The smoking.

I can’t stand the smoking. The smell of it clings to everything he touches and it turns my stomach. Inhaling, he frees the cigarette from his lips and extends it to me. I clench my jaw and stare at him. Can he see how badly I want to stamp it out on his nut sack?

“I don’t smoke.”

He nods a smug kind of nod as he blows out the poison in a puff of smoke. “You should. It’d relax you a little.”

“I’m relaxed.” I shoot back and he rolls his eyes.

“Sounds like it.”

Ah. There it is—the sarcasm I grew up with. At least some things haven’t changed.

“Look, I’m sorry I reached out to your friends for help, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

I fold my arms across my chest and glance back to the lake. “Emily is right. Ted and Huss are big enough and ugly enough to make their own decisions. If they think their life is worth risking for a female you share with Skull then that’s their problem.”

Dead silence falls—even the trees stop swaying as the breeze vanishes.

“Watch your mouth, baby brother. I’ve killed for a lot less.”

I frown, turning my attention back to him. There’s a crazy gleam in the bottomless depths of his eyes—a gleam from his new life. The manic unpredictability...it mimics Skull’s. It also nags at me, begging me to fuel it, daring me to continue to push Joel’s big, shiny buttons.

“Of all the women you could have chosen when you were at the top of the world it just had to be his.”

With clear aggression, he sucks back another hit of nicotine and blows it back out just as quick. “She wasn’t his.”

“She sure as shit wasn’t yours. How many whores does Skull have anyway and what was Monique’s price?”

“Enough!” He barks out, but I’m nowhere near fucking finished.

“Let me guess. She’s a junkie? She fucks him for nice shoes and free crack?”

His jaw ticks. “Jai.”

I click my fingers. “Oh, I see. She’s only fucking him to pay her way through med school?”

Tossing the cigarette, he launches forward. His large, heavy hands slam into my shoulders, shoving me hard against the tree. I don’t react as he twists my sweater between his tattooed knuckles and pulls me forward again. His face is an inch from mine, his putrid cigarette breath blowing heavily across my skin.

“One more fucking word and I’ll cut your tongue out of your mouth. Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“You want to get yourself killed? Fine, but don’t expect me to help.”

“You’re going to abandon me when I need you? Where’s the fucking brotherhood in that? Huh?”

I smile. I smile because he’s so damn clueless. I’ve never abandoned him. I came through for him when everyone else was telling me it was a lost cause. I never gave up on Joel...until now.

“Don’t talk to me about brotherhood. That went out the door the second you left me to look after Jessica.” I shrug him off and shove him back. “Fuck you and your whor—”

His fist slams into my mouth with the weight of a freight train behind it. My head is tossed to the side and I taste blood. Hunched, I press my fingers to my lips and pulling them back reveals blood. My brain swells in my skull, pressing painfully against the bone, giving me an instant headache. I should have seen it coming.

I didn’t.

I glare up at him. Joel’s nostrils flare and his pupils dilate. At his sides, his fist clench and relax, syncing with the quick tempo of his chest.

I spit blood on the leaves at my feet.  “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Call her that again,” he growls. “And I will end you.”

I smirk, despite how much it hurts my lip. “I’ve fought monsters three times the size of you. You’re going to have to try harder if you want to intimidate me.”

“Try harder?” He laughs once as he bends down and picks out his burning cigarette from a pile of leaves. Smoke wafts up as leaves burn, but he stomps it out with his bare foot. “I’m not trying at all.”

I swipe at my mouth and swallow the metallic tasting blood that pools on my tongue.

Relaxed, and annoyingly smug, Joel puffs repeatedly on the end of his cigarette, encouraging the ember to burn evenly.

“If I wanted to intimidate you, I’d start with the cute, little brunette you’ve found yourself...maybe make a comment on the freaky similarities between her and Skull’s dead wife.”

I grind my teeth. How does he know about that? “What’s your point?”

“My point is you’re a hypocrite. I’ve seen the skull tattoo on her collarbone. If she was yours, she sure as shit ain’t anymore. In fact, I’m certain Skull would trade my ordinary whore for one that looks like his dead wife.”

My heart thunders in my chest. I should kick the shit out of him just for saying it.

“You don’t have the balls to contact Skull to arrange a trade. He’ll kill you the second he sees your face. If he doesn’t, I will.”

He tips his head to the side. “You’ll kill me? For her?”

Was it not clear enough? I narrow my glare. “If I have to.”

Joel inhales his cigarette, sucking its poison deep into his lungs and holds it, ensuring it soaks into his lung tissue. A second later, he blows it out.

“Good. Then you know how it feels.”

“I’m not helping you, Joel.”

Joel clenches his jaw and growls through his teeth, crushing his lit cigarette in his fist.

“Why the fuck not?!”

“If I die Jessica is on her own—Emily too. Their lives aren’t worth risking—not for one of Skull’s whor—”

Again, his fist slams into my mouth, filling it with blood. It fucking hurts! If he wasn’t already so beat up, I’d beat him to a pulp.

“Fuck! Will you let me finish?!”

He clenches his wrist in his hand then gives it a quick shake. “Goddamn it, Jai! I can’t do it without you.”

I run my tongue along the split in my lower lip and wince. How’d he hit the same spot twice? I press the back of my hand against my mouth. I’m not fucking doing this.

“I love her!” He begs, his eyes glistening with tears.

It knocks the wind out of my lungs, filling me with empathy—empathy I don’t want to feel.

“I love her more than anything and he has her! He’s doing God knows what to her...”

Joel misplaces his footing and I step forward as he keels over, clenching his stomach. My lips throbs as more blood rolls over my tongue. I don’t want to help him and the feeling sinks into my stomach like a rock.

My big brother.

I turn away from him and head back towards the house.

“Jai, please. I need you!” He shouts, his sadness and anger punching holes through the wind. “I need my brother!”

I flick my shoulders, dipping my head to push through the wind.

I don’t have a brother.

Not anymore.

Four

****

Beastly

Emily

Ever so gently, I press the edge of the stitch that runs along Huss’s cheekbone and he winces before shooing me back with a slap on the hand.

“Stop!” He hisses, his perfectly shaped eyebrows pulling together as he bares his teeth at me.

I snap my hands to my chest and roll my eyes. You can’t look at this guy without him crying “ouch”. You know, that’s probably what I hate most about working in the hospital—the hypochondriacs. You’d be surprised how many people exaggerate an ache or injury. I get some people have lower pain thresholds, but come on. A common stress headache doesn’t even come close to the thrum of one associated with a brain tumor.

“Jesu—will you let the girl check your stitches?” Ted protests with a mouth full of pancake. “You’re acting like a motherfucking child.”

Huss sneers, folding one of his thick arms over his chest. “Well, it fucking hurts.”

“You know what hurts me?”

“I was in a car accident. I don’t give a shit what’s hurting y—”