Through the partially open door, I see them. Bruno's wheelchair is angled toward the window, afternoon light cutting across his sharp features. And sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, clutching one of her stuffed rabbits, is Lily.
She's laughing.
Not the nervous giggle of a child sensing danger. Real laughter, the kind that makes her whole body shake.
"No, no, no." Bruno's voice is low, but it's missing the knife-edge I've grown used to. "You have to hold it like this. Otherwise Sir Floppington falls over."
"But he wants to fall over," Lily insists. "He's doing a trick."
"What trick?"
"A secret trick."
Bruno makes a sound. It takes me a moment to recognize it.
He's laughing too.
Soft. Almost rusty, like machinery that hasn't been used in years. But there. Unmistakable.
What the hell?
I press my back against the wall, staying out of sight. My mind races through explanations and finds none. This is Bruno. Bruno who's spent months building walls so high and vicious that even I can't scale them anymore.
And he's playing with a child's stuffed rabbit.
"The secret trick," Bruno says slowly, "is falling over?"
"Dramatically." Lily corrects him with the patient tone of someone explaining something obvious to someone very stupid. "Like in movies."
"I see." A pause. "Show me."
Through the crack in the door, I watch Lily make the rabbit flop sideways with exaggerated flair. Bruno nods solemnly, like she's just demonstrated a complex tactical maneuver.
"Better," he says. "But the ears need more—" He waves his hand vaguely.
"More whoosh?"
"Exactly."
Something cracks in my chest. A hairline fracture in the wall I've built around every memory of who Bruno used to be. Before the wedding. Before the wheelchair. Before the bullet that took his legs and left behind something colder.
He's still in there.
Under all that rage and cruelty and viciousness—my brother is still in there.
Footsteps behind me. I turn to find Kristen approaching, her face pale, eyes wide with panic. She sees me and stops short, opening her mouth to speak.
I shake my head once. Wait.
She freezes.
Inside the room, Lily chatters on about Sir Floppington's adventures. Bruno listens.
Then Kristen's shoe squeaks on the floor.
Bruno's head snaps toward the sound. The transformation is instantaneous. Warmth draining from his face like water through sand, replaced by that familiar cold mask.
Kristen pushes past me before I can stop her.
