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“No, I haven’t forgotten.” I straighten again but hold my hands in front of my chest. “Fuck. I’m sorry, okay. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Yeah, you do,” he counters. “Your little brother showed up, and that threw you into a tailspin. I’m getting tired of worrying about you. You’re the goddamn VP, Malice. I need to be able to count on you, and I’m starting to wonder if I can.”
I know I’ve been in a rut lately, but I never dreamed Soul would question my ability to do my job or have the club’s back. It doesn’t sit well with me that my attitude is causing him concern. But I don’t know how to change it, how to fix it.
“You can always count on me,” I tell him. “Always.”
As I try and come up with a better way to convince him, memories flash of another time I needed to convince someone of the same thing, and I failed miserably.
“Where are you going?”
I whirl around at my brother’s voice, my hand gripping the doorknob.
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” I tell him.
“So are you.”
“Mark, I’m an adult now. I don’t have a bedtime.”
“You’ve been eighteen for a whole month, Paul,” he gripes. “And you just graduated high school like a week ago. I’d hardly call you an adult.”
“If the age fits,” I joke, trying to swerve the conversation in a different direction. “Why are you up?”
“I thought I heard a noise in the garage.” His eyes drop to the gas can I’m holding. “Turns out, I did. What the hell do you need that for?”
“I, uh…” I take a deep breath. “My car’s on empty. Figured I’d put this in so I could at least make it to a gas station.”
“Bullshit.”
“Watch it, Mark,” I snap. “You know how Mom and Dad get if they hear us talking like that.”
Mark glances around the room and lifts his arms out to his sides. “Do you see them here? I mean, if you do, then maybe I should take you to the hospital for hallucinations.”
“You’re too young to drive.”
“I’m fourteen. I can figure it out.”
I heave a sigh. Matt and John are waiting for me, and I don’t want them to think I chickened out. But I can’t tell Mark where I’m going, so I need to ride out this middle-of-the-night interrogation.
“I hear you talking to your friends,” he says quietly. “I know what you’re planning.”
My stomach drops. I’ve spent the last ten years doing whatever it took to protect my brother from the evil in the world, even when it meant I suffered. And my plans for tonight will make it so I never have to worry about the same evil touching him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How do you think you’ll do in prison, Paul? Because that’s where arsonists and murderers end up.”
My shoulders slump, and I remove my hand from the knob before walking across the living room toward him.
“I’m doing this for you, Mark,” I tell him honestly. “You have no idea what I’ve been dealing with, and tonight, it ends.”
His eyes flash in the dim light of the small lamp our mother always leaves on at night. It’s eerie looking at him because he looks so much like me. The biggest difference is our eyes. He’s got these demon eyes that are so dark you can barely tell what color they are, whereas I have dark eyes with gold flecks.
“What you’re planning won’t end anything,” he says quietly. “There’s always going to be someone more vile out there.”
“I’m not trying to save the world, Mark. Just our little corner of it.”
“And after tonight? Then what?”
