“You’ve given everything,” I continue. “Your body. Your sanity. Your life. There’s nothing left to take.”
“And you’re deciding that for me?”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightens. Hard enough to make the muscle jump.
“I saved her,” he says suddenly.
I look up.
“That day,” he continues. “In that cell. When she was gone. When she wasn’t responding. I kept her alive.”
The words are flat, but beneath them there’s something like accusation. Like he needs me to remember the ledger before I sentence him.
“I know,” I say.
“And now I’m the villain.”
“You’re my brother,” I correct. “Which is why I’m stopping you before you destroy yourself.”
He wipes his face roughly, dragging a hand through sweat and frustration and whatever else he’s too proud to let show cleanly.
“You don’t get to be my conscience.”
“No,” I admit. “But I get to be your commander.”
He turns away.
Stares at the wall.
For a long time.
I let him. Because this isn’t the kind of choice you rush a man through. Because what I’m really saying isyou can’t stay here and keep being what this place made you.Because what he’s hearing isthe only life you know doesn’t want you anymore.
“Where do I go?” he asks finally.
The question is so stripped down, so bare, that it takes me a second to answer.
“Home,” I say. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe.”
He snorts. “I don’t know how to live like that.”
“I didn’t either,” I confess. “Once.”
He glances at me then, suspicion and curiosity fighting for space in his face.
“You talking about Moe?”
“Yes.”
“And Delilah?”
I hesitate. He sees it anyway.
“…Yes.”
He shakes his head. “Figures.”
