She gives him a reason to want to be human after he’s been letting his other half run the show for years, and now he’s fighting his way back to us, to her. I think that’s what she saw in him that night, but didn’t understand what she was seeing. She knows Cinjin’swolf, not him, and she doesn’t understand how to compute that fact. Are we split personalities of the same being, the worst versions of ourselves manifesting, or two separate souls inhabiting the same body?
Does it really matter in the end when she’s already accepted who and what we are, loves us when we can barely pass as human on the best of days?
My brother has never been at war with himself like the rest of us, completely shut down as a kid and withdrew into himself, stepping out of the way as his wolf stepped up to protect him. Fuck, sometimes I wonder if my brother is even still in there somewhere, or if he was devoured long ago.
Sabrina sees that, was nervous about therealCin fighting his way to the surface. Who can blame her, when even I’m not sure who my brother really is anymore?
“Tell me,” he purrs, flipping open his knife to slice through the bindings at Carter’s wrists. “Those bruises around her neck that my sister came home with; we’re supposed to forgive those?”
“I was desperate,” he whispers, scrambling back an inch once his hands are free. “She was never going to choose me, choose any of us. The only other girls around here won’t be eligible for, what, another five to ten years? I can’t keep living like this.” He winces as his wolf no doubt batters against the confines of its cage. It knows exactly the fate that’s waiting for them, only growing more aggressive in its desperation. If his host dies, he’ll die right alongside him, never once experiencing freedom.
Cinjin slices through the binding at his ankles. “What the rest of us are expected to do; deal with it.”
“Easy for you to say when you have one!” he shouts, getting to his feet, dark eyes wide with nervous fear when we don’t stop him. “Where did you even find her?” As a sudden thought occurs to him, he rushes to add, “Wait, she smelled human at first, right? What if there are more out there like her, and that’s why less are being born to the packs? They’re being born to humans, and we just need to hunt them down-”
“Run.”
It takes him a split second to mentally switch gears, his heart missing a beat before he sprints for the door. Neither of us move, though it takes everything I have to stay in place. Clenching my fist, instead of fighting against the urge as my skin begins to crawl, I feed my other half mental images of what Cin’s planning.
It’s not him or me. We’re two halves working in tandem to bring maximum suffering to the man we want to kill.
The itching sensation lessens a fraction, and I concentrate on a long, slow breath that brings the acrid stench of fear with it. Pacified, he stops fighting me, and I watch my brother from my peripherals, keeping our fleeing victim in my sights. Holding the tip of the blade, Cin lines up his shot before whipping the knife forward, swiftly bringing another to his hand and giving it the same treatment. The blades hit their mark one after the other, slicing into Carter’s Achilles tendons. He goes down with a scream, barely saving himself from a broken nose.
“Bra-fucking-vo,” Kaige praises, his golf-clapping bringing a massive grin to Cinjin’s face.
Shaking his head, he waltzes towards Carter like he has all the time in the world. “Thank you, thank you. Remember that the next time you try to poison my breakfast.”
Kaige scowls. “I told you, I didn’t poison the damn muffins. Like I’d leave something out that Sabrina might grab by accident. And you have a terrible penchant for sharing with her, so it’s too risky. If I was going to poison you, I’d make sure she was gone for the day and watch you eat it. You know, just to be safe.”
This time, I’m the one laughing. I don’t particularly like the assholes that stormed into our lives like the gods’ gifts to earth, but I don’t hate them quite as much as I used to either.
“I’ll be sure to make Sabrina taste test all my food from now on then,” Cin declares distractedly. At this point, we’ve reached Carter, who made it farther than I’d have expected looking at the guy. “Aww, so close to freedom. Another five seconds, you’d have been out the door.” Stepping on one of Carter’s hands, he yanks his knives out of the man’s ankles, chuckling. “Not that there’s a car waiting for you. No, your pack had no problem forsaking you, did they? Abandoned you here and ran with their tails between their legs.” He wipes the blood of one knife off on Carter’s shirt before tucking it away.
Tears are gathered in his eyes as he whispers, “I’m sorry. Please.”
“Please what?” Cin uses his other blade to slice a shallow line up the back of his leg through his jeans, blood beading and trickling from the wound little deeper than a paper cut.
Swallowing, Carter begs, “Please give me a chance to make it up to you.”
Scoffing, he steps on his ankle, applying steady pressure until a few of the tiny bones fracture. “And therein lies the problem, Carter. You didn’t even offer to make it up toher,the only person you should be begging forgiveness from.”
Taking it as his cue, Cin carries on, humming to himself as he carves a series of designs into Carter’s flesh. His shirt is shredded to expose a bigger canvas, and while he bucks and screams, I hold him down while my brother works. When Carter manages to get a weak shot in, I take great pleasure in breaking his fingers one by one.
“You really should learn to keep your hands to yourself, you know.”
Every time he jerks, it drives Cinjin’s blade deeper. He’s trapped between us, flinching away from one pain, and then the other. I lose all sense of time as I move onto the next hand before stepping back from the sniveling man to inspect Cin’s handiwork. Tilting my head from one angle to the next, my admiration only grows for my morbid little brother.
“When we settle down one day, you should look into tattooing; that’s impressive as fuck.”
Beaming with pride, he reaches for his phone before thinking better of it. “Damn. Kind of wanted to show her, but not worth the evidence.”
Kaige saunters over, curious, and his eyebrows jump up to his hairline before he starts laughing. “Is that a couple of werewolves kicking the shit out of Carter?” As Cin shoots him a proud thumbs up, Kaige snorts. “You even added Xs for eyes and his tongue lolling out. Fuck, we can’tnottake a picture. The others have to see this.”
Whipping out his phone, he snaps a picture, but doesn’t send it so we can show in person and delete. Still carries some risk, but slightly less of one, and I’m sure Reid or Sabrina can scrub it off the cloud, or whatever they’re doing with tech shit these days.
“Hey, no passing out.” I use the toe of my boot to nudge Carter’s face.
“If you’re open to suggestions,” Kaige trails off, looking way too fucking excited all of a sudden.
