Page 13 of A Brother's Secret
“Mali?” Kyle called out, frozen at the foot of the bed, apprehension dripping from his tone. I smiled a little to myself.
“Right behind you,” I said softly, and he jumped. I smiled a little bigger and stepped up to my bag, stashing my little bit of shit back in the pocket I found itin.
Kyle’s eyes roved over the disaster on the bed, fixing on the laptop.
“Did you get on the internet?” he asked.
“Connection here is slow as shit, wasn’t even able to really get into my email,” I said, thrusting sketchbooks into my bag carefully, stashing my tarot cards back in the pocket they’d come from and just generally shifting things around to make room for whatever was in the bags he held, hoping I could make itfit.
“Shit, I should have said something. I didn’t think about it. Keep packing up, we have togo.”
“What?” I felt that familiar tingle of fear uncurling along the length of my spine.
“I brought it because I knew they could track it. It was supposed to be bait, I didn’t think you’d try to use it. I didn’t think –“
“Jesus, Kyle! Why didn’tyou say something? Am I supposed to know this shit through osmosis?” I demanded, thrusting things carefully away, my fear bringing out the saltiness in me. It always did. I got scared, I got attitude – it was just a given about me and I wouldn’t apologize for it. Kyle didn’t ask me to, and he didn’t apologize either.
He just handed me the shopping bags and said, “We’ve got time, how long ago did you useit?”
“I don’t know, maybe a half-an-hour? Forty-five minutesago?”
“Okay, we still have time, we just have less of it than I thought. Keep packing.”
I rolled my eyes thinking; like I’d stop, and stuffed clothes from his shopping excursion into whatever corners were left open in my damn bag. I rolled up the pair of jeans he handed me and stuffed them along the top, pulling the flap on the bag over and using the trident buckles, shoving them home with a satisfying click. All was secure. I hit the button in the center of the old-fashioned seatbelt buckle that served as a quick release on the strap of my bag and wordlessly shrugged into the leather jacket Kyle held out tome.
It suited me and I liked it. Although I have to admit, the reason I liked it probably had more to do with the fact that it was Kyle’s than any sort of fashion sense. Though, it scored points in that department, too.
I stood with my back to the bed and hauled my bag by one strap up over my shoulder, the buckle digging into my hand, keeping the strap from sliding through. I groped down by my opposite side for the swinging other half of the strap, grabbed it and hauled the two ends together, clicking the buckle home, yanking on it a bit to make certain it was secure, before letting either strap go. Kyle was watching me and I arched an eyebrow at him and asked, “We going, or are you just going to stand there with your dick in yourhand?”
He scowled at me but got back into motion, shoving his underwear that I’d been wearing into the top of his knapsack. He stalked around the corner into the bathroom and gave it a sweep, scooping up the toiletries and dumping them into the top of his bag before cinching it closed. I felt my mouth turn down and head nod, I could respect that. Never knew when that kind of shit would come in handy and waste not, wantnot.
“Cool,” he said shrugging one strap of the bag onto a shoulder broader than I could ever remember. “Let’s bounce.”
I dragged my dad’s gun off the bed and tucked it down the back of my pants under the jacket and he gave me a nod and held out his hand, gesturing for me to come up behind him. He opened the door to the room and looked up and down the hall bothways.
“Clear,” he declared in a low husky voice and we went out, one after the other, the soles of my knee-high Doc Marten’s hushed by the plush luxury hotel’s thick hall carpeting. We smoothly made our way to the elevator and he pressed the button.
“Nothing’s wrong, act natural when we hit the lobby, move for the parking garage elevators. Don’t look around, just… talk to me,” hesaid.
“Aboutwhat?”
“Um,” he smiled faintly and said, “Remember that time we were out in that spot in the woods and you were bossing us aroundand…”
I felt myself blush, hard… we’d probably been about eleven and these older kids had rolled up on their bikes and one had shot me with a BB from his slingshot right in the ass. It had hurt but I’d been determined to execute building the fort we’d been attempting and had just kept prattling on. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize why everyone else was so quiet behind me. It also took another agonizing shot to theback.
“Why you have to remind me of that?” I asked, scowling. We stepped onto the elevator down to the lobby. Kyle didn’t immediately answer as I went back inside my own head to thatday.
I’d cried, the BB had torn my favorite tee and had embedded itself in my back, next to my shoulder blade on the inside of it. It’d hurt so bad, and the other kids had followed the older teen’s teasing and laughter. I’d fallen into the mud by the creek with that second shot, writhing. My jeans had protected me from the first shot, which he’d hit square in the back pocket. The double layer of denim too thick to penetrate but it had still stung like a son of a bitch.
“Yeah, I never forgot it either,” Kyle said quietly and we stepped off the elevator into the lobby which wasn’t too crowded. We moved over to the elevator down to the parking garage.
“So why you have to bring it up now?” I demanded.
“I don’t know, I just thought of it for some reason…”
Kyle had stood up for me. He’d shouted at them and started throwing rocks. Had hit the kid who had hit me and the kid had gotten off his bike and come down the ravine. He’d popped Kyle a good one, knocked him on his ass in the mud beside me; gave him a bloody nose. I’d stabbed the little bastard in the leg with my pocket knife.
It’d been a big mess. Kyle and I had booked it, adrenaline pumping, through the woods that smelled of wet, green, and growing things all the way back to his house. His mom, a nurse, had me sit down at the dining table with my shirt off, a towel clutched to my chest while she spent the better part of a half an hour digging into the hole in my back with tweezers going after that damn BB. It hurt like you wouldn’t believe.
