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He let go of my hand, and it felt like he’d cut it off. As if, without that physical connection between us, a part of me was missing. I struggled to breathe, struggled to swallow down the wail that was pushing its way up my throat. I rubbed at my hand, trying to bring that sensation back. Gripped it tight, as if my own touch could somehow become a surrogate for his.
John lifted his knife and fork, and it felt as if he’d taken the instruments and stabbed them through my chest. But then his eyes lifted from his plate, and his gaze landed on my clasped hands. The clucking noise he made with his tongue had the muscles in my thighs clenching.
He leaned forward, the rounded lines of his face looking sharp and brutal as the candlelight flickered over it. Even the smile on his lips took on an eerie glow, and my body itched with the need to move, even though I didn’t dare.
“I cannot tell you how proud I was, watching you light that match,” he crooned, and my skin warmed the way it had when the fire spread across my parents’ bedroom. “I’ve been so proud of you, brother. So, so proud.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I let a grin settle upon my lips. John’s smile was wide as he watched me, his gaze roving over me as if he could scent the desires in my heart. He turned his attention to the side, to the girl, who slept silent and unmoving in the middle of the floor.
Purple bruises marred her golden skin, from the top of her forehead to the bottoms of her feet. Her hair covered part of her face, and I wanted to rush to her side, to move my fingers over her locks to take them away from her swollen cheeks. I wanted to show John what a beauty she was, what I’d done to make her that way, just for him.
But before I got a chance, before I could make a move, my brother was rising from his seat. His slow steps in her direction had those deep breaths I’d taken shuddering to a stop as my chest clenched. He knelt beside her, using his own fingers to brush away her hair as I was left doing nothing but clenching my hands and wishing it was me.
My brother peeked up at me, and for a moment, I feared he could hear the thoughts screaming in my head. I knew he wouldn’t understand, not unless I found the words to tell him exactly what I wanted to ask him for.
“You’re quiet tonight.” He’d risen and was standing before me. I closed my eyes as he lifted his hand, bracing myself for whatever side of him he’d show.
Was it the gentle side, where he’d touch my skin and prod my flesh and soothe the burns each caress left in its wake?
Was it his brutal side, where my body bloomed with purple and red the way that girl’s did when I stroked her? Where my skin vibrated with the kind of need only he could relieve?
My brother gripped my chin between his fingers, drawing my face up so when I blinked open my eyes, all I could see were his. They were identical, our eyes. The same color, the same shape. The rest of us wasn’t like that. He was thicker than me. Bigger. Stronger. He could care for me the way only a big brother could.
The way I’d never been able to learn because they took Maddy away.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, releasing his grip just enough so I could move my jaw.
I forced the words over my tongue, laying my plea in his outstretched hand. “I want to keep her.”
For a moment, the heat that often burned my skin flared behind his eyes. It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure if it was really there. But I knew my brother. I knew what he expected of me. And he was proud, he’d said. Proud of everything I’d done. Surely, he was proud of this too. Surely, what I gave him was enough to prove myself to him.
John tipped his head to one side and scrutinized me once more. It was worse than it would have been if he’d hit me. At least then, I knew where I stood. When he was finished looking me over, he turned his gaze to the food on the table that was growing cold, to the candle that flickered like a reminder of the night our parents had danced in the fire.
He took a step back, directing his attention momentarily to the girl before he swung it back to me. Another step backward, and he shook his head. “No.”
Another step.
Another, and my dream was crushed under his feet.
“No, you’re not ready. Maybe next time, baby brother. But this one, she already belongs to me.”
I wanted to sag under his rejection, to curl into a ball in my bed the way I’d done so often as a child.
He knelt beside the girl and arranged her pretty face so her vacant eyes stared right at me.
“Finish your food, brother. Then get to bed. I’ll be with you soon.”
