Page 60 of Brother's Keeper

There were no thoughts of discretion, not even the appropriate level of concern for how I must have looked dragging Maximus Lyle out of the passenger seat of my car and through the entry of the Bitters’ End. Apparently, I’d gotten too used to the bar being vacant and was lucky to find no customers lurking on a Friday afternoon. Spending the ride across town with an emotional terrorist ransacking my brain had left me choked with every bad feeling he could push on me, and I was a fucking mess.

“Shut up!” I used my grip on Maximus’s arm to give him a rough shake. With the makeshift gag in his mouth and his hands tied with jumper cables I’d dug out of the front trunk of the Porsche, he hadn’t said a word. He didn’t need to. His magic was inside me like a parasite eating away at my fragile composure.

We came to a stop in the middle of the bar where I was too blinded by wild tears to venture farther. My stomach lurched as though I would be sick. Guilt and shame and sorrow piled up.

I shoved myself in Maximus’s face and found him unyielding. “I can make you hurt, too, you old bastard,” I seethed. “Don’t fucking tempt me.”

Rather than relent, the empath came back at me harder. Either he wanted to die or was determined to crush me with the weight of my own self-loathing. Lord knew there was plenty of that to go around.

I spun away from him and shouted at the ceiling. “Nash!”

Heavy feet hurried down the stairs. My eyes fluttered with relief when Nash rounded the doorway into the bar. When he saw me and Maximus, linked by my white-knuckled hold on the old man’s elbow, Nash lurched back, immediately seeking the exit.

“Oh, fuck,” he stammered. His normally rosy cheeks went ashen. “Fitch, what did you do?”

“They’re all dead,” I sobbed. Sorrow gave way to rage, something I didn’t need Maximus’s help to feel fully. “Grimm lied to me.” My face scrunched with spite as I looked at Nash, and sarcasm laced my next words. “I know. You’re shocked.”

“Who’s dead?” Nash asked.

“The voters,” I snapped. “This dickbag got his wish, but it didn’t matter because he was gonna kill me no matter what. He just wanted to use me like everyone else.” My voice tore up my throat, raw and edged with pain I couldn’t explain. I must have looked like a maniac, ranting with my chest heaving while tears ran down my face.

I squared myself with Maximus again. “Is that it?” I asked him. “If you aren’t gonna treat me like I’m even alive, then what difference does it make if I’m dead?”

From behind me, Nash crept forward with his hand outstretched. “Fitch—”

Maximus met my gaze without blinking, maddeningly composed.

“I never wanted to be a killer,” I told him. “Not for Grimm, not for you. I just wanted…” Words lodged in my throat; a statement I didn’t know how to finish. I swallowed and tried again. “I wanted…”

“Fitch.” Nash’s touch to my shoulder sparked a reaction like a static shock on steroids. He flew backward, hitting the floor on his tailbone and sliding across the polished wood boards.

I gaped at him, wide eyed and breathless as he shook himself, then stood. The anger that flickered across his features brought guilt swinging down on me like a hammer. My stomach lurched, and I gulped back bile. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone…

The emotional pain redoubled, growing until it filled me so completely I thought I might burst apart.

I wheeled around on Maximus and screeched, “Stopit!”

Hewas doing this. Making everything so much worse. Digging through my brain like it was a goddamned treasure trove and finding nothing but shit.

Releasing the old man, I pressed my palms against my ears, but I knew it would do no good.

“That’s enough.” Nash’s voice was nearby once more, but he wasn’t talking to me. “Surely you can see he doesn’t want to hurt you. You’d be here in pieces if he did. But better not to push, don’t you think?”

I sank to the ground, breathing hard with both arms shielding my head from the mental onslaught. But it had stopped, and all was quiet.

When I dared to peek out, Maximus and Nash faced each other. Maximus stood with his back straight and his chin held high, an odd juxtaposition against his wrists bound behind his back and a dirty rag in his mouth. Nash similarly set his feet. At his side, he held one hand closed in a fist. But I knew he was packing something more powerful than a punch.

Nash glanced my way, betraying shades of fear. Then he swung toward Maximus’s jaw with a wicked uppercut. The older man’s head snapped back as the air filled with a puff of shimmering silver powder. Sleepy dust, Nash jokingly called it. He used it on rowdy drunks and me more than once.

It was hard to tell what took Maximus out, the punch or the magic. The older man dropped, immediately limp, while Nash stood rubbing his knuckles. Several seconds passed with the alchemist staring down at Maximus’s prone form. When Nash finally looked at me, hisfeatures softened.

He sighed. “Whatever this is, looks like we’re in it together.”

The nosebleed got me out of the confrontation with Pippa. Nash took that on the chin but not before shooing me off to bed and ensuring I was too drowsy to try listening in again.

I was foggy and sore the next day when Nash bustled through the doorway of his bedroom, toting a white wooden tray laden with dishes.

“Breakfast,” he greeted as he approached the bedside. “Or lunch. You’ve been out for a while.”

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