Page 148 of This Blood That Breaks Us
Despite knowing he’d never forgive himself.
He did it all for me.
A lump formed in my throat as my brother bit into my neck, and I wrestled away and pinned an arm behind his back, then bit into his shoulder.
The weight of the love I carried for Luke was my undoing. I wasn’t nothing. I was a brother. I had a choice, and I couldn’t let him corrupt himself. His suffering needed to end, even if it ended me.
I shifted my weight till I was on top of him and pinned his arms at his sides, all while struggling with the wetness of blood coating my fingertips. He wasn’t fighting hard enough.
If loving my brother to the extinction of myself was a sin, I’d have done it again and again. This place would continue on without us. They’d find another set of twins to fill that spot.We weren’t so chosen after all. That’s what they’d say, anyway.
We were too broken.
I was unraveling.
It was all meaningless.
All of it was for fucking nothing.
My hands shook around his neck, and fresh tears stung my eyes.
I could do it. I had to.
Memories of my brother flooded me.My Luke.Back when we were happy. We were once, and I wanted us to be again.
“Luke, listen to me for a second, please!” I held him down in a flurry of blood spilling over my hands. He tried to lift me up, but he’d lost too much blood. Tears fell from my eyes onto his cheeks. “Please. Come back.”
For the first time in my life, I prayed. Not the forced ones I’d do with Mom at dinner or whatever the hell I sat on my knees for and said for the queen. I’d never begged so earnestly in my soulfor anything else to whoever was listening. God, gods, the stars. Any or all.
Please, don’t make me do this. Anything else. Give me something. Help me.
The door opened, momentarily stopping us both.
I didn’t know if it was the wash of cold that fell over us or the sound of a new distinct heartbeat. The only reason I heard it so clearly was because the rain had stopped.
We halted our fighting.
Our savior had arrived. The one person I never thought I’d see.
I let go of my brother. My muscles weren’t working. I wasn’t sure my heart was beating.
Do you see now, Darling? Sometimes you must let go to see your true potential and the person you’re foretold to be. Your family needs you.
“I understand,” I said in a whisper.
It had never been clearer.
I had a family to protect, and whoever tried to hurt them would get no mercy.
Forty-Nine
Luke
Presley emerged.
And everything in me that had separated and deteriorated knit together again. The frayed edges of our bond snapped togetherlike an invisible string tied to my brothers, me, and the queen. It felt tangible.
Our blood bonded us, and I felt the power of it. The thing we’d been missing.
