Page 83 of Skin Deep

“Certainly, Mother.” Another man stepped out of the kitchen behind Annie that I took to be Shepherd, the one brother I hadn’t met yet.

War had told me a lot about him, but hearing about him and meeting him were two different things. He was a lot more imposing than I expected him to be, standing close to my height with broad shoulders, dark hair, and the fierce green eyes of a predator. When he smiled pleasantly and gestured for me to follow him, it was like being ushered toward a web by a spider. Something about him set off alarm bells in my head, even if I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was that had me so on edge.

I glanced over at War who nodded and lifted his phone. “I’ll be a minute. Go on.”

Shepherd’s keen eyes followed my every movement as I went to the stairs. He waited for me to go on ahead. I didn’t like having him at my back, but he didn’t give me a choice. Once we reached the top of the stairs, he simply smiled and slid past me to go open the door at the end of the hall.

So, this is War’s childhood bedroom, I thought, stepping through the door and glancing around.

The trappings of some distant side of War were everywhere. Bookshelves lined one wall, full to bursting with all sorts of fantasy and science fiction books and a few biology textbooks. Scattered between them were trophies and ribbons. Not for sports, but for various academic achievements. Most of them seemed to be related to science fairs. First place, of course. War wouldn’t accept second best for anything.

I wandered over to the bookshelf, aware of Shepherd’s eyes tracking me from the doorway. War didn’t have many photos on display, and the ones he did have were of him and a younger version of Shepherd.

I picked up one of the two of them posing in front of a poster board talking about the psychology of sound. Both held up blue ribbons and were smiling, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders in the sort of gesture only close brothers shared. War was a gangly kid, but he still dressed like he was a Bible salesman, even back then. A deadly Bible salesman.

“Small towns are difficult homes for unquiet minds,” Shepherd suddenly offered.

I put the photo back and turned to study him. “Unquiet minds?”

“Like War’s.” He turned away, staring out the window. “Like mine. In small towns like Liar’s Corner, everybody knows everybody else. Our graduating class was less than a hundred strong. We stood out because we were different. At that age, being different makes you a target.”

“War was bullied?” It was hard to imagine him letting that happen after watching him torture Bowen to death the night before.

“Not once I heard about it.” Shepherd prowled into the room, coming to join me in front of the small collection of photos. “War was always content to let others believe as they would about him. His classmates were of no consequence. I, on the other hand, have never been able to stomach such behavior. They thought his mannerisms strange. Even after I stepped in, he was excluded. War found it difficult to make friends. As a result, he grew up spending a lot of time alone, with only his own mind for company.”

“But he had you,” I said, gesturing to the picture.

“To a certain extent.” He ran a finger along the spine of a book. “But our interests didn’t always align. War has always been… different from the rest of us.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

The corner of Shepherd’s mouth quirked up. “He wants to be a hero. To save people. It’s his deepest desire to be seen as a savior while the rest of us are perfectly content to be seen as the villains we are.” He dropped his hand back to his side and turned to face me. “On the exterior, and to people who don’t know him well, War’s emotional responses can seem… muted. But they aren’t. He’s always felt things intensely. Learning to cope with that intensity has not always been easy for him.”

“It must be hard for someone like him to do what he does. The killing, I mean,” I said.

“Not at all,” Shepherd said with a shrug. “He needs to rationalize it, unlike the rest of us. We kill because we’re driven to by primal urges, or because we enjoy it. War does it because it’snecessary.”

“What are you saying? That he shouldn’t do it?” That wasn’t possible. War may not have enjoyed the killing, but he was too dedicated to his family, and too good at it, to walk away.

Shepherd folded his hands behind his back and paced away from the bookshelf. “Definitely not. If anything, it’s even more important that he continue to be involved, if only to act as a moral compass. He makes decisions from a standpoint that flawlessly mixes the ethics and analytical consequences of our behaviors. To be frank, he feels and thinks in a way that limits him. The rest of us have no such limitations. River does as he likes because he likes to do it. Xander craves sensation and the rush that comes with the work, and Xavier has a quiet rage all his own that needs to be fed, even if he has yet to embrace it.”

“And you? Why do you do it?”

His mouth jerked back, almost as if he wanted to smile but was stopping himself. “I live for the thrill of the hunt. You see, I don’t care about the ripper and his victims. I understand your drive for revenge from a psychological standpoint, but I also know that there is no catharsis in vengeance. Even if you catch the ripper and give him the worst death you can think of, you will be unsatisfied at the end. I am never unsatisfied by the culmination of my hunts because the goal is never to catch them, but to chase them for as long as I can. Humans, after all, are persistence predators.”

Something about the casual way he spoke of hunting other people down like it was a sport left me shivering.

“But that’s why we need War,” he said, stepping up to examine the photograph. “Because he cares. He understands there is more to the work we do than the hunt, more than taking what we want, more than seeking sensations or an outlet for our anger. There are people suffering and he empathizes with their pain. While the rest of us don’t care, he does. Intensely.”

Shepherd tucked his hands into his pockets and studied me. I was bigger than him, but I didn’t feel like I was whenever he looked at me like that. He had a way of cutting people off at the knees with a glance that I didn’t like.

“It’s rare for War to forge connections with people,” he said. “But when he does, those connections are intense. He won’t just kill for you. He won’t just die for you. Warrick will live for you. You need to be sure you’re comfortable with the weight and responsibility that comes with that.”

“I think I know what I’m doing,” I said a little bitterly. I didn’t like the way he was talking down to me, like I didn’t know what I was getting into with War, like he knew him better than me. He probably did. Shepherd was his brother, after all, and they’d grown up together. That didn’t mean I couldn’t resent him for it.

Shepherd gripped me by the shirt and raw terror slithered down my spine as he pulled me close, something unfathomably dark flashing behind his brown eyes. “When you are the sole reason for someone’s existence, that comes with a certain level of responsibility, Paxton Cooper,” he hissed in a low whisper. “Abuse that privilege, and I will redefine your understanding of suffering.”

“What’s going on in here?” War said from the doorway, glancing between us.

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