Page 117 of His Pretty Little Duet

She's alive.

I apply all my weight.

My heart breaks.

Hers slows.

Her body dwindles in strength. Careless arms flop and flail with the remnants of her young life. I hear a groan rumble in my throat as my eyes refuse to stop crying like a bitch. Just like my hands refuse to allow her to breathe. Everything bubbling to the surface. Rage. Loyalty. Pain. Guilt.

Then she is still.

And I'm so close.

No more whimpering.

She isn't alive.

Panic surges through me, but I don't have time for it. Jumping to my feet, I follow Dustin from the hospital room, wiping at my cheeks and forcing myself to feign a casual manner while the new echoing of her pulse runs a straight line across the monitor. A droning tone that follows us down the hallway and around the corner.

The sound is her death song.

And mine too.

Don't feel.

After I remove my soiled shirt, I stand bare-chested in the bathroom of my family home and take a white-knuckled grip on the stone vanity.

I stare at the square ceramic sink, counting the drops of blood dripping from the thick, jagged wound in my collarbone.

One.

A girl is dead.

Two.

She couldn't have been much older than nine.

Three.

She fought back.

Four. Five.That overwhelms me with pain. She wanted to live. But also… a kind of pride. No one else will give her that sentiment. No one else was there to see her fight back.

Six.

Don't feel.

"Clay?" my younger brother Max mutters from behind me, a hint of surprise at my presence circling his tone.

I'm not often here.

I twist my face, finding him in the door jamb, once again covered in bruises from rugby or boxing or simply experiencing his young dumb thug life.A life I don't know.

His grey eyes dart to the blood gushing from the wound along my collarbone to the ceramic, to my pained stare as I hide my emotions from him, but the sinking concern in his gaze wrings them from me. My body wrestles with my mind, seeking a kind of comfort that has always eluded me.

A world of empathy and anger darkens his expression. That hint of wisdom fractures something in my chest, making me want to grasp at it.

Does he know what this is?

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