He flinches. A micro-recoil. His eyes squeeze shut, a reflex to protect himself from a blow that isn't coming.
"Easy," I whisper. "It's just me."
I press the warm cloth to his jaw. I wipe slowly, following the sharp line of the bone. The blood lifts away, revealing the pale skin beneath. I clean his cheek. His temple. The bridge of his nose where a droplet has dried in the crease beside his eye.
He leans into the touch. Just a fraction. A surrender.
I set the cloth aside. His face is clean. His hands are clean.
I find the first aid kit Rory left on the sink. I take out an elastic bandage.
I wrap his left wrist. Figure-eight pattern. Firm, but not tight. I secure the clips.
"Who taught you to do that?" I ask.
The question is quiet.
He knows what I’m asking. Not the fighting. Not the shooting. The specific thing he did to the man in the warehouse. The controlled compression of the windpipe. The way he knew exactly where to press to crush the cartilage without hesitation.
He opens his eyes. The green is flat. Depleted. Like a forest after a fire.
"Da," he says.
The word is small. A stone dropped in a deep well.
"I was fifteen," he says. His voice is gravel, scraping against the silence. "Rory was nine. Da had a debt. A bad one. Gambling. The Devaneys sent a man to collect. Not money. A message."
He pauses. He looks at his wrapped wrist, turning it over.
"The man came to the house. He walked past Da, who was passed out at the kitchen table with a bottle of Jameson, and went straight for Rory's room."
My stomach turns. I can see it. The drunk father. The vulnerable child.
"I was in the hallway," Killian continues. "I heard Rory scream. Just once. A high, terrified sound." His right hand curls into a fist on his thigh. "I went through the door. The man was huge. He had Rory by the arm. He was twisting it. He was going to break it."
He stops. He breathes. A ragged, tearing sound, like air being forced through a damaged lung.
"Da taught me one thing. One useful thing in his entire miserable life. He showed me where the throat is weakest. Where the cartilage hinges. How to find it with your thumbs." He looks at me. "I used it. On the floor of Rory's bedroom, I put my hands around that man's throat and I squeezed until he stopped moving."
The water drips in the sink.Drip. Drip.
"I killed him," Killian whispers. "I was fifteen years old, and I killed a man with my bare hands. Da came in after. He looked at the body. He looked at me. And he didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't check on Rory."
He swallows hard.
"He said, 'Good lad. Now clean it up.'"
The silence in the bathroom is absolute. It presses against the walls.
"He never protected us," Killian says. "He drank and he gambled and he let the wolves in the door. And every time, he sent me to deal with them. 'Handle it, Kill.' 'You're the strong one.' I was fifteen. I was a child. And he made me a killer."
He looks at me. His eyes are wet. Not tears—glass. A sheen of unshed pain that has nowhere to go.
"I hate what I am," he says. "I hate that the first thing I do when someone threatens the people I care about is destroy them. I hate that it’s the only thing I’m good at. I hate that my father was right."
He pulls his hands away from mine. He grips the edge of the tub until his knuckles turn white.
"I am the monster he made me."
