Page 1 of Deja New
PROLOGUE
He walked in on a nightmare and realized at once why his brother had been murdered. The how was also immediately apparent: two in the face. Point-blank.
He’s dead. And my life is over, too.
To put it mildly. Who was he without his brother? He had always been prepared to go first—at times, he would have welcomed it. But he couldn’t spin this, couldn’t fix it, and he couldn’t run from it, either. He had his family to think about.
He tried to look down a tunnel of years without his brother and drew a total blank. It was unfathomable.
There was nothing for it but the truth. This one time, he would tell the exact truth: In an act of carelessness and envy he’d killed his brother, and he would accept whatever punishment was assigned. He wouldn’t try to wriggle free of it. Ever.
And he wouldn’t let anyone else get him free of it. Ever.
When he heard the sirens, he felt nothing but relief.
