Page 43 of Love Thy Brother
He stole my chill.
Not cool, bro. Not cool. But being annoyed with Mats for a fictitious crime derailed the O’Brian-esque desire to murder the world enough that I ignored the tempting broken door and traipsed back to the office and the utility cupboard next to it.
I rummaged among the crap piled up in the cupboard for something to clean the blood with. I found a bucket and some blue roll. A half-full bottle of bleach. Searching for another one took me into the dark depths of the dusty cupboard and a cardboard box right at the back.
Holding back an unruly gaggle of brooms with one hand, I pulled the box out with the other, hefting it onto my shoulder.
I say hefting—it was paper-light, which put paid to my hopes for the metric ton of bleach I wanted to fettle the walls with.
Didn’t do much for my natural-born curiosity, though. I claimed the box and spider-manned myself out of the cupboard, dropping it on the floor when I made land.
It was taped shut. I unpicked that shit and lifted the flaps, bracing myself for a big pile of nothing.
What I got was a photocopied mock-up of River’s head on a spike.
* * *
River came in around five. By then I’d abandoned the portrait of his severed head in favour of scrubbing pig blood from the walls.
It was still dark outside, casting shadows on his face as he surveyed the scene he’d walked in on. I tried not to stare as he took it all in, but it was a tough ask. River was always stunning to me, but first thing in the morning, with his rumpled clothes and bedhead, I wanted to fuckingdevourhim.
It helped with the murder rage I was still struggling to contain.
The fear.
They want him dead.Four words playing on a loop no matter how many times I tried to replace them with the reassurance I’d sought from Saint ten minutes ago in a rare call where he actually talked back to me.
“They haven’t got the capacity to make any of this real.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then we’ll act first.”
I believed that. More, perhaps, than I believed anything else right now. But we’d lived through too much drama recently for me to trust fate to deal us an easy hand this time, and I couldn’t live with River being in danger. It made everything inside me bleed.
Wind-cold fingers pried the scrubbing brush from my hand, a low, growly voice at my throat. “Come with me.”
“Hmm?”
River tossed the brush. “This way, boo.”
Boo. It’d been a while since he’d last called me that. Years, maybe, though that didn’t feel right, and the empty scratch of missing something raked through my brain. A hollow gap in my soul that left me dazed enough to let River grip my wrist and tow me to the roller doors at the front of the garage. “Kicking me out?”
“Would you let me?”
“Try it and see.”
“I’d rather drink tea and watch the sunrise if it’s all the same to you.”
River dropped my wrist, collected two mugs from the counter, and jerked his head at the doors.
I shrugged and lifted one open, stepping into the chilly outside. River’s garage was a few streets back from the sea, but through the weird and wonderful buildings of Porth Luck, he had a banging view and a bench that called my name.
Ignoring the biting wind, I parked my arse and turned my face to the sky. Mist still hung in the air, but it was clearing up, the morning sun forcing its way through.
There was a shedload of symbolism in there somewhere, but I was too caught up in other shit to figure it out, and Embry wasn’t here to smoke it out of me.
River was, though. Here. Present, and for once not hurling fire and brimstone in my face.
