Brother to Brother: The Sacred Brotherhood Book I (2 page)

Fuck you, Grind.
I thought at my dead brother,
fuck you, if what she says is true.
Which I knew it was. The proof was right in fuckin’ front of me, staring at me with my dead brother’s eyes.

“Archer, you fuckin’ cool, man?” I turned and looked at Reaver who was standing there with Data and Disney flanking him to either side, all three of them lookin’ skeptical but Reaver’s eyes especially cold.

“Mel, put the baby back in his seat,” I ordered, staring Reaver down. He arched an eyebrow at me and I gave him a nod.

“What, why?”

“Just put him in the fuckin’ cage, now!” I barked at her, and she jumped, the boy started up, screaming loud and she cuddled him close, making soothing noises and I cursed myself silently for scaring him.

I snatched her keys hanging out of her hip pocket and as soon as she shut the door hauled her over to the passenger side of her own cage, dragging open the door and sitting her ass in the seat.

When I’d first seen her, the first thing I’d noticed was that she’d cut her hair, and that she’d filled out some in all the right ways, but now I knew why for the second. She’d had a fuckin’ baby,
my brother’s
baby. I shut her into the cage and went around to the driver’s seat.

“Where you takin’ her, Archer?” Reaver demanded, winter in his voice.

“My place,” I uttered, “It’ll have to fuckin’ do for now.” I got into the cage’s driver’s seat and turned it over, the guys walked back to the club and I pulled out in a spray of gravel. I could see ‘em watching in the rearview mirror but I didn’t care.

I glanced at Melody, who was staring at me wide eyed, I expected her to ask me where I was taking her and her boy, my brother’s son, but she didn’t, instead she asked me, voice hollow with shock and pain, “Is he really dead?”

Fuck.

“Yeah,” I gritted my teeth a second to bite of the string of curses I had for every last one of my old chapter. “He’s really dead,” I said, and I didn’t have a fuckin’ thing else for her.

She turned her face out the window and stared blankly, and it was like I watched her shut down, like some kind of robot or something. Her eyes unfocused and stared blankly as the scenery whipped by the window, and for her? Knowing where she’d come from? I knew it was nice scenery.

At least the boy was quiet now, too. I stared into the rearview mirror for a second and found him staring back at me, little cupid’s bow of a mouth hanging open, my brother’s eyes staring wide like I was the most interesting and awe inspiring thing ever. I felt my jaw take on that familiar determined steel and shook my head, casting my eyes where they belonged on the road ahead.
I hated driving a fucking cage.

Chapter 3

Melody

He stopped the car in front of this old motel that appeared to have been renovated into apartments. I looked up at the place, as dilapidated as they got, and he shut off my car, pocketing the keys.

“Get the boy,” he grunted.

“Noah,” I said softly.

“What?”

“My son’s name is Noah,” I said and I got out of the car. He sat for a moment and I think seethed, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d named my son after his father, Archer could and would just have to get over it.

I went around to the driver’s side back door and opened it up, slinging Noah’s diaper bag across my chest and ducking into the car to get him out of his car seat; my sweet boy looked distressed, and reached for me, calling “Mamma!” I pulled him out of the car and stood up with him in my arms, his chubby little arms wrapped tight around my neck. He looked around, his father’s hazel eyes scanning the cracked parking lot at the same time mine did. This place was a dump, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Get up here,” Archer said, halfway up the cement steps with their rickety looking metal railing. I hugged Noah to me and followed him warily. He went to the door with a rusty, corroded metal number six nailed to it; rust stains running down the dirty, beige colored door like blood, and unlocked it ushering me quickly inside.

He shut the door behind us, and I stared. The living room was nothing more than a couch, television on an overturned milk crate, and a battered coffee table that looked like it’d come out of a pile marked ‘free’ on the side of the road. To the right was an old, seventies, equally battered four seater table in front of every apartment kitchen you’ve ever seen. The table had four chairs around it, vinyl and equally as aged, yellow foam peeking from a slashed seat. The table at least looked like it
might
have come from a goodwill or garage sale, the chairs though? They looked like they came out of the same ‘free’ pile the coffee table had come out of.

A doorway in the wall by the kitchen led back to the bedroom, which is where he took us next. I stared at the queen sized bed with the wrought iron headboard – probably the nicest piece of furniture so far, and swallowed hard.

He gripped me by the upper arm and hauled me through the door when I hesitated too long, sitting me down on the end of the bed. I sat, and Noah looked around quietly; my heart broke just a little. Noah was usually a bubbly, talkative child, but kids
knew
, and my boy’s silence as he slobbered all over his fist, told me he was as apprehensive as his mamma. I looked up at Archer and he set his jaw.

“You can take the bedroom, I’ll take the couch. I’m going to go pick up an extra shift. I’m taking your cage. I’ll be back later tonight. Don’t go anywhere,” and just like that, he went out the bedroom door shutting it tightly behind him. I blinked and looked around the room.

Aside from the queen sized bed, there was a battered garage sale dresser with a smaller television and DVD player on its top at the foot. One of those tall chest of drawers. There was a squat, longer dresser along the wall beside the bed where a doorway opened into a bathroom off to the side and by all appearances, the
only
bathroom in the place. The opposite wall had a window that was not only shuttered with venetian blinds, but had a heavy military blanket tacked up over it.

That was it furniture wise; there was no more room for anything else in this bedroom with its stark walls and cracked ceiling. I looked at Noah, asking him, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” his soft little breathy child’s voice almost made me smile.

“You got a stinky butt?” I asked and he shook his head no, his fist resolutely back in his mouth and I closed my eyes for a second.

“I love you, my sweet boy,” I murmured and kissed his soft hair. He chattered and murmured in his soft baby voice, his breath evening and deepening and I sighed. He hadn’t had much of a nap in the car. I slid the strap of his diaper bag off of my shoulder and sat him down on the bed. He immediately started to fuss and whine until I picked him back up and he clung to me. I sighed…
I knew exactly how he felt.

Chapter 4

Archer

The bar was closed, and the shift had gone pretty well, and by well, I mean it’d been boring as shit. That’s pretty much what you preferred when it came to this shit, and so I wasn’t complaining, in fact, I was giving Cindy, one of the lead bartenders, a hand by mopping the floor while I waited for my two dumbass younger brothers to show up.

The place I worked some nights was a cowboy bar that was mostly on the right side of the tracks as compared to where I’d come from. It was popular, and usually pretty busy. A lot of the business was college kids, and ranch hands from some of the racehorse farms around here. Usually it blared country, but right now I had some Stone Temple Pilots on the system. I could only handle that country shit when patrons were around and it was your typical work night.

“Hey Archer, wake up! Your brothers are at the door,” Cindy called from behind the bar. I looked up, and sure enough, Rush and Nox stood outside and neither one of them looked very happy. I couldn’t blame ‘em, but this shit was important. I went to the door and unlocked it, letting them in, and locking right back up behind ‘em.

“Dude, what is so fucking important that it couldn’t wait? Some of us have to get our asses up and work for a living come tomorrow,” Nox griped.

“Melody showed up today,” I said and that shut him up. Rush eyed me, and I could see the gears turning.

“Spit it out, Arch. What’s the rest?” he asked.

“She has her kid with her… Grind’s kid,” I said unhappily. Nox almost physically reeled, looking a lot like I’d felt when Grind’s boy had first looked at me with our brother’s eyes. He fell back against the bar lightly, but leaned heavily on it.

“Holy fucking shit,” Rush uttered, and swept the bandana off his head. He rubbed a hand back and forth over his close cropped hair and shook his head in disbelief.

“You’re sure it’s Grind’s?” Nox asked.

“Looks just like him,” I said unhappily.

“Where they at?” Rush asked.

“My place, for now… there’s more. She showed up here
looking
for Grind. Our old chapter, the brothers didn’t tell her. She didn’t know he’d died.”

“What the fuck? She been living under some kind of a rock?” Rush asked, the look on his face like he’d smelled something bad, which he had.
The distinct odor of bullshit,
I thought to myself and I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy at all.

“So is that why Grind left?” Nox asked, and he looked as crushed with disappointment as I’d felt when Mel had told me.

“According to Mel, she told him she was pregnant and he upped and left her an’ the boy both… came out here.”

“Karma took that one too far,” Nox muttered and sighed, swiping a hand over his face.

“I wanna see him,” Rush said.

“It’s late and she drove here by herself, all her shit’s in garbage bags too, like she left in a big damn hurry. Nothing but pampers and clothes, I ain’t seen anything like it.”

“What’s she running from?” Rush asked.

“Good question,” Nox agreed.

“No idea, I dropped her and the boy off at my place and came here. What’s a kid that’s a year old even sleep in?”

“A crib, I think. How the fuck should I know?” Rush asked.

“Well I gotta get me one. Where the fuck you find one at three in the morning?”

“Twenty-four hour Wally-World is my best guess,” Nox said.

“Got a cage?” Rush wanted to know, “I ain’t actually built any cribs yet.”

“Yeah, hers… it’s out back.”

“Let’s do this then,” Rush said, “I ain’t going home and crashing until I see this myself.”

“Pitch in, I ain’t leavin’ ‘til this place is closed up,” I told them both. Closing was wrapped up double time and my brothers followed me first to Walmart then back to my apartment, a fuckin’ crib tied to the roof of Mel’s car.

The boys helped me bring it inside and I found everything exactly as I’d left it, bedroom door still shut and all. I worried for a sec that they’d be gone but when we opened up the bedroom door it was to find them both racked out hard in my bed. Nox and Rush stood to either side of me and we watched them for a while.

Melody was drawn, and though she slept, the exhaustion was apparent in the tight lines of her face, even in sleep. The dark circles under her eyes made her seem a lot older than what I knew she was, too. Rush took a step forward like he was gonna go in and wake ‘em up and I put a hand against his chest. He glared at me and I scowled right back, knowing he’d back down. I was scarier and we all knew it.

“Tomorrow,” I grunted quietly.

“Yeah, let ‘em sleep,” Nox agreed, and I knew he’d back me. Out of all four of us brothers, he’d always been the softest.

I shut the door and sighed, looking at my two surviving brothers, first Rush then Nox, “After you both get off of work, come on back here.”

“Need a hand bringing anything else in?” Nox asked.

“Nah, Bro, but thanks; I got it. Try and get some sleep and we’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

“What are you going to do?” Rush asked, brows knit together.

“Don’t have a fuckin’ clue, but for right now, until I figure it out, you’re lookin’ at it.”

He and Nox nodded in unison and let themselves out while I set to putting the damn crib together for the living room. An hour and at least two beers later, it was done and I was dragging some ass but I still brought up all of her and the baby’s shit from the car, piling it on the dining room table.

I went over and flopped down on the couch after it was done, throwing an arm over my eyes. I had no fucking idea what I was doing, none whatsoever. All I knew? That boy in there was blood. Grinder’s blood, sure, and even though we were foster brothers, coming up in the system together, it didn’t matter. Grinder’s blood, Rush or Nox’s blood, it was as good as my own and you didn’t abandon family.

Mel was the boy’s mother, so like it as not that made her family too. I didn’t have to like it, I just had to live with it.
Of course, living with it isn’t exactly the worst hardship ever, now is it you fuckin’ pussy?
I asked myself. I sighed, and shifted on the couch uncomfortably. I’d always been a little jealous of Grind when it’d come to Mel. She’d been the prettiest of any of the girls to come around the club, but once Grind set his sights on a piece of ass…

Not so ancient history, but history none the less. I didn’t make a habit of dwelling on what was in my rearview, and this was no exception. Besides, I needed to figure out the road ahead because this particular hairpin curve had been totally unexpected. It took me a while, but I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. I could deal with this shit after the day job. It would just have to wait.

Chapter 5

Melody

Noah becoming fussy is what woke me. I pushed myself up and looked at him, asking automatically, “You got a stinky butt?” His best answer was to start fussing louder, beginning to cry.

“Okay, Baby. Up we go!” I stood up and picked him up. Taking him and his diaper bag into the living room which seemingly had
exploded
with our belongings overnight.

“Wow,” I uttered, Noah squirming in my arms.

I fetched a towel out of the pile of our clothes and stuff on the dining room table and laid it down on the carpet, along with Noah right on top of it. I played with my son, singing and rhyming and generally trying anything to keep him smiling and giggling while I worked him out of his choo choo train pajamas. Archer was asleep on the couch, and I was terrified of waking him. God knew what he’d do if we did.