Page 131 of Prodigal Son

“What are you talking about, asshole?” he drawled, tone bored. But his heart started to pound.

Morris’s grin widened, flashing yellowed teeth. “He never told you, then.” Without turning his head, his gaze slid toward Devin. “Why not? Too afraid? It couldn’t be honor.”

“What’s he talking about?” Phillip demanded. He was on his feet now, facing Devin.

And Devin leveled his gun at Morris, jaw tight.

“Wait,” Fox said, just before he pulled the trigger. “I want to know.”

Devin glanced his way, and then at the others, one-by-one, eyes wide-rimmed, frantic.

“Dad,” Fox said.

Someone on the other side of the door had found an ax, and was hammering at it, muffled bangs, the door rattling in its frame. It wouldn’t hold long.

“Devin,” Abe said, expression grim.

“What?” Fox demanded. “What the fuck?”

Morris chuckled. “When we were designing the subjects, treating them with steroids and experimental serums, we decided it would be best to guard our research as well as we could. Leaving one control subject, of course. We sterilized them. All but one: Subject Nine.”

The words went into Fox’s ears…and set off a small explosion in his brain.

“What?” Phillip said, shrill, losing some of his usual composure. “What are you–”

Crack of a gunshot, and spray of blood and gore. Morris slumped forward, dead.

It was Devin.

Fox rounded on his father, and all his calm – his exhaustion, his distance – it finally cracked. It felt like something important and permanent in him cracked, too. The sort of thing that would seep blood until he was ruined.

“What the fuck?” he roared, and charged toward his father. He reached out with his free hand, intending to wrap it around Devin’s throat. All he saw was red; all he felt was rage.

Devin brought his own arm up, a sharp chop, right on the nerve in Fox’s forearm. The limb went numb, a burst of pins and needles, and Devin grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. Head-butted him right in the nose as he stumbled forward.

Stars burst across his field of vision. Roaring pain. The heat of wet blood as vessels broke in his nose, and it gushed out, down into his mouth.

The world spun, and Fox was on his back, Devin’s boot resting on his chest, wrist still held in a pincer grip. The pain had brought tears to his eyes, blurred his vision, but he raised his gun and aimed it at Devin’s face.

“Why?” he demanded, voice thick with blood, slurring with it.

Devin’s face twisted up, as if pained. “I didn’t mean for it to go like this, Charlie. Honest, I didn’t.”

Fox heard scuffling. Phillip loomed over him, but Devin kicked him away, and spun out of sight.

He sat up, head throbbing, nose bleeding all over the place. He pressed his sleeve to his nostrils to stop the flow, and saw Morgan and Abe coming in closer, crouching down in front of him.

“What the fuck?” he said again.

“Christ,” Morgan said, and ran a hand over his head, nearly upsetting his knit cap.

“Charlie.” Abe leaned in, a handkerchief having manifested in his hand, and pressed it to his nose.

Fox took it from him, applying pressure.

Abe’s expression was sad.

“Did you know?” Fox asked, words muffled by the cotton.

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