I’m not like him, I silently recited.I’m nothing fucking like him.
Eventually the wind died down and the rain became little more than a drizzle. I moved quickly, pushing through the doors, and striding through the swampy yard without a backward glance. Willow was there though, following close enough that I could hear every splash of her footsteps.
“You guys okay?” Lucas was hanging out the office window, his forehead creased with concern.
“Never better,” I muttered.
As Willow hurried past me, I changed course. Inspecting the tubs of water, they were as I’d expected—filled with debris. Seeing this, I felt doubly vindicated in my anger—I had been right and Willow had been wrong, as was usually the case. But would she ever admit to it? Not a chance in hell.
“Logan?” Lucas called. “You coming in?”
I waved him off. “Yeah, in a minute.”
“You’re bleeding, you know?”
Glancing down my body, I found a quarter-sized gash on my shin. I shrugged. “I’ll take care of it after I do a perimeter check.”
I managed a half-assed property search before giving up and heading back; adrenaline had worn off and fatigue was fast setting in. Hauling myself up through the office window, I found camp calm and quiet—Lucas was bent over the stove fiddling with a small fire, and Willow was snoring softly, buried up to her forehead inside her bedroll.
Slipping out of my wet shorts, I laid them out to dry and grabbed my pack.
“So what exactly happened out there?” Lucas whispered. “Willow was, um, kind of upset.”
“What always fucking happens. She acts recklessly and then gets pissed off when I try to talk some sense into her.”
There was a pause; Lucas took an audible breath. “Logan, she told me what she said. About Dad. You know she didn’t mean it, right?”
I resumed digging through my pack, producing the small first aid kit I always carried. It was mostly empty, barring a small tube of disinfectant and a bottle of expired aspirin. Swabbing my leg with disinfectant, I pulled a semi-clean bandanna from my bag and tied it tightly over the gash.
“Here,” I muttered, tossing the kit at Lucas. “Make sure Willow cleans her leg.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Lucas cleared his throat. “Uh, you know, things seem to be getting really bad between you two. I just don’t think we can… you know… afford to have another year like the first.”
I glanced up sharply. “What are you saying?” I demanded. “Are you actually suggesting that I would do something like Dad—”
“No!” Lucas shouted, startling us both. “How could you even think that?” he demanded. “I only meant how screwed up everything was after that—how screwed up we all were. You guys were always fighting back then too… and now you’re fighting again.”
“Luke.” I sighed my brother’s name, suddenly feeling twice as exhausted. “Everything is still screwed up. Everything is always going to be screwed up. Look around you—look at this shithole we’re squatting in. Jesus,look at us. We’re hungry, filthy and just barely getting by. We’re a fucking mess—everything is a goddamn, motherfucking mess.”
Lucas was silent for a moment, chewing on his lip rings. “I get what you mean,” he said softly. “But I don’t think it’s that bad. We’re alive, right? I know I’m okay as long as I have you guys.”
I stared at him, unable to think up a response that wasn’t crass or cruel. Lucas only felt that way because he had Willow, someone he loved who he could share this hell on earth with. If our roles were reversed, I knew he’d feel differently.
“I’m going to sleep,” I eventually muttered. “Do you think you can keep watch for me?” When Lucas nodded, I turned away. Stretching out over my bedroll, I prayed for oblivion.
I woke to hushed whispers and muffled giggles. I’d slept for a few hours at least, judging by the darkened state of things. The stove was still going—I could hear the crackle of the fire and see the flicker of the flames dancing along the wall.
“You said that part already,” Lucas was saying.
“Oh-ho, I’m so sorry,” Willow replied around a yawn. “What are you—the Wonderland police?”
“Yep. Now, are you ready for your sentence?”
“Sentence!” Willow feigned outrage. “But there hasn’t even been a verdict!”
“Sentence first,” Lucas replied solemnly. “Verdict later.”
Reciting the story ofAlice in Wonderlandwas something Willow had started doing during our first year on our own. When she’d been scared or had a hard time falling asleep she’d start whispering the lines; Lucas would often join in, adding his own nonsense to the story in an attempt to make her laugh. As the years passed, what had begun as a comfort had since become an obnoxious ritual. They told the stupid story so goddamn often that I now knew it by heart, even their silly versions. Like the one they were currently telling, where Alice was Alastair, the most infamous Drag Queen of Wonderland, and the Queen of Hearts was actually the Queen of Farts, having obtained her power by stealing and eating all the beans in all the land. There was no need for beheading in this adaptation—this queen could kill with a single toot of her most lethal butt-trumpet. Hearing them, it would have been easy to mistake them for children, not the twentysomething adults they really were.
