Page 104 of Shatter

Anni's eyes fill.

She doesn't say anything.

Pierce walks out, the bell jangling behind him.

Through the window, I watch him climb into a silver rental sedan and pull away from the curb.

Aren's black Charger pulls out from a parking space down the block and follows him, a hundred yards back.

I didn't even see Aren arrive.

* * *

We can't kill him.

I know it before Tor says it in the truck on the way back, before anybody says it at all.

I know it the second I see her face when Pierce says Mom kept your room the same.

He's her brother, and he taught her to ride a bike.

He knows the name of her first dog and the song her grandmother sang in the kitchen in Ballard.

I'm a prospect she's known for ten weeks.

He's her entire childhood.

You don't put a bullet in a woman's brother and expect her to look at you the same way again.

Not ever.

Rati catches me in the hall outside the kitchen after dinner.

I've been carrying a plate back to the room for her, grilled cheese she won't eat and a pickle she will, and he steps out of the shadows by the stairs and blocks my way.

"Prospect." He looks at the plate, then at me. "The brother."

"Yeah." I don't slow down.

He doesn't move out of my way.

"Man comes all the way from Seattle with a picture of their mama in a hospital bed." Rati scratches his beard. "Talks soft. Knows every button she's got, because he installed half of them."

I stop.

"She's a Carrow, boy." His voice is gravel and smoke. "Whatever she's been to you in that room, she was a Carrow for twenty-five years before she ever heard your name. Blood talks. Blood's got a loud voice."

My hand tightens on the edge of the plate.

"So, what do I do?" It comes out rougher than I mean it to.

Rati looks at me for a long moment.

Then he reaches out and taps two thick fingers against the back of my cut, right between my shoulder blades, where the Raiders colors sit.

"You make it official." He says it like it's obvious. "Put a patch on her back. Give her something to stand on that isn't his."

He walks away before I can answer.