A sound rises from my chest, primal and broken, clawing its way up my throat, but I swallow it back, instead channeling it into motion.
I sweep my arm across the top of the dresser, sending deodorant, change, and receipts flying. The small ceramic dish crashes onto the floor, breaking into jagged pieces, and my stomach drops. Lena made that.
Still, I don’t stop. Ican’t.
The desk chair follows, toppling with a thud. I flip the mattress off the bed frame, needing to destroythe orderly space that symbolizes my illusion of control.
Five years of protecting her. Five years of working myself to the bone. Five years of background checks on her friends, walking her to the bus or to school every morning, double deadbolts, door chains, and self-defense classes.
All of it. Useless.
I kick the upended mattress, driving my foot into it again and again until my hip aches from the twisted angle.
In the back of my mind, calculations spin like a broken computer program. How did this happen? When? Who could have gotten close enough? Did they follow her from school? Did they break in while I was at work? Did she go somewhere she shouldn’t have? What did I miss?
Everything I built to keep her safe. Everything I sacrificed.
Not enough.
I drop to my knees beside the mattress, breath coming in harsh pants as reality reasserts itself through the fog of rage.
Lena needs me now. Not this broken, violent version of myself. She needs the brother who has always been her shelter in a world of shifting ground.
I focus on the pain in my body, using it to center myself in the present. The burning sensation across my split knuckles pulls me back into my body, reminds me of the physicality that still requires control.
One inhale, counting to four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
Again.
And again.
The technique I learned years ago when panic attacks would strike in the middle of class, when teachers would ask about parents who never showed up for conferences, when social workers would appear at the door with questions I couldn’t answer.
My heart rate slows. The roaring in my ears subsides. The tunnel vision widens until I can see the entire room again and the evidence of my loss of control scattered across the floor.
Five more minutes. That’s all I allow myself for this breakdown. Five minutes of pure, selfish rage, and then I have to be her brother again. Her protector. Even if I’ve already failed.
I stand on legs steadier than they should be, given what’s happened. The cold calculation that has kept us alive for five years returns, sliding over the raw wound of my rage like a second skin.
I will find who did this, and they will pay. But first, I need information.
I go to the hall bathroom first, washing the blood from my knuckles and wrapping it in gauze that I cover with a fingerless glove so Lena won’t see the damage.
Then I return to her room and knock on the door. “Lena? Can I come in?”
A pause, then her soft voice. “Yes.”
She sits on the edge of her bed now, dressed in loose pajamas with long sleeves to combat the chill of the apartment. Her hair hangs forward, shielding her face.
I resume my seat at the desk and sit with my injured hand tucked into my pocket.
Her eyes, red-rimmed and wary, meet mine for a fraction of a second before darting away. “You are not in trouble,” I say. “You’re safe right now. But I need you to tell me what happened.”
Give me a name. Give me a place. I will make sure this Alpha never touches my sister again.
4
Lena clears her throat, the sound raw and painful in the quiet room. “I sold my suppressants.”
