Page 45 of Intangible
“He was just kidding. Turn him loose, Knox,” Thayer pleaded with the big man. It probably would have helped her case if Memphis hadn’t been laughing. Actually, it was more of a rasping gurgle coming from his throat, but the grin on his face spoke volumes.
Lowering his face to within inches of Memphis’, Knox growled out. “Don’t make me kill you. They’ll never get a conviction.” With one more light thump of Memphis’ head against the wall, Knox turned him loose.
“At least you didn’t have to live with him.” Jay smirked, using his hand to push Memphis in the face.
“They probably would have had to have the same Mom then, too.” Ben laughed, looking between Memphis and Knox. The room grew immediately quiet as Ben’s words registered. The words weren’t lost on Memphis as he looked back at Knox, his eyebrows pulled together in a look of confusion. When no one spoke, Memphis turned to his foster brother.
“What are you talking about, Ben?” he asked with a forced laugh.
Ben’s eyes got wide as they slid over to Jay. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I thought you told him when you told me. I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck is Ben talking about, Jay?” Memphis asked again, his voice growing deathly calm this time as the remnants of his smile disappeared. “Told me what?” He looked around the room before his eyes settled on Knox, the man’s bright green eyes staring back at him. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Memphis. I should have told you Knox is your half brother.” Jay flinched when Memphis scowled at him. “He came to me years ago looking for you. He had proof…” Jay drifted off when Memphis spun back around to Knox, who was leaning up against the jamb of the screen door leading into the backyard with his arms crossed.
“Years? What the fuck is he talking about?” he yelled at the big man. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Looking around the room, he took in the tension as everyone tried to look anywhere but at him.
With a shrug, Knox finally answered. “I’ve known about you for at least twenty years. Mom told me I had a half brother when I turned fifteen. She helped me search for you. I finally tracked you here right after you left for college.”
Memphis shook his head, trying to digest what the big man was saying. If he had an actual blood brother, why hadn’t anyone told him? Why didn’t Knox just tell him the first time they met? Suddenly, his eyes grew wide in understanding.
“It’s why you knew so much about me, isn’t it? Why didn’t you just tell me instead of knocking me out then tying me to a chair? You already knew I could project, didn’t you?” Memphis stood looking at Knox with his fist clenched at his side.
“Not officially. At least, not until I saw you do it that first time. But, yeah, I did have my suspicions. I decided to leave you alone until I started hearing rumors about a guy in the Army that had an unreasonably high recovery rate finding missing soldiers. I thought about telling you then, but once you were out and accepted into vet school, it just didn’t make sense anymore.”
“Did you ever think I had a right to know? Maybe I deserved to know or that I would want to?”
“You were finally settled. It seemed like the right choice to leave you alone. Until Thayer was kidnapped, anyway.”
“Why would you suspect I had some weird-ass ability in the first place?” Memphis narrowed his eyes at Knox, waiting for the man to answer. Knox stood silently, looking around the room until his eyes resettled back on Memphis.
“Because I can create fire with my hands, so I figured you could do something. I made an educated guess what your gift was and Jay filled in the rest,” he said quietly.
“Motherfucker. You burned down my house. That’s where those fireballs came from.” Memphis’ voice was controlled, but he could feel the rage course through him as he took a step forward. “You threw a fucking fireball in my house!”
Suddenly he was moving fast at the big man. Knox only had a second to stand up straight before Memphis barreled into him, sending them both crashing through the back screen door into the yard. With a satisfying crunch, Memphis heard his first punch connect to Knox’s jaw.
It only took Knox a second to recover, though, before he threw Memphis over his head onto his back. Spinning, Knox found his little brother crouching as he ripped the sling over his head, throwing it into the grass. Memphis rushed him, but with his bad arm, it didn’t take long for Knox to roll him over onto his back. Knox straddled his thighs, careful to avoid the stitches in Memphis’ side.
“For fuck’s sake, stop!” Knox yelled at the struggling Memphis. After a minute, Memphis finally relaxed. “If I get off of you, will you quit pitching a fit?”
“Fuck you,” Memphis growled out. Knox waited patiently until he finally nodded at him. Carefully climbing off to the side, Knox motioned for help. “Jay, I think he ripped his staples out again.” Thayer rushed over to kneel in the grass on the other side of Memphis. They carefully eased Memphis’ shirt off, looking at his wounds.
“Ben, go get the staple gun and antiseptic out of my car,” Jay said, hurrying down the steps into the backyard.
“Hardheaded jackass,” Jay mumbled, looking at Memphis. “Help me get him back in the house. By the way, dumbass, you owe Miss Beulah a new screen door,” he added, looking at Knox.
“Why do I owe her a door? Memphis tackled me,” Knox said with a growl.
“Because you should have come clean a long time ago, so this is your fault,” Jay responded. Looking down at Memphis, he shook his head. “Let’s get you patched back up so we can figure out what to do about the psycho chasing Thayer instead of you bitch-slapping each other in the backyard because you share the same father.”
Pulling him off the ground, Knox wrapped an arm around Memphis, holding on to him until he regained his balance. Feeling a little light-headed, he let Knox help him up the steps into a chair in the kitchen. Miss Beulah chose that moment to return from making sure the kids were safely on the bus.
“What happened to my screen door?” she asked, looking around. When Ben slowly pointed at Knox, the big man rolled his eyes. Memphis agreed with Jay though, Knox created this mess, he could clean it up.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll make sure it’s fixed,” Knox mumbled when no one else answered.
“Memphis, what have you done to yourself this time?” she asked.
