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That I didn’t shriek like a little girl was a personal victory.
Heaving myself into the loft, I took a second or a hundred of them to catch my breath. Then I flung myself painfully over the bed, throwing my legs out on the other side so I could feel around on the floor. Nothing.
Those two larcenists had picked me dry.
“Bloody hell.” I stood up and kicked the mattress, which did nothing but make my recently abused toes hurt even more.
Still nothing compared to the pull across my torso. If that bugger had cracked a rib—or more than one—when I had the talent show finals coming up, I was going to rip out every pretty brown strand of hair on Simon’s head.
He was probably gone by now, for fuck’s sake. Why that sent disappointment crashing through me, I didn’t even know. There would be plenty of time, and we were actually moving a little ahead of schedule with this unplanned visit.
Assuming Jerry didn’t have my head for what I’d done.
Somehow I made it back down the ladder. I turned to find my brother watching me out of dispassionate eyes. Flat blue rather than my changeable green. He was one color and I was a million of them.
He hadn’t wasted the time while I was occupied. Far from it. He was at my small corner desk, rifling through papers and books—my song books, for God’s sake—as if he had a right. All the while, he watched me as if he was daring me to challenge him.
Rage burned through me, consuming the helplessness and sense of futility that had filled me at the first sight of my brother. For all that I’d prepared, all the time I’d had to come to terms with this reality, seeing him in the flesh was so much different. To know we shared the same DNA, the same parents, the same dreams…
Once. We’d shared the same dreams once.
Simon clutched one of my battered notebooks in his puffy-knuckled fist. “What’s this?” he taunted. “Little songs you write in your spare time? Do you even write your own words? Or is that something else you steal?”
Not all we shared obviously. We also shared the same hatred for one another.
“And whose words would I be stealing now? Yours? You don’t write much anymore, do you though? Too occupied with prancing around in your leathers. I imagine it pays as much or more as what you do with your band.” I smiled while every instinct inside me demanded I pry that notebook from Simon’s hand, no matter what it took.
But that would give Simon more of the fight he was spoiling for. Would certainly show more weaknesses for my elder brother to exploit.
Instead, I’d exploit some weaknesses of my own.
“I imagine your pretty little wife doesn’t care how you make your money, as long as she gets to pretend to fuck you onstage and convince herself she’s the only one—”
Simon flew at me, and I darted behind the couch, putting it between us. Not because I wouldn’t fight. To the death if it came to it. But I was in the goddamn finals, had worked my ass off to get there, and I’d be damned if Simon stole that from me.
“Oh, big talker now, aren’t you? Hiding behind a sofa. So tough.” Simon shook his head. “You think you know what it is to suffer? Did your father ever lay you out black and blue, until you were too weak to even stand? And forget calling for help. There was no help. The people who were supposed to care didn’t pay attention. Just gutter trash, that Kagan kid.”
Sympathy tried to bloom inside me and was ruthlessly squelched. I understood far more than he gave me credit for, even if the manner of delivery had been much different.
“You had your father in your life. I did not. Because she left with me, hoping she’d found a better score. A better meal ticket. Instead, she ended up whoring for her dinner and leaving me to fucking starve more nights than not. So pick your poison.” Simon’s bruised gaze met mine. “Do you want to die from violence or neglect? Both leave you just as finished.”
Most of it was true. The vital parts. Sure, some was a kind of fiction, if only because it was shaped to lead to a predetermined end.
I walked around the shitty furniture I’d gotten secondhand at thrifts and moved to my small, battered desk. I’d spent so many hours there, scribbling words that deep down, I’d never expected people to ever hear.
I showed a cocky face to the world. My mother had taught me that early on.
Never let them see you sweat. Some will enjoy it. Most won’t care. Either way, it’ll do you no good to ask for help, so pretend you don’t need it. Don’t need them.
I’d learned well. Slipping on that confident persona was how I got ready for the stage, just as some musicians did vocal warmups or gargled salt water. My prep was acting as if the world couldn’t fucking touch me.
Couldn’t break me, as it had tried to do so many times already.
I bent over the desk, feeling around the back of it for the secret compartment where I kept my most important papers. No combination lock vaults in my palace.
Damn good thing those valuable papers hadn’t been stored in my wallet.
The move put Simon just outside my peripheral vision. My goddamn brother could’ve laid me out if he so wished. But I figured some of the fury had to be bleeding out of Simon, if not the confusion.
