The belt wouldn’t budge, so I grabbed a jagged piece of metal and sawed and sawed and sawed. It carved my palm to ribbons, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Finally, the fabric of the belt gave way with a ripping sound and I dragged him out, cradling his broken body against my chest as I staggered away from the car. My back hit the telephone pole and I slid down with my unconscious little brother in my lap.
Behind us, flames licked up from the engine. The heat pressed against my spine, burning, searing, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything except hold my little brother and pray.
His eyes fluttered open. “B-Bastian?”
“I’m here, Sage. I’m right here.”
“Basti, I can’t feel my legs.”
Something in my chest cracked wider than the windshield. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Help’s coming.”
But I knew. Even then, watching his small face go pale in the firelight, I knew what I’d done.
Yes, I knew. Oh, how I fucking knew.
I blink back to the present and look up at Sage in his wheelchair—the wheelchair he’ll be in for the rest of his life because of me.
We’ve been doing so good lately. He’s becoming a man in his own right. I said those words myself just a few short days ago. But that doesn’t change what he is to me and me to him.
I amhiskeeper. He is mine to protect, and the only way to do that is to dirty my own hands so his can remain clean. I’ll wear the blood. I’ll bear the scars. I’ll take the pain so he doesn’t have to.
So he never has to feel the pain again.
“You’re not going out,” I tell him.
He blinks in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re not going out,” I say again. I rise to my feet, grab his chair, and start pushing him back down the hall.
He’s still baffled, too bewildered to even try to resist. He just keeps saying my name—“Bash? Bash?”—again and again as I return him to his room. “Bastian, what’re you?—”
I yank the door shut and lock it from the outside. When he realizes what I’ve done, he starts beating on the door with his fists. He’s saying my name still, but roaring it this time, a cry of anguish and betrayal.
“Basti! Bastian, what the fuck?! Bash! Bash!”
I turn my back on all of it.I’m sorry, I think.I’m so fucking sorry.
Butsorrydoesn’t fix anything. It never has. The only thing that’s ever changed anything is blood. Mine or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter—blood is what moves the world. Without it, everything remains the same.
Blood on the tile.
So much blood on the tile.
I go to the kitchen and yank open the drawer where I keep the knives. I pull one free, check the edge, and nod. This will work.
Then I stride out into the night to do my brother’s bidding.
Blood on the tile.
So much blood on the tile.
57
ELIANA
chif·fon·nade: /?SHif?'näd/: noun/verb
