This just reinforced why he needed to make sure his brother didn’t come back here. He knew that being called half-breed was something that continually damaged Ethan and hurt him.
As Gene was waiting for the cops to show up, Callen listened to his brother as he shared what his partner had found out from the local law after calling them.
An update, of sorts.
“The locals have three missing women,” he said, reading from his phone. “Ivey Slee, a teacher at the school inDamascuswhere she never showed up to work yesterday. You know the one…the one we went to.”
Oh, he knew.
Off the reservation, he’d been the one bullied, and Ethan had to protect him. Now, he was having to do the same for him. It just proved that they each had their own worlds and didn’t belong in each other’s.
“Funsies,” Callen said. “I love a good, forced integration into the white community by busing Natives to predominantly White schools.”
Ethan didn’t look up.
“Yeah, I love a forced integration into the Native community myself. So, I get that,” he offered. “Even now, when I get the side eye from your deputy, and the reservation chief.”
Touché.
Apparently, his brother had a point. It was a matter of perspective, and it also proved he had heard the shit comments from the Native men regarding his ethnicity.
He loved his brother and had feelings for him that he needed to keep bottled up. What he needed was for this man to leave here and never come back.
He’d be damaged if he did.
Why did he want to save him so much?
What made him want to protect him by any means possible?
Love.
It rose back up from the ashes like the phoenix. Callen had believed it had died, but it hadn’t.
It was still there, and now, stronger than ever.
That scared him.
“The second woman, Megan Vessey, a bartender, left her job on Wednesday night and never got home. Her co-workers called the police when she didn’t show for her shift, and her car was found in the lot.”
Callen just listened.
It was difficult to pay attention.
He could smell his brother’s cologne, and it was making him itchy—in that bad way.
On top of that, he wasn’t so much thinking about the victims but how bizarre it was to hear his brother talking about murders.
To him, he was Ethan.
To the world, he was an investigator.
An attractive one.
“We might get lucky,” Ethan offered. “Today, Phylis Lizney's husband got home from work, and his wife hadn’t returned from her girls’ night out the previous night. She’s likely one of the three of them,” he added.
Callen was curious and twitchy.
What he wanted was to get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible. His brain was overanalyzing this whole thing, and he knew himself.
