Breathing suddenly became a chore. I felt my body sway as I tried to focus on the woman sitting in front of me, studying me with anxious eyes. I staggered over to the wall, not even flinching when my feet sank into the broken glass scattered about on the floor.

It appeared as if she was calling out to me; her lips read are you okay or you’re bleeding but I just couldn’t hear her. My body felt beat down and fragile like a rotting barn and I was certain that I was going to collapse soon enough.

There are times in your life when you don’t know who to trust and what to believe. There are times in your life when everything around you feels like one big lie or a never-ending nightmare. There are times when I wish I could stop breathing. Quit everything like a job. I suppose you guys will watch me more like hawks now that I’ve admitted that.

Look, I’m not going to lie to you; I’ve never lied to you thus far. I thought of killing myself back at Cillian’s place and I still think about killing myself now. I think about tying my bed sheets together and suffocating or bashing my brains in against the wall or something. I would have done it the moment I got here if it wasn’t for the cameras. I may be a maniac, but I’m still a gentleman. I don’t want any of those pretty nurses seeing that.

Don’t give me that look like you expected more from me. I know you guys are working hard to fix me or whatever, but I don’t want all the crap you’re giving me. I’m always getting things I don’t need. I don’t need you, the pills, sedatives or even these freshly pressed boxers.

It’s the same way with how I didn’t need Cillian or Keenan or even that woman. I would’ve gotten along fine if I woke up in anyone else’s yard. Maybe an old couple who’d take me in for tea instead of interrogation and would ask if I liked beer before offering me any. They’d post up my picture across town in black and white because they wouldn’t have a coloured printer. When no one would recognise me, they’d take me in as their own son and fix me up so I could face the world on my own. They’d probably rename me too, something ostentatious like Lucas or Declan or some shit.

I’d become a doctor, or maybe a lawyer. I don’t know; just a job that’ll get me rich quick enough to pay them back. We’d have a great time together while they call over their friends to brag about their rich son. Then one of their friends would introduce me to their daughter, who I’d refuse to marry for their son instead and we’d live together and adopt a kid or something.

The old couple would die and leave me the rest of their fortune and I’d use it to make my own hospital or law firm under their name.

I started smiling at the thought of that. It must’ve driven that woman nuts; watching a man with glass stuck in his foot smile like it felt good. And it did, sort of. Thoughts of the old couple and the conversations we’d have filled my mind and made the glass in my foot unknown. But sooner than I would have wanted, the words in my own mind began to drone out and reality started to set in.

I heard crying. I heard my name being shouted over and over by the staircase, Keenan’s unusually frantic voice filling my ears.

“Jack! This isn’t the time to be zoning out!”

I looked over at him imprecisely, watching as he waved his arms like a goddamn maniac. “He’ll be here any second!”

I didn’t want to have to handle it, so I tried zoning out again. I thought about the static, I thought about the old couple, and I thought about my future son and how I’d take him out for ice cream or something. I allowed their voices to fill my mind, cranking up the volume with each syllable Keenan spewed but it still wasn’t enough.

Keenan wasn’t letting me have it.

I felt my feet lift from the ground, the scent of Keenan’s skin tickling my nostrils. He smelt like summer. My head swayed from left to right as he brought me up the steps, muttering something like this shit isn’t even part of my job and why the hell do I care so much? I thought I imagined that too, but I knew that it was real. All of it was very real.

Finally, the pain set in.

At the top of the stairs, I lurched out of Keenan’s arms and crashed to the floor, holding my foot as I hissed in pain.

“I’ll get it out in a second,” said Keenan. “Just let me get the bookcase over—”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Keenan froze mid-step, closing his eyes at the sound of Cillian’s voice. My body abruptly became immobilised as I stared at the doorway where he stood. I started praying that it was just the loss of blood that made me start hallucinating or something. I never really prayed for anything, but I sure didn’t want to be beat up while my foot was still shooting blood.

“What the hell are you doing over there, Jack?”

He was walking over to me. I tried jumping to my feet, but the glass made itself known and caused my knees to buckle and drop the weight of my body once more. I used my arms to slide away, but Cillian closed the distance between our bodies effortlessly.

“Don’t touch him,” Keenan said, his voice struggling to gain control. “He’s hurt. I need to take care of him now before something happens.”

Cillian obviously wasn’t listening to a word he was saying. He crouched down in front of me, taking a quick glance at my foot before staring back into my eyes. “What were you doing down there, Jack?” he asked.

My bottom lip started to quiver. Cillian’s eyes studied mine as my fear spiked a mile high with each passing moment. “I...I wasn’t...I mean, I didn’t...” My voice cracked.

“You’re going to cry now?” he seethed. “Don’t fucking cry, or I swear to God I’ll—”

“I’m not crying over you anymore, Cillian.” My voice sounded a hell of a lot more confident than what I was actually feeling. Cillian knew that, which was why he didn’t even flinch.

“Get the bandages,” he ordered with a tight voice. Boundless from hesitation, Keenan walked over to the kitchen and soon came back with a bundle of bandages, alcohol swabs, and tweezers.

“Move out of the way and let me help him.”

But Cillian didn’t move an inch. He kept staring at me with eyes the colour of our father’s, his body trembling as he tried to keep his cool. He kept looking crazier and crazier as his eyes opened and shut like he was possessed, his breathing hard and jagged. He ran his hands through his hair, sending it into spikes when he pulled at it. A poster child for a wanted ad, I thought in my head, nearly laughing despite the situation at hand.

Suddenly, he grabbed the bandages from Keenan’s hand. He rolled some out and ripped it from the bundle with his teeth, using the free strip to wrap around my bloody foot haphazardly, tightening it as he wove it around.

Jesus, the pain blinded me. Literally. My eyes shot black for a moment, my mouth open ajar as my body slumped from the numbness. It was kind of like slow motion; I blinked until I could see again before yelling, “What the hell are you doing?!”

Cillian never did stop even as I screamed at the top of my lungs. He only grabbed more bandages and wrapped it around my foot firmly until he couldn’t see the blood anymore. The pain had become nearly unbearable, earning a string of loud curses from my lips.

When he was done, he wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going out to the city.”

He didn’t wait for me to stop my cursing. He grabbed my shirt and started to drag me over to the door, my butt gliding smoothly against the hardwood floor.

“That’s enough, Cillian!” Keenan finally raised his voice. “He’s going to die at this rate!”

“Then let him die,” Cillian retorted. “He should have been dead. Why the fuck—”

He stopped himself when he looked down at me, gritting his teeth gingerly. That didn’t hide the guilt in his eyes, though. Nothing could.

We only made it to the porch before I started kicking with my good leg, trying to connect it with anything that belonged to him. I managed to get it stuck between his legs, which caused him to trip over and fall flat on the dirt ground, letting go of me.

Cillian got up quicker than I expected. “You little piece of—”

I kicked him again before he could even finish. There was something strangely satisfying about seeing him on the ground, clothes smeared with my blood mixed with dirt. I knew that he was my brother and I probably should have felt some compassion for him, but I didn’t. It was absent and possibly non-existent.

Our relationship was nothing more than fabricated scenes in his mind. I didn’t believe the crap he told me about helping me with school bullies or staying beside me while I was sick. He was nothing but a man who shared my blood, something I wished I could cut right out of me.

He was filth. To me, he wasn’t any different than the dirt he spat out of his mouth.

“Let’s get you inside, Jack,” Keenan said, his breath hot against my ear. I didn’t even notice when he approached. I couldn’t really feel the pain in my foot as much anymore. I knew it was his doing. I felt his abnormal warmth as his hands came near, but instantly stopped at the sound of Cillian’s voice.

“Don’t you dare touch him, kingling,” he spat. “I don’t care who you were with or what you did with them in the past, but you’re not doing it with him. Not with my brother.”

“But he’s bleeding—”

“And how is that your problem? Remember who you are; you aren’t one of us. You seem to be forgetting that lately. Need I remind you again?”

Keenan let out a huff of anger behind me, but stepped away nonetheless. “You’ve got no right to speak to me that way, pathetic human.”

 “Enough. Get up and get into the van, Jack.”

“Can’t you see the state I’m in? Or are you really that heartless?”

Cillian rolled his eyes. “Just shut the hell up and get in the van, Jack! Why can’t you learn to do as I say?”

“Because I’m not some kind of fucking dog!” I retorted, my voice quipped with anger. Damn, I didn’t even know I had it in me. “You’re just a liar and a cheat, acting tough when you just hide behind a guy from fairytales to fix your sins for you. You have no right to look down on me anymore.”

Cillian narrowed his eyes dangerously, his eyes sparking with something malicious. “What did you just say?”

“You heard what I said. Your stories never add up, Cillian. I want to know the truth now. I deserve to know the truth. What did you do to our family? What did you do to Dad?”

The silence that passed through us was sickening. I held my ground as much as I could but if I have to tell you the truth, I was quivering like a fucking Chihuahua under my skin. I had no idea what my words might make Cillian do, or even think about doing. For all I knew, I was probably digging my own grave.

“You want the truth?” Cillian mused after a while of silence, getting up from the ground. “Yeah, I was with him that day. He took me home to cool me off, trying to act like the perfect dad he thought he was. It pissed me off even more, so I took a bat hit him. I hit him and hit him until he felt sorry.” Cillian lost his smile for barely a second. “He wasn’t sorry soon enough.”

The wind sort of knocked right out of me at that point. I didn’t know what I was expecting to hear, anyway. I had always known it was the truth at the back of my mind, but I never wanted to believe it. I mean, who would?

“Stop there, Cillian,” Keenan snapped, stepping over to him. He glanced back at me nervously, but I didn’t think I had the energy to do much of anything anymore.

“After he died, I took him to the back,” Cillian continued despite Keenan’s protests. “I cut his body into pretty little pieces with his own axe, put it in a bag and moved up here. The family that was here went on vacation, and I made sure they never came back. Keenan made sure.”

I didn’t want to be tough anymore. I couldn’t be tough. I doubled over and puked my insides out, retching like I had something humongous stuck in my throat. My vision blurred so I shut my eyes, but shutting my eyes only put the image of cut up bodies and bashed brains in my head, which made me throw up even more.

“No matter what you think, you can’t do anything. You never could, so might as well listen to what I tell you to do. At this point, I’m not afraid to rewrite history.”

I couldn’t bottle it up any longer. I dragged myself towards the laughing Cillian, bile dribbling down my jaw. He watched me wrap my weak arms around his legs and send him falling, crawling on top of him like some kind of zombie. With a distorted image of his face, I raised one good fist and sent it down cleanly.

Cillian kept his smile through the whole thing which made me feel something different; something scarier than the pent up frustration and anger in my heart. It was something I knew would eat me up alive and turn me into another replica of him if I didn’t take care.

My fists kept going, though. I couldn’t seem to stop them. Blood seeped through my knuckles and mixed with his, painting them a deep red colour. I couldn’t really tell if I was breathing or screaming and I definitely couldn’t tell if Cillian was still conscious. I didn’t care if he’d pay me back tomorrow morning or hours from now; I wanted him to feel at least a quarter of what he had done to me.

Battering him didn’t amount to what he put me through. He deserved to bleed to death. He deserved to feel an eternity of searing pain. I was ready to turn into him; I could feel it in my pumping arms and the rapid beating of my heart. I didn’t want to stop punching even if it meant killing him.

I wanted to kill him.

But Keenan knew better. I felt his arms wrap around my waist, effortlessly pulling me away from him. I began to push against his hold, shouting swear words and cursing him dry until I looked down at Cillian. His face was nothing but swollen skin drowning in a pool of blood; his head slouched slightly to the side as if he was dead.

My heart clenched from sudden fear. I looked down at my hands in horror, nearly vomiting again. “I...I didn’t mean...”

“He isn’t dead,” Keenan said, dragging me back into the house. “He’ll be as good as new once I take him to Niamh, don’t worry about it. Right now, you need to sleep again.”

I didn’t admit to Keenan that I was actually terrified of sleeping. I don’t think I ever had a problem with the dark until that day. Nonetheless, I allowed him to drag me inside and up the stairs, straight to the bathroom to clean the blood off of my trembling body.

I didn’t cry again. I didn’t shout or scream for him to let go of me. I couldn’t do any of that anymore because to get out, being a quarter of a man wasn’t going to cut it.