Page 30 of Citadel

“Don’t you need a rest sometimes?”

He shrugs his big shoulders.

“It doesn’t seem like a very good life. Never doing anything but traveling. Never taking any time for yourself.”

“I don’t need time for myself. I need to find my brother.”

“Yeah. I get that.” I sigh. “I just thought you might be tired.”

There’s a slight pause before he mutters, “I am.”

I want to ask him if he’s ever going to give up, but I’m sure that will upset him, so I don’t. He’s having a good evening. I don’t want to mess that up.

Instead, I say, “Tell me about Mark.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know. Anything. What’s he like?”

“He was always real smart. Did great at school. He didn’t have a ton of friends. I don’t think he was really picked on a lot. Just one of those kids who kind of stays under the radar.”

“Yeah. I was like that when I was in school too.”

“Were you?”

“I did have a few friends but not a lot. People didn’t notice me much.”

“Mark was like that. I tried to look out for him while I was there, but after I left, I think he was mostly alone. Our mom was on her own. She had to work a lot. I think he started getting in trouble because those were the only kids who seemed like friends to him. He needed someone, and that was who he had.” He gives his head a small shake. “I shoulda stayed. I could have got some sort of job instead of joining the Marines. If I’d been there, I could’ve looked out for him and he wouldn’t have been all alone.”

“You can’t blame yourself, Cole.” I turn toward him on the bench, folding my legs beneath me. “You were what? Eighteen? Barely more than a kid yourself.”

“Doesn’t matter. I knew he was struggling, but I hated our hometown. Just wanted out of there, so I took the way out I had.”

“But you came back? Right? When he was really getting in trouble? You said you came back.”

“I did.”

“That couldn’t have been easy. A lot of people wouldn’t have done it. You gave up your career for him. You were a great brother to him.”

He shifts slightly, still slouched but not as comfortably now. He’s clearly not used to vulnerable conversations. I’m surprised he’s told me as much as he has. “That was a lot of years later. After he went to prison for a couple of years.”

“You said he was getting it together after you came back, so you did help him.”

“I guess. Not enough to… After Impact, he gave up everything he’d been working on—like none of it mattered anymore.”

“A lot of people felt that way. It’s understandable, I guess, since it felt like whole world was falling apart. Maybe he’ll give up that life eventually. Try to get it together again.” I don’t actually have a lot of hope for that. In my experience, guys who run with droves and gangs have veered pretty far from decency and don’t have any desire to change.

But I also can’t imagine a brother of Cole’s being a complete monster.

“I don’t know.”

“What… What are you going to do when you finally catch up with him?”

He shrugs again. “Talk to him. Try to get him to come with me. I… I can’t help hoping that when he sees me, when he realizes how long I’ve been looking for him, that he’ll give all the rest of it up.”

“Maybe he will.” I might have my doubts, but I’ll never express them to Cole. His expression might be as stoic as ever, but he’s hurting right now. He needs hope. Not reality. “He’ll see how much you love him. That’s got to mean something to him.”

Cole sighs and closes his eyes briefly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

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