His eyes darken at that. He cocks his head, and a veil of focus immediately comes over his face. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me intently, waiting for me to say whatever is on my mind.
Which I wish I’d formulated more clearly in my head beforehand, because now that I have to wing it, I feel like it’s going to come out wrong.
“What happened?”
Yeah, that’s really clear.Good jobme.
Tadhg cocks his head even more and squints at me. “Do you mean what happened during the shooting?”
“God, no.” I shudder. I can fill in the blanks on that and definitely don’t need a more vivid picture than what my brain is already making up. “I mean, what happened with you to end up here? We always… You always swore we were going to run away once we were old enough. You never wanted to be like him. I know it was shitty of me to leave you alone?—”
“You deserved to get out, Bambi.” His voice is barely a whisper, and he’s not looking me in the eye. But I can tell he’s serious when he interrupts me.
“I know, but so did you. I always believed you would, with or without me. So, what happened? Why did you stay? Does he have something he can hold over you? I just want to help, if I can. I feel like I owe you that much.”
Tadhg laughs and looks across the room; his head turned as far away from me as possible. There’s no humor in his laughter, and every muscle in his body seems tense, despite the fact that he’s barely moving.
“You don’t owe me anything, Micah.”
For some reason, the fact that he uses my real name stings a little.
I lean over him, resting one hand gently on his good thigh for balance and using the other to turn his face so he’s looking at me. He lets me move him, but his eyes continue to dart around the room, belying how anxious he is, even if the rest of his body isn’t showing it.
Looking into his eyes, I keep my voice calm and even, and don’t let him wiggle his way out of this question.
“I don’t want to fight about it, Tadhg. We both deserved a million times better than what we were born with. But I always hoped you got out. I’m just asking what happened. Maybe I can help.”
He stares at me. His mouth moves like he’s about to start speaking, the beginnings of a half dozen words hanging on his lips, which are finally pink and smooth again after days of being pallid and split from sickness.
There are tears shimmering in his eyes, but like always, I pretend not to notice them. I can see his breath catching. I’m convinced that if I stay as still as possible, holding his chin so he can’t escape from me, eventually he’ll crack and tell me the truth.
He has to know that there’s at least one person in the fucking world who’s on his side and thinks that he deserves good things. I’ll convince him of that if it kills me.
Right when I feel the energy in the room turning like he’s about to speak, there’s a pounding at the door.
Fuck these fucking selfish, violent people. Fuck their insistence on showing up uninvited. I know it’s more mafia morons without even having to look, based solely on how they knock like they’re the big bad wolf trying to get in.
I’m about to get up and let the idiots in. Tadhg’s reaction to the sudden interruption, however, is something to behold.
It’s instantaneous.
Gone is my brother—vulnerable and weirdly shy—sitting in front of me. In a heartbeat, he’s replaced by something cold,violent and utterly still. I can see him listening to the sound, the wheels in his head turning while he calculates I-don’t-know-what before ultimately sliding off the couch.
He’s still injured, but it’s a more controlled and graceful movement than he’s managed so far. He doesn’t say anything, but he looks at me with the same stern, protective look he used to get in our closet-hiding days and points toward my bedroom.
Fuck that, though. I’m not leaving him. Besides, it’s definitely his fucking friends. Or maybe my super. Or a million other possibilities that aren’t here to murder us, despite whatever his jacked-up nervous system is telling him right now.
As a silent compromise, I stay put and don’t follow him to the door. He has his gun in his hand, pulled from somewhere on his person despite the fact that he’s barefoot and dressed in sweatpants. I cringe inwardly at the fact that he doesn’t know I stole the bullets, but I’m still convinced he won’t need them.
His thick, callused fingers wrap around the grip of the Glock like they’re a second skin, and he pads over to the door to look through the peephole. There’s tension in every inch of him, his muscles straining in his attempt to be as quiet as possible. I can only imagine how much pain and energy this must be taking in his state.
As soon as he sees who’s on the other side, he blows out a giant breath. The gun gets lowered, which eases my nerves, although not put away entirely. Without saying anything to me, Tadhg unlocks the door, unhooks the chain and then opens the door just wide enough for a person to slip inside.
The first one to enter is named Colm, I think. He was helping Patrick when they were all here arguing over Tadhg’s dying body, and out of all of them, he was the only one who seemed remotely calm. He was also the only one who looked at me like a human instead of either looking right through me as if I were thehelp, or looking at me like I was something disgusting, like the mohawk-moron that Patrick called Lucky.
And speak of the devil. After Colm comes Lucky, with the bleached, faded, disheveled mohawk, still carrying himself with the same twitchy, reckless energy that he had before. Of course, as soon as he sets foot inside, his eyes land on me and his face morphs into an expression of undisguised disdain. I think he even flexes his arms, uncovered by the raggedy cut off denim jacket he’s wearing, like he’s trying to intimidate me.
Sure, pal. Try all you like. I’ve faced much scarier homophobes than you. Your insecurity is screaming at me so loud I could hear it from the fucking moon.
