Page 13 of Juniper Unraveling

I yank back, a tug of war for my brother, and hold him beneath his armpit to keep him beside me.

“You will let him go, or face the consequences, boy.”

“He. Stays,” I grit, wondering if they’ll be the last words I speak.

The man relents, dropping his gaze from mine with a sneer, but the knots in my stomach don’t concede so easily. Particularly when he slides his gun from his side, and the cold metal presses into my forehead. “We don’t tolerate insolence here. It complicates things.”

Figured I’d be staring down the barrel of a gun at some point. I squint my eyes as they burn with the sting of tears, mentally apologizing to my mother. I failed her. She told me to stay alive, protect my brother, and I failed.

Waiting for the flashbacks of my life seems to take forever, as all I can muster is a blank void where the ticking seconds seem to keep pace with my frantic breaths.

For some stupid reason, I wonder if the bullet will hurt when it drives through my skull, but the thought is quickly tamped down, when I open my eyes to the dark-haired man standing beside the blond, pushing the gun toward the ground.

“Name.”

“Daniel.” I hate that my voice is weak. Soft. Frightened. If not for Abel, I could’ve faced death with more dignity, but as it is, I’m feeling as if I could piss myself.

His gaze flicks from the book in my hand and back to me. “You like books? Daniel.” His voice almost seems distant, an echo inside my head that hardly carries over the chaos of thoughts swirling there.

I mindlessly rub my thumb across the cover without looking up at him and nod.

“You can read? Write?”

Again, I nod, keeping my gaze from his. Because schooling isn’t mandatory, many of the children in my hive can’t read, or write.

“Who taught you?”

The top of the book blurs with the tears in my eyes, and as if I can still feel my mother’s arm wrapped around me, while she points to words on the page, I subtly rub my thumb against the phantom touch that lingers on my skin. “My mother.”

“Tell me why you would die for this child.”

“He’s my brother.” I lift my gaze, and in that moment, all the venom pushes out of my veins, spilling across my skin in a hot wash of anger. “I would kill for him.”

The corner of his lips lift with a mirthless smile, and I wonder if he’s ever truly smiled, at all, in life. If the man is so evil that his eyes have never creased with genuine laughter. “You’ll come with me.”

I don’t know what that means. Perhaps my death sentence wrapped up in four simple words.

He continues on down the line, picking up where he left off, and the blond’s jaw shifts with what I can only guess is a silent hatred stewing behind his eyes. I don’t like this man, or the way he looks down at my brother, like a child who’s found another’s toy to ruin.

“Hey,” I dare to blurt, a tight fist of panic in my chest, when dark-hair’s eyes slide from the next prisoner back to me. “My brother … can he stay with me?”

The man glances down to Abel and back. “No,” is all he says when he walks off, and my head spins with the need to figure out a plan.

Begging will get me killed, but I won’t let them take my brother.

My mother’s words from before slip through my mind. You have to live. I do, and I will, for Abel. I’ll fight for him, too.

“Then, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Dark hair grins and exchanges a glance and a nod with the blond.

The blond grips Abel’s shoulder, guiding him forward.

Instinct kicks in. I lurch toward him and bite down on his arm.

His curses bounce inside my skull, and a sharp pain hits the side of my neck, along with a thump that sounds like air pushed through a tube. I stumble backward, my muscles cold and weak, while my surroundings spin too fast for me to keep up. The view around me reduces to a pinprick with Abel’s screams echoing inside my mind.

Chapter 4