Page 147 of This Blood That Breaks Us
No matter what I did, I couldn’t save my brother.
Her blood surged in my body and made my vision feel strange and dreamlike. Luke was the last thing standing in my way. The last thing that made me feel anything. I’d dragged my brother to hell with me, and like every time before, I didn’t protect him.
That left only one final thing. My brother needed someone to save him, and there was only one way to do that.
He had to die.
That’s the brother I needed to be. It’s who I was. She’d said so Herself. Carnage was basically my last name. It all made sense.
I, Zach Calem, would kill my brother. That’s what I’d be remembered for.
Luke threw me across the room, and the force buckled the marble. The wind blowing through the doors was cold. Sirius closed them and disappeared out of sight.
I could do it. I could make it quick, then he’d be free. My brother was a great fighter, but I wasbetter.
I charged him and slid under his legs faster than he could turn. It wasn’t a fair fight. He was weak from sparring, and I’d been healed.
That would make it easy for me, then.
Wrapping my arm around his neck, I bit into his throat. I felt the pain too, as the bond flared.
His blood stained my shirt as I spit it on the floor. The last thing I needed was more of Her in my system, muddying my thoughts and confusing me more. He grabbed the edge of my coat and lifted me over his head to toss me to the floor. The marble design cracked all the way to the door.
I twisted him into an arm bar. The imbalance left him on the floor. His blood stuck to my hands and chest and caused my hold to slip. Luke took a chunk out of my arm, and black blood spewed over the floor and into the cracks of the marble.
“Would you like me to stop this?” I barely heard Ezra whisper to Her.
Luke picked me up and slammed me into the marble again.
Focus.I could do it. I could kill Luke. It was saving him. It had to be me. No one else would do it except me. The one who loved him the most in this world.
“Patience,” She said.
This time I was faster as I dodged Luke and pinned down his leg. That, or he was getting slower. Weaker. But I could go for days. My heart beat loudly in my ears as I knocked him on his ass again. The pain of it shot through my back.
Luke’s movements were sloppy. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was thinking of Her.
I would win.
It’s better than the alternative, I told myself. Watching Her take advantage of my brother and bind him into servitude.
I put distance between us to wipe my brother’s blood off me and make eye contact with Her. “Enjoying the show?”
She smiled.You’re such a fool.
Luke charged me again, and I let him take me down and pin me to the marble.
I stayed for you.
Luke’s words felt like a scorching hot iron to my chest. I don’t know why they popped into my head when they did, but the memory of them burned into the edges of my skull.
I stayed for you.
My brother stayed on this hell of a planet for me.
Despite knowing what awaited us.
Despite the pain of losing Sarah.
