Page 13 of Six
My brows climb straight up my forehead in surprise. Sari is the youngest of us blood brothers—bloodbecause we made a pact when we started this side business; we all have a scar on our hands as a reminder of the day we sliced our skin and mixed our blood. Even Sari, though he rarely comes in contact with the donors. He takes care of the other part of our side business. Being a genius—a naive and kind one who we all protect in one way or another, especially Uri—he works on the DNA samples we take from the donors and uses them to research and find cures and whatnot. That’s why we call the shitheadsdonorsin the first place. Even though they are unwilling. But it’s ironic and poetically just to think that such evil individuals can actually do some good at the end of their useless lives.
“He was very methodical and precise,” Gabe adds. Of that I have no doubt. When Sari focuses on something, he gives one hundred percent of himself to it. But of all the brothers, he’s the only one who doesn’t need or enjoy torturing and killing. He’s satisfied with looking after the scientific part of the business.
When we enter the dining room, Linda is sitting at one head of the long table with Meg next to her, while Michael is on Raph’s lap, per usual, in deep conversation with Sari. Those two can talk for hours about unpronounceable medical stuff.
“Hey kids, come and sit,” Meg tells us with a soft smile on her face. I’m twenty-nine and Gabe is thirty, but our mother still calls us all kids.
I go around the table to give both Linda and Meg a quick shoulder squeeze, before taking a seat next to them. The fragrant smell of homemade baguette comes from the small basket on the table, and I take a slice and toss a piece into my mouth, enjoying the crunchy, buttery taste.
“Hey, guys,” Michael greets us as he feeds Raph some bread. Since they found each other a little more than four months back, they have been inseparable. Michael’s easily become part of this family, like he’s always been one of us. And in a way, he has. We discovered he was also kidnapped by the same scientists, but he doesn’t remember much of his time at the facility. And I hope for his sake that he never will.
“Oh, joy. C-3PO is here,” Rami says, coming through the swinging door on the left and bringing with him the delicious scent of food cooking in the kitchen.
Rami is annoyingly good at giving nicknames. Gabe does look like the stiff droid fromStar Wars.And just to confirm my thought, Gabe gives Rami an emotionless blink and then turns to Linda to talk about work. Even though she’s a retired agent, she occasionally takes assignments. Lately, she’s been away less, but still asks for Gabe’s legal advice a lot.
Rami walks all the way to the other end of the table to sit next to Michael and Raph, surely to tease them. He’s wearing a tight green thermal shirt and black jeans with a chain hanging from his front to the back pocket. His reddish beard is getting pretty rough.
I rub the thick stubble on my chin and remind myself to shave it tomorrow morning. Does Oliver shave? His skin is very smooth. Is it as soft as it looks?
Uri’s long physique suddenly appears on the threshold of the door on the other side of the dining room. His dreads are framing his face and the metal piercings in his lip and eyebrow shine under the light coming from the floor-to-ceiling windows. He’s always the center of attention. His sociopathic ass doesn’t care what people think whatsoever, but his confident attitude and exotic traits surely attract people’s gazes.
“I’m starving,” he huffs out, pulling out the chair next to Sari before sitting.
“Just in time.” Linda looks at her wristwatch with a disappointed look. She actually likes to unfold her wicked schemes, or as she calls them herlife lessons. One of which ended with Rami owning three large turtles, and another with Uri’s Hummer filled to the brim with white chicken feathers. Don’t know how she comes up with that shit, but we rarely make the same mistake twice. Her life lessons are quickly learned.
The imperturbable Ferdinand comes in with the drinks. Rami keeps throwing small pieces of bread at Raph and Michael while they’re busy making out. Not one hits them. He’s a genius with a computer, but his aim is atrocious.
“Ramiel, stop wasting food!” Meg scolds him. She insists on always using our full names—which are a mouthful. When she found us as kids, broken and in pain, she decided to give us new names and chose the seven angels of wrath—Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, Ramiel, Uriel, Sariel, and Raguel. She told us that those seven angels were strong and made of pure light. After the darkness we were forced to live in, she hoped the new names would help us to start afresh.
“I couldn’t use the samples from yesterday’s donor,” Sari suddenly tells Gabe.
“Were the DNA samples not good?” Linda asks.
“They were contaminated.” Sari nods.
“He was a drug dealer, right?” Uri asks, laying his arm on the back of Sari’s chair.
Gabe replies, “Curtis Waters. His clients were mostly high school and college students. He didn’t care about cutting his product properly and sent twenty people to the hospital, eight died of overdose.”
“Fuck.” Don’t know who swore, but they took the angry word from my lips.
“The police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him,” Rami states. I don’t know how cops do it, following all those rules. Seeing bad people walk away. It must be so…fucking frustrating.
“Drug dealers like to sample the merchandise,” Raph says, rubbing Michael’s back. “Did you find high traces in his blood?”
“No,” Sari replies. “Drugs were not the problem. He had syphilis.”
Rami lets out a disgusted sound, dropping his bread very dramatically on his plate.
Linda snorts. “Figures.”
Ferdinand chooses that moment to bring two plates of grilled meat and steamed vegetables to the table. We all start eating, not the least bit bothered by the—what most people would call—disturbingtalk. We all have cast-iron stomachs, too used to gory sights.
“How did you dispose of the body?” I ask Gabe, cutting through my rare steak. The knife sinks smoothly into the juicy, rare meat. For a moment, I imagine it’s Lenny’s flesh that I’m slowly slicing, seeping blood.Soon.I pierce the tender piece with my fork and stuff it into my mouth. Delicious.
Before Gabe can answer my question, Michael interjects. “I read an article the other day about an alkaline hydrolysis machine.”
“Yes!” Sari yells with excitement. “It turns a body into liquid and bones.”
