froze. Without Cedric, I was next in line. It wasn’t a possibility I’d ever considered or wanted to consider. Nobody was more tightly bound, more stuck, than the chief.
If my relationship with Mason seemed impossible now, it would be a pipe dream for the future head of the clan.
“Go ahead,” he went on. “And in turn, I’ll tell him you’ve been sneaking off to get cozy with one of the animals that killed our mother.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” Another arrowhead sank into the wood just above my shoulder. I hadn’t even seen him pick it up. “What do you think he’ll say? What do you think anyone will say?”
I heard it clearly, like a song, a chanting circle of children. Traitor, traitor!
Traitor, traitor! You let her die because you were weak, and now you’re dancing on her grave. I shrank against the door.
“End it,” said Cedric.
“Fuck no,” I said.
Cedric looked wounded. “You said you wouldn’t forget. Is lying all you’re good for? How can you live with yourself, putting our entire family in danger like this?”
“I’m putting people in danger? You have a fucking arsenal in your room.”
Cedric was unfazed. “End it, Kieran. Or I will.”
Something nasty wound itself around the fear and the shame, shooting to life inside me. I saw sparks. “You won’t go anywhere near him.”
Again, Cedric said, “Is that so?”
I stepped forward, only to stop when I saw silver glinting between his fingers again. “If you fucking touch him . . .”
“You’ll what?” said Cedric. “You’re weak. You’re fucked in the head, and you’re weak. It wouldn’t even be a fight.”
My legs were tense, my hands curled tight, every muscle urging me to do something. But Cedric was stronger than me. That had been decided the moment I made the Trade and he didn’t. It was how he’d seen me ever since I’d chose the sunlit path.
“Well?” He stepped closer, and I flinched hard.
Cedric wasn’t afraid of me, but I had been afraid of him for years.
I felt lightheaded.
“Why are you being so cruel?” I asked. “We aren’t hurting anyone! You’re paranoid, and, fine, I can’t blame you; I get it—but he’s not a wild animal! He’s a person, and he’s kind, and . . .”
My voice trailed away. Cedric looked furious and delighted at once. Bloodthirsty.
“Why?” he echoed, stalking toward me. In a low murmur, he said, “Because I’ve been waiting for years for an excuse to scratch this itch, and you’ve gone and dropped one into my lap. This is me being nice. Go ahead and refuse me. You’d be doing me a favor. I’ll tear him—”
I didn’t remember moving, but next thing I knew, I had Cedric pinned against the door. One hand grasped his throat. The other had ripped one of the arrowheads from the door and now held it to the underside of his jaw. “Enough.”
Cedric snarled, sounding more like an animal than any wolf I’d ever heard. He had us reversed in an instant, pinning me by my wrists. I struggled to no avail.
“What should I use?” he mused. “A dagger? A bullet? A butcher’s knife?”
A sob finally broke from my chest. “You wouldn’t.”
“Who are you trying to convince?”
“I love him, Cedric. I’m your brother, and I love him.” I hated, hated that he was the first person I’d told. “Does that mean nothing to you?”
Cedric hissed and gripped my wrists to the point that it hurt. “You’re delusional. You’re fucking delusional. You think you love that thing? Did he mess with your head or something?”
“We’re mates, okay?” I said, desperate. “I know you know what that means!”
His eyes flashed. I cried out in pain, the arrowhead tumbling from my grip. “Break up with him.”
“Are you deaf or what?”
Cedric glanced behind himself at his wall of weapons and then turned back to me. The message was clear. “Break up with him.”
“How can you go on about protecting your family when you’re hurting me?”
He squeezed again, and I felt a pop in my right wrist. I stifled a sound behind clenched teeth. Cedric let go. Without his hold, my boneless legs threatened to sink me to the floor.
“Let me get something straight. You’re not my brother. Not anymore. If what you said is true, then you never were.”
I cradled my wrist.
“Aren’t you tired of this? All of this?” I nodded toward the bookshelf. Seconds passed. “I’ll tell Dad everything. Rat me out if you want, I don’t care. This has to end. But if you drop this, if you let me be with him, I’ll stay quiet. You’ll get to be chief like you’ve always wanted.”
I really, really didn’t like how that looked inside my head.
Cedric snickered. “I’ve got a better proposition. If you don’t break up with him, I’ll kill him. If you break up with him and rat me out to dad, I’ll kill him. If you don’t break up with him and you tell dad . . . Do I need to spell it out for you?”
“You really think Dad’ll let you do anything that would threaten the peace? He’ll get rid of your stupid collection.”
“Do you really think I’d show you everything I’ve got?” Cedric sniped back. “Short of locking me up, there’s nothing he can do to stop me.”
I shut my eyes. The movement squeezed out the water that had been welling there; tracks ran coolly down my cheeks.
It’s a myth that we cry blood. A stupid one. We cry tears.
I hadn’t cried anything in a long time, though. In a sick twist of fate—just another to tack onto the growing list—that was the moment it finally struck. Mason was right. There was something human inside of me after all.
How else could I feel weakness like this? Nothing else cried tears when sad. Heartbreak was quintessentially human.
“I hate you,” I said. I really meant it, and that was a human feeling too.
“We have a deal, then?”
I nodded.
“Good. You’ll understand eventually, Kieran.”
“Go to hell.” I shoved past him, scrubbing my face, and let his door slam behind me.
My uncle Dante was in the kitchen when I climbed the stairs. I avoided his eyes and started up toward my room.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to school by now?” he said. I froze, foot hovering over the first stair. “Is everything all right?”
Turning ninety degrees, I stormed out of the kitchen without raising my head. I drove to school using my left hand. My right was already healing.