32. Kai
Kai
“Fuck, Kai, at least open a window.”
I blink at Ezra through the haze of weed smoke between me and the door. His dark green eyes narrow when I remain parked on my ass on the floor of my dorm room, then he charges across the room and throws open my window.
Sweet, skunky smoke flees my room like civilians after a week-long hostage situation ends with the cops gunning down their kidnappers.
Wish I could open a window and escape that easily.
Ezra waves a hand dramatically in front of his face. “You know you can’t smoke that shit in here.”
I grin at him around the joint I’m puffing on. “You know I don’t give a fuck, right?” I gesture with two fingers between us. “Familial immunity.”
My brother snorts, shaking his head as he takes a slow scan of my dorm room. The way his nose wrinkles, it’s obvious I disgust him.
Ezra is the epitome of a germaphobe, with his immaculate gelled hair, his perfectly pressed clothes, and his obsession with hand sanitizer and mouthwash.
He nudges an empty beer can with his foot. “Celebrating?”
“Fuck, yeah.” I throw my hands up, one of them holding another beer. “Bitch is fucking gone.”
I was in no state to go to class today, but I have ferrets everywhere and they were quick to inform me that Haven did not show up to any of her classes today. It’s two in the afternoon on a glorious Wednesday, and I’m taking a long weekend.
Like a really, really long weekend.
Fuck Rooke’s class tomorrow—I’ll tell him I was sick. He’ll probably be pissed, but he’ll get over it.
There’s no fucking way I’m staying sober long enough to remember any of the shit that went down in the library gardens.
…look how fucking wet you are…
Oops. Ha ha. That was a close one.
“Want a beer?” I drag myself up the bed, and then perch on the edge as I rummage through the cans on my nightstand. One of them’s gotta be sealed. I brought two six-packs in here last night to supplement my fresh bottle of J?ger.
Ezra looks almost exactly like that meme of the little blond girl in her car seat, with his lip raised until his too-white teeth catch the light. “It’s the middle of the day. And the middle of the week.”
Thank God.
But I still lean into the pretense that I’d love nothing more than to spend time with my brother. It’s how Mom raised us. It’s what Ezra taught me. It’s how I’ve learned to live.
“Should be celebrating,” I say. “This is what you—” I clear my throat “we wanted.”
“Of course we did,” Ezra says dryly, his eyes lingering on me a little longer, as if waiting for my denial. “That slut was a distraction you didn’t need.”
Yeah, that was kinda the point. We distracted each other from our fucked up lives. She was a blessing, not a curse. But when I found out the shit she’d been up to after leaving Agony Hollow…
…look at me when I use you…
I set my beer down, then carefully put my dead roach in the makeshift ashtray I created out of a dented beer can.
Ezra side-eyes me when I screw off the J?ger’s lid and take a swig, then continues prowling through my room like he’s taking careful note of every discarded sweet packet, beer can, or crusty sock.
I’m not usually a pig. But it’s hard to think about cleaning when all I can think about is how fragile and slender and warm and smooth Haven’s neck felt in my fingers as I tried to crush the life out of—
Fuck!
“Slut,” Ezra says in that low, hushed tone he only uses when we’re alone. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and my legs twitch like they want to run. “Turning tricks in Ashwood for her dad’s dope, then fucking half the football team. Did she seriously think we wouldn’t find out?”
I stare at the bottle of J?ger, circling my wrist to make the booze swish around inside. “Yeah,” I rasp. “The fucking audacity on that one.”
Ezra chuckles. “You know how hard it was to tell you about that shit? I almost couldn’t do it.”
I don’t want to look at him, but I do. I know my brother’s cues by now. If I don’t acknowledge the sliver of mercy he gave me all those years ago, he’ll make me pay for it.
And I owe him for it. How else would I have found out about the guys running a train on Haven?
And the thing with her dad kind of made sense.
He had her stealing food back when they still lived in the trailer park so he had more money for drugs.
Makes sense that he’d put her to work once she was old enough.
“You two were so close,” Ezra says, shaking his head as he goes to pick up one of my hoodies from the floor.
He fingers the fabric and stares out the window like it’s a portal to the past. “I didn’t want to take that away from you, but I had to.
Couldn’t have you believing in a lie. That’s what a big brother is for, right? ”
The knuckles on the hand holding my J?ger have gone white.
“Shut up,” I push through gritted teeth.
“To clean up your messes.”
“Ezra, stop.” It’s a low, warning growl, as if he’s ever listened to me when I told him to stop.
“You know what? I’m glad she came back. Gave you a chance to hammer that last nail in her coffin. Now things can go back to normal. Just me and you, bro.”
He flinches when the bottle of J?germeister explodes against the wall a few feet from him.
In the hush that follows, there’s only a soft tinkle of glass as a shard settles.
“That almost hit me,” he says, turning eyes the color of dying moss onto me. It’s probably just my fucked up mind making shit up, but I swear there’s a flicker of disappointment on his face.
Because if I had hurt him, he’d have to hurt me back.
There’s not enough water in the world to wash away the blood Ezra has coaxed from my body over the years, literally and figuratively.
But no matter how badly I want to get back at him, I don’t touch Ezra. I don’t touch him, I don’t insult him, I put my head down and I do what he says because he’s my golden ticket out of Agony Hollow.
Getting out of here, away from him, my family, the memories…that’s the only reason I suffer this psychotic asshole’s presence.
So I endure.
He shakes his arms, glancing down at the booze splashed over his once-pristine polo shirt, picking a tiny shard of glass out of his arm hair.
“That trailer park whore doesn’t deserve you, Kai. Never has, never will. She made you weak. Dependent. I’ve only ever made you stronger.”
My stomach contents have turned into acid.
“By hitting me?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
Ezra pauses in the act of brushing off his shirt. His eyes swivel to me, head tilting as he slowly comes closer to the bed.
Congratulations, Kai. Now you’ve gone and made him mad.
My muscles lock when he stops at the side of the bed, towering over me.
“You think I enjoyed it, Kai? I did it because I knew he’d turn on you one day, too. It was just a matter of time.”
I flinch when he reaches into my space to pluck a piece of lint from my hoodie.
“I was preparing you. Protecting you. While you were out there in the woods playing pretend with that slut, I was taking the real hits.”
His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“What do we say?” he murmurs, ducking down until we’re at eye level.
Punch him. Strangle him. Kill him…for real this time.
But my intrusive thoughts never win.
“Thank you,” I rasp on automatic.
“My pleasure.” He pats my cheek, and I flinch with every touch.
“Now, best you sober up. The social committee is meeting again later this week to iron out the final details for the Rain Dance.”
He heads for the door, pausing at the threshold.
“We should take a trip sometime. Maybe after midterms. Go down to the beach house. What do you say?”
I’d rather flay off my own skin with a butter knife.
“Yeah. Sure. Sounds like a plan.”
He nods as he closes my door.
My hand shakes as I drag my fingers through my hair, as I hunt for the roach so I can light it up. I tug the warm, sweet smoke into my lungs, my muscles relaxing as the weed numbs me.
…she made you weak…
I hike up the sleeve of my hoodie and stare at the bite mark on my arm, running a thumb over the angry, raised puncture wounds.
When the memories flood in, I don’t try to stop them.
This wasn’t the first time Haven bit me. It was one of her favorite things to do when we played. If I was the pirate who’d abducted her, she’d fight to get free before I could tie her to the tree as a sacrifice for the kraken.
And fuck, would she fight.
Sometimes I left the woods in a worse condition than when I got there.
I’ll never forget the first time I hurt her.
I’d gotten to the woods in a bad mood to begin with after Ezra had let off some steam by kicking me in the ribs for a while.
Me and Haven were fighting our way through a tiger-infested jungle in the when a troop of cannibals attacked us.
I saved her, only to have one of the cannibals stalk us and capture her.
First, I was the hero, then I became the villain.
Then she turned into a cannibal and bit my hand. I suppose it was because I ignored her when she said the ropes were too tight, when I just kept antagonizing her as she struggled and screamed.
It was hard to tell what was real and what was make-believe back then.
So she bit my hand. Drew blood. It hurt so much I backhanded her, leaving a streak of blood over her face that I thought was hers.
She started crying, and fuck was I panicking as I cut her loose with my dull kitchen knife. Thank God, when she ran, I caught her, because if I hadn’t been able to calm her down, I don’t know what would have happened if she had gone home in that state.
There were rope marks all over her wrists and ankles from how hard she’d fought.
Looking back, I was silly to think I’d have gotten into trouble. Her dad was stoned out of his mind on meth most of the time, anyway. And when he wasn’t, he simply didn’t give a shit about his daughter. At least, not that I could tell.
Why else would he let her run around in the woods behind our trailer until dark every day?
But even after I calmed her down, and she said there were no hard feelings, I wasn’t expecting her to come back.
I got to our meeting spot the next day, and there she was, sitting on the rock near the creek, braiding a daisy chain.
My relief was short-lived. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me, an impassive, calculating light in her blue eyes as she put that crown on her head and informed me in her most regal voice that today, she was a queen, and I was the bandit who would kidnap her.
That was the day we stopped playing games and began indulging in fantasies.
The darker, the better.
…I wasn’t fucking done…
I wasn’t either, Haven, but Christ, you scared the living shit out of me when your eyes rolled up like that and I thought you’d stopped breathing.
That I’d choked you out.
If I’d held on just a little longer, she would be dead right now.
If I’d held on just a little longer all those years ago, Ezra would be dead too.
But I’m not sure that’s what I really wanted, then or now.
Killing someone takes balls, but a lot of planning, too. It’s usually the guys who off someone in the heat of the moment that go to jail. If I’m going to kill someone, I won’t get caught.
If I’m going to suffer, it might as well be as a free man.