Page 19 of Unwrapping Deviance

“I won’t tell Daniel about this, but if you come near me again...”

Christian watches me through a patch of dark hair that has slipped over his furious eyes. A dark, crimson stain marks his bottom lip that he swipes with the pad of his thumb and sucks clean. Never once looking away from me.

But I steel myself against the flex in my belly by snapping on my heels and hurrying back up to my room.

CHAPTER FIVE

DANIEL

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There’s something special about the way the sun comes up over Jefferson.

There isn’t another place like it. I know. I’ve looked. It was the thing I missed most after abandoning our lives, grabbing Christian and running.

The house my great grandfather built that was passed down from father to son for generations sits too deep in the shelter of the forest to actually see the town. It’s hidden from view unless specifically sought. And the sun doesn’t touch the cabin for more than a couple of hours a day when the fireball is following its arch across the sky.

But when we were younger, Chris and I would walk to school in the morning, side by side. One of us carrying our father’s discipline on our body.

Usually Chris.

We’d watch the day paint gold tips over the pine tops and smear pink across the flawless blue.

I love my brother.

He’s my best friend next to Sam, and now Mira. He and I will always be soldiers in another man’s hate. We share scars no one else will ever understand. It’s nothing at all like the battlefield I walked through with Sam, or the barely frozen lake I cross with Mira.

Christian and I survived hell where neither of us actually made it out because Jefferson won’t let us go.

Seventeen fucking years and I’m back in that house. Back in that fucking room where the carpet still holds the stains of my bladder releasing with the slam of Dad’s boots on the stairs. Memories of shoving Christian under the bed and standing between him and the monster with the belt. All the while, Mom’s gasping sobs pound in my ears from all the way downstairs.

We did our best to protect Christian. It was our unspoken rule — keep Dad from killing him.

He usually tired enough after Mom and me to only get a couple of kicks in before ambling back downstairs and plopping down in front of the TV. He’d make them count, but Christian wasn’t dead.

Dad hated him.

Loathed him in a way no father should ever hate their own blood. It didn’t matter that there were two of us. Identical beings born the same exact day. He could sniff Chris out no matter where my brother hid.

But Chris took it. He dragged himself to school alongside me without a word, but I could feel the weight of his pain vibrating between us because even with me trying to take most of it, Dad never hurt me the way he went after Chris. I was never the target and he couldn’t risk injuring me too badly because unlike Christian, I had people who would notice the bruises.

I groan and kick the blankets down to the foot of the bed. The chill in the room prickles the hairs on my legs and arms. It settles on my naked chest.

With my free hand, I reach for my phone and poke the screen.

The faint smudge of light filtering in through the window already has me convinced it’s daylight, but I’m surprised by the actual hour. By the whole night that passed without a peep from Mira. She hasn’t gone a night without at least one nightmare. Being in a new place should have had her up at least a couple oftimes and I know the walls are not thick enough to muffle any noise.

Maybe she slept.

Maybe the change in scenery was exactly what she needed to finally relax. If so, maybe that’s something I need to look into. Maybe being in Sam’s old apartment wasn’t helping.

I considered moving her. After Sam passed, it made sense, but she just got there after being ripped away from her home. I couldn’t displace her again so soon.

One of the therapists she’d seen a few times and I can’t even bring to mind, agreed that Mira needed stability. Being around her mother’s things might help her feel connected.

But if it’s also the cause of her nightmares, maybe I need to reevaluate the idea. Maybe we can find a place outside the city limits. Somewhere quiet with lots of open space for Mira to garden. She’s forever complaining that she can’t.

I make a mental note as I continue to lie there in my tiny, childhood bed and swipe through emails and notifications. There’s one from Dr. Pollack, Mira’s most recent therapist reminding me that she has an appointment next week.

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