Page 83 of Brother's Keeper

He met my gaze and held it, steady and warm. “You know I’m always proud of you.”

“I know, Dad.”

“You’re gonna do great things,” he said.

I bobbed my head as he leaned in and wrapped me in a bear hug.

“I love you.” He gave me a squeeze. “Very much.”

My response of “Love you, too,” was muffled into the shoulder of his suit coat.

He pulled back, then stood and smoothed out his slacks. “Get some rest, all right? No more video games.” His knowing look and wink warmed my cheeks.

Pulling my Gameboy from under the pillow, I set it on the bedside table. The lamp switched off, and Dadwalked quietly to the door and pulled it open inward.

“Night, Fitch.” He stood, silhouetted in the light from the hall. “Sweet dreams.”

Shimmying under the sheets, I yawned through a reply. “Goodnight, Dad.”

I held onto Donovanlong after he was gone. I knelt on the pavement with my chest pressed against him, wishing my breaths were his. My bent legs slowly going numb came as a cruel taunt because I felt everything else.

I was so damn close. Donovan was going to get the happy ending he deserved; Holland even said so. She had somewhere lined up. A safe place gone to waste.

Knowing that didn’t help me accept it while I clutched my brother like I could put the warmth back in his body. I brushed the dark hair away from his glassy eyes, then stared at them too long, whispering pleas for him to blink, to wake up, to live.

Sickness surged up from my gut. I gagged, coughed, and gulped as acid burned my throat raw.

There was no good time for the investigators to come stumbling into view, but it felt like an insult to see the three of them upright and breathing while me andmine were strewn across the bloody ground.

“Fitch…” Holland’s voice cracked.

She stood on Tobin’s left, and Vesper was on his right, jointly supporting his sagging, claw-shredded body. I couldn’t tell whether he was conscious and couldn’t bring myself to care. He’d failed at his job. They all had. They bumbled around and made a mess of what should have been a simple operation. So continued the theme I found pervasive with the Capitol and everyone associated with it: they disappointed me.

I stiffened while glaring up at them with all the venom I could muster. I wanted to scream, to throw them back, to choke the life out of them one by one so they could take turns feeling how I did right now. But it wouldn’t be enough.

Despite having rid myself of the earpiece, I still wore a microphone, so I assumed Felix had clued the women in to the tragedy that unfolded in their absence. Neither appeared surprised by the carnage before them, just sad. As if they had the right to mourn.

“Leave,” I muttered as I cradled Donovan’s head in my blood-slicked hand.

Holland’s brows knit together. “Let us help you—”

“I said go!” The scream tore loose, and it hurt. I was shaking, head to toe shivering with rage and a chill that seeped in through my shins where they pressed against the asphalt.

Holland slid from under Tobin’s arm, leaving Vesper to bear his weight alone.

“Your friend needs healing.” Holland stepped slowly forward with her hands up, palms out. The tip of herchin indicated Ripley lying beside me drawing rib-rattling breaths.

“He’ll be fine,” I said without fully—or even mostly—believing it.

Holland crept closer. Her bare arms were smeared with red, and her sweater had been forfeited to the cause of slowing Tobin’s blood loss. She kept her gaze locked with mine, fighting the slip toward Donovan’s face where it tucked against me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This shouldn’t have happened.” The remorse in her eyes started a fire that overwhelmed the cold in me.

“It wouldn’t have,” I spat, “if even one of you knew what the fuck you were doing.”

Holland’s sorrow turned into shock, and she began to protest, but I had more to say.

“Youcaused this.” Donovan’s limp corpse in my arms made my meaning clear. “Youmade me bring him. Why? Because I needed to ‘give a little?’” My voice climbed into a shout, and every statement made her flinch. “This is more than a little.”

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