Page 130 of Breaker

When I pick up the garlic press, his hazel eyes flash with fear, going wide. His face does this melting thing, which looks a lot like dread. He winces as he tries to remove his hand again. Blood gathers on his wrists. It’s up to him how this will go.

He’s being given a choice, which is rather lenient of me considering he gave our girl none. He tried to do god only knows what to her. If Harlow hadn’t stopped him like she said, I can imagine the things he’d have done to her. Him and Rune and since I can’t touch Rune, Zane’s going to have to do.

But Rune will get the message. He’ll know, even if this idiot can’t figure it out.

I suck in air, wishing I didn’t have to wear the helmet to hide my identity. If I wasn’t wearing it, I could smell the pungent fear that’s pooling in the pits of his dress shirt. Take it into mylungs and let it ease this painful rope knotted around my chest. But I can’t, so the only thing that will feed the dark thing inside me, will be his screams.

“Please,” he whimpers as I slide the garlic press over his pointer finger, positioning the knuckle over the little bowl.

My insides shiver, but not with excitement. This is going to hurt like amotherfucker.

“Fuck, man. Please don’t”

Despite the slick feeling sliding through me, despite the undeniable satisfaction snaking through my lungs, I don’t like this.

I never have.

I picture Hunter’s face.

Remorse means I have a conscience. A conscience means I’m capable of empathy. And empathy means I’m not as horrible as I’ve been told. Maybe I was created.

Created by our father to destroy. To wreck.

To break.

But right here, right now, I’ll gladly be all those terrible, hideous things for her. I’ll exact her revenge, brutally. I’ll be everything my father told me I was. Monstrous, ruinous. The breaker of things, of rules, of men.

All for her.

When I slam the device closed the sickening crack fills the room and that feeling in my chest eases.

Just four more to go.

Chapter 39

Breaker

16 Years Ago, May, Age 12

My birthday was yesterday.Not that anyone knows that. Some of my brothers don’t have birthdays. Reaper and Hunter do. Striker and Viper do. But Seeker and Raid don’t remember theirs. Makes me wonder how they know how old they are. Maybe Fallon just told them, and they believe him.

It doesn’t matter much anyway—if we remember our birthdays. We don’t celebrate them. There are no cakes like in Cooks movies, or even pancakes like Nanny made me. When I woke up and realized what day it was, my chest ached with missing her. I’ve not seen her in seven years, and I wonder ifshe’s still living in the same little house in the village. If Fallon visits her like he used to.

I wonder too sometimes if he just liked her or if he ever loved her. I may be the youngest, but I figured out why Fallon came to visit with Nanny those days they sent me away for lessons at church. When it first hit me, I was jealous. Nanny was mine. My good thing. But I guess she was Fallon’s, too. He was usually sweet to her. Thinking back, I think she liked him a lot more than he liked her.

I know how that feels. To like someone so much and they don’t seem to like you back. There’s a girl in the village who likes me. I think she does, and I like her, but she’s a little older than me. She has me kiss her cheek, so she must like me, but she’s not the one I wish would notice me.

It’s a silly thought, because I know he does like me. But some days, I wish he’d look at me longer.

“Get out of your head and concentrate,” Viper says from next to me. “We’re supposed to be practicing.”

I look down at my hands. My fingers stroke over the ivory. I press the white key, then the black and the high notes ring in the air, floating around the bare room with hard vinyl floors and chipped walls.

“Come on, brother,” Viper says. He props his chin on the violin—the fiddle, he calls it—and draws the bow across the strings. A low, drawn out note tugs at my chest. I like it when he plays. He’s not very good, but I still like watching him play. He gets this soft look on his face like he’s feeling the music.

Father insists we practice for an hour every day. Striker tried every instrument in this room and was good at all of them, but he only really likes the old guitar in the corner. He’s out at practice today with Maxim, practicing with a new rifle Fallon brought back from the States when he went last week.

I refocus on the keys before me and play. Viper sets his violin down and sits next to me. That clean, bright smell that seems to surround him fills my nose. Our hips mash together, and he doesn’t seem to notice, so I pretend not to.

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