Thicker Than Water (23 page)

When Dad demanded answers for everything I’d done with Thomas, Danny told him to back off and give me some space to breathe.

I was glad for that. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about the trip to Crisfield, so they don’t know anything about Thomas’s brother. I’m already in enough trouble. I don’t need them knowing I was halfway across the county.

And it’s not like we found anything.

In the hospital, when I could finally speak without crying, I thanked Danny for being so kind.

He leaned down close to me and said, “If I stop holding your hand, I’m going to go shoot that motherfucker in the head.”

And for the first time, I’d appreciated his white-hot temper, because I understood that it underscored a deep protectiveness for his family.

Ben swipes more tears off my cheeks. “Matt is fit to be tied. He says you told him you were seeing someone. He thinks he should have paid closer attention to what you were saying. He wished he’d stayed the night.”

“I wish I hadn’t lied to him.”

“He thinks he should have figured it out.”

“I think
I
should have figured it out.” Again, I wrack my brain, trying to think of some sign I missed, some obvious comment or action that should have told me I’d find Thomas in my bed in the middle of the night, trying to strangle me. The whole thing seemed like such a dream. Even now, all I remember are his eyes, boring into mine, and the feel of his hips grinding into me.

I flush, remembering it. Up until the end, I wasn’t even fighting him.

I can’t reconcile it with the boy who was scared to draw a picture of his mother.

“You didn’t need to figure it out, Char.” Ben’s expression is serious. “It was already figured out.”

“No, Ben. It wasn’t.”

“I can’t believe you’re still defending him!” Ben shifts to face me, and he seizes my shoulders to give me a little shake. “Do you understand that he tried to kill you? He could have killed the girls! They were right here, Charlotte! What if he had strangled them first? What if—”

“Stop it!” Emotion chokes me, and I almost can’t speak for the images his words are putting in my brain. “Stop it, Ben.”

Danny appears in the doorway. “Dude. She’s been through enough. Leave her alone.”

“She’s still defending him.”

“I’m not,” I cry. “I’m not defending him. I just . . . I can’t wrap my brain around it.”

“You shouldn’t be able to wrap your brain around it,” says Danny. “You think I want to wrap my brain around why he slugged me at the funeral? No. I just put his ass where it belongs.”

Ben snorts. “Too bad we can’t force him to stay there.”

Danny meets his eyes, and Ben nods.

“What?” I demand. “You guys always think you’re being sneaky, but I’m not stupid.”

“Oh really?” says Ben.

I hit him in the shoulder, too hard to be sisterly. “You don’t think I feel bad enough?”

“You don’t think I want to lock you in here so he can’t get to you again?”

“Why do you need to lock me anywhere? Isn’t he in jail?”

They exchange glances again.

“
What
?”

Danny clears his throat. “I’m assuming that mofo isn’t in jail anymore.”

All of my bravado evaporates in a heartbeat. I touch a hand to my neck, feeling the bandages there. “He’s free?”

“He made bail,” says Ben.

I glance between them. “Stan bailed him out?”

“No. A bail bondsman.” He pauses. “Dad talked to Stan. He’s in rough shape. He feels guilty for sticking up for the kid. He feels partially responsible for this happening to you. He wouldn’t have bailed him out.”

“So you don’t know where Thomas is?”

“No,” says Ben. “He could be anywhere.”

“Doing anything,” says Danny.

“So you see,” Ben says, sitting back up against the headboard. “We’re not leaving you alone for a minute.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

J
B is driving again. He got a call on his cell phone and said we had to go. He won’t tell me where we’re headed, but when I refused to go, he threatened to invite more people over to his apartment to see how I liked that.

I got in his car in a real hurry.

He’s singing along with the radio again, sunglasses in place. I fidget because I’m not sure what else to do. I can’t get comfortable. I don’t know him at all—but where else would I go? What else would I do?

Stan probably wouldn’t throw his door open wide and welcome me in with a hug. Part of me wants to call him, if for no other reason than to get access to my things.

I clear my throat and look at JB. If I sit here in silence too much longer, my brain is going to revisit his comment about knowing that I killed my mother. I can’t process that right now. Everything else, as weird as it is, seems safer.

“You’ve got questions,” he says. “Ask them.”

I wonder if I’m that transparent or if he can feel it somehow. “Doesn’t that ever make you feel . . . wrong?”

He keeps his eyes on the road. “What?”

“The pizza guy. Compelling someone to do something like . . .
that
.”

“Like what?”

I flush. Two days ago, I was laughing at Charlotte because she couldn’t say the word
sex
, and now I’m feeling just as shy. “Forcing someone to do something sexual.”

“Sexual? Did something happen that I couldn’t see?”

I refuse to let myself back down. “I know you know what I mean.”

“I needed to do something extreme so you’d get the point. That said, I can’t compel someone to do something they don’t genuinely want to do. There has to be something to work with.” He glances over. “Like believing me. You’re not there yet. I can’t
make you
believe me.”

I swallow. “So it works on me, too? Even though I’m . . . what you are?”

“An empath.” He emphasizes the word like I need help pronouncing it. “It’s even easier with you. You’re completely unguarded. You amplify every emotion around you without realizing it, but you’re not doing anything to protect yourself.” He pauses, his jaw set. “Honestly, you’re lucky someone else didn’t find you first.”

I roll that around in my head for a moment. “So there are more like you?” I pause. “Like us?”

“Yes.” He glances over. “And we’re not all good.”

I think about that one memory I can’t ever seem to let go of. Dad in the street, the man looming over me. The promise to get ice cream. “And Dad was like this too?”

“Yep.” JB finally looks away from the road and studies me over the rim of his sunglasses. “Haven’t you ever had problems at hospitals and funerals?”

“I’ve never been in the hospital.” I swallow. “And I’ve only ever been to one funeral.”

“Yeah, and look at what happened.”

I study him, not tracking. “What happened?”

“If you hadn’t been thrown in a patrol car, you would have been in a real mess. Couldn’t you feel how you were drawing them all to you?”

I try to remember the morning of the funeral. I
was
a real mess that morning. I couldn’t tie my tie. I remember wanting to rage at them all for treating Mom’s death like an excuse for a party. Even the memory has me clenching my fists.

JB
tsks
under his breath. “You remember.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t,” he says equably.

“I still don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

“Oh, so pretty girls walk up and try to comfort you at the drop of a hat?” He whistles through his teeth. “Wow, Tommy, you are one lucky guy. Teach me your secrets, little brother.”

I glare at him. “So you’re saying she only came over because I
wanted
her to?”

“Yes. But she was a little curious, too. You were mad at everyone else, so they were mad at you.” He reaches out to tap my forehead. “
That’s
what I mean about amplifying everyone around you.”

“And I’m supposed to be able to avoid this somehow?”

“Yes. You need to figure out how to build a wall around that mind of yours. Right now, you’re like a feeding trough for all the weaker-minded.”

I purse my lips and look out the window.
Build a wall
. How do you put a wall around your thoughts? One part of my mind feels like I’ve been left behind, like I never learned to recognize my numbers and colors, but I’ve just been dropped in a paint-by-numbers class.

Another part of me wants to roll my eyes at this whole thing. I just met this guy.

I look back at him, feeling my eyes narrow. I don’t even have proof he’s my real brother.

“February thirteenth,” he says.

I jump. “What?”

He glances over. “Your birthday. February thirteenth?”

“Oooh, did you just pull that out of the air?” I say sourly. “That’s on my driver’s license, and probably my court records.”

He smiles, a little. “Your mom was so disappointed that you couldn’t wait one more day. She’d bought this ridiculous newborn cupid outfit. She dressed you in it anyway. Dad said it made you look a little creepy. Who puts wings on a kid who can’t hold his head up?”

I stop breathing. I’ve heard this story. Mom used to shake me good-naturedly every February. “You couldn’t hold out one more day, could you, Tommy?”

And I’ve seen my newborn picture. Mom used to keep it on the bookcase. Big red velvet diaper, a plush bow-and-arrow, and bizarre sparkly wings. I do look creepy. I used to turn it around when friends came over.

Right now it’s taped inside a box in Stan’s garage.

Breath finally whispers into my lungs. “How—how did you know what I was thinking about?”

“You don’t need to be psychic to feel the skepticism in this car, Tommy.”

I’m stuck on another part of what he said. “Mom used to say we had to hide from Dad. What did he do to her?”

“He didn’t do anything to her.”

I swing my head around to look at JB. He’s watching the road, but his forearms are tense. If I’m supposed to be able to figure out his emotional state, I’ve got nothing.

Then again, he’s the only person—literally the
only person
—who might be able to unravel the mysteries about my mother and father and what happened to her.

Without wanting them, images of her death flock to my mind. Like before, they’re not just images of what I found afterward.

They’re rapid-fire images of the act. She’s fighting. Trying to draw breath to scream. Her neck is rubbed raw from her struggles.

She’s screaming my name.

I clamp my hands over my ears, like it’s happening here in the car. It doesn’t help.

“Stop it!” I cry. “Stop it!”

The images come faster, until it’s a filmstrip on a reel, flickering with light and terror and death.

“Tommy.” His voice is whisper soft. His hands close around my wrists. “Tommy. Look at me.”

The car is on the shoulder. We rock with the force of passing vehicles. I’m practically whimpering.

The images, the sounds—they’ve stopped. The car is quiet, aside from my panicked breathing.

Any mockery and good humor is gone from my brother’s face. “You all right?”

I jerk my hands free from his and slam my fists into his chest. “Why would you do that? What the fuck is wrong with you?” I’m crying and I don’t care. “I don’t want to see it? Okay?
I don’t want to see it.
”

“I didn’t make you see it,” he says softly.

“You did!”

“I didn’t. Tommy, I didn’t.”

Just this once, Tommy
.

I press my fists to my eyes. My shoulders are shaking. “Stop calling me that.”

He inhales like he’s going to say something, but he must think better of it, because he shifts back into his seat and lets the breath out. After a moment, he puts the car back into gear and we merge into traffic.

I can’t look at him. I wish I’d jumped out of the car when we were stopped.

“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” he finally says. His voice is gravelly.

I don’t know what to say to that.

He’s quiet for a few miles. The radio is silent now. I wrap my arms around myself and stare out the window. I watch concrete barriers fly past. Trees. Clouds. Anything but him.

But while we’re cruising along in the silence, I realize that I
am
aware of him, beyond just the fact that we’re sitting in the car together. It’s like a tiny hum in the back of my head, so quiet that I wouldn’t notice it unless we were in almost complete silence, like this.

My hands lose the death grip on my biceps as I try to identify that feeling, but it’s like a tiny metal ball that’s been dropped on a hardwood floor. It rolls fast and it’s hard to catch.

“Relax,” he says.

My eyes flick his way. I’m still not entirely sure I want to talk to him again.

But that’s all he says.
Relax
. The word itself has power. I’m taking a deep breath, and my shoulders relax before I’m aware of it.

“Stop,” I say. “Stop making me do things.”

“I’m not,” he says. His voice is quieter now. Repentant? “I’m just trying to put you more at ease.”

“I think you screwed your chances when you tried to tell me I killed my mother.” My cheeks still feel damp.

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but then he takes off his sunglasses and runs a hand through his hair. “Tommy, I—” He stops and winces. “Tom. Others are drawn to our ability. Our minds are drawn to strong emotion. We thrive on it. Feed on it, in a way. Left unchecked, empaths can find themselves seeking more powerful emotions. Catching someone’s eye turns to true attraction. Attraction turns to infatuation, which turns to romance, and maybe even love.” He snaps his fingers. “It can be quick. The course of a month. A week. A day.”

I don’t say anything. My eyes fix on the windshield and refuse to look away.

But I’m listening.

He must know it, because he keeps talking.

“We can get ourselves in trouble. Sometimes we end up chasing the emotions without considering the people behind them. Imagine your friend, Liam.”

My voice is tight. “He wasn’t my friend.”

“He could have been. He could have been a lot more. And I’d bet, if you’d let him keep going, that you would have woken up tomorrow morning and he would have been hopelessly devoted to you.”

I think about Liam’s hand on my waist, how he would have gone a lot further if I’d let him. “But I’m not gay.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all about the power of his mind and the depths to which you’ll let
him
feel. It’s possible to lose yourself in someone else’s feelings.” He pauses. “The way you kept provoking the police . . . I thought you were riding the energy of it. I thought you were cocky. I thought you knew.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

He’s quiet for another long minute. “Sometimes, when we feel strongly about something, we instinctively push harder, trying to take the emotion to the next level. We look for the next limit, especially if feelings are changing. It can be unconscious. What we are—it’s a double-edged sword. Amazing power, but in the wrong moment, we can actually love someone to death.”

His voice is careful now. My fingers are clenched on the seat cushion. In a way, I don’t want him to keep talking—but I do. Sweat collects on my temples.

“Your mother had a new husband,” he says quietly.

“Stop.”

“She loved you, but that love was turning away.”

“It was okay.” My voice is shaking. I don’t want the vision of her death to come back. “I was okay.”

“There’s usually a triggering event for that kind of power. For me, it happened in Afghanistan. I saw a guy step on an IED. He was blown apart.”

“Jesus.” I’m horrified. He is too. Maybe he’s feeding me the emotion or maybe I’m feeling it, but a sickening coil has gripped my chest.

JB shakes his head. “I knew what I was, but I couldn’t wall my mind up against that kind of onslaught.”

I don’t want to imagine it. “Nothing happened to me.” I swallow. “I didn’t have a triggering event.”

“New home, new stepfather . . .” He shrugs.

“It was okay,” I say again. “Stan . . . I liked Stan.”

“This has nothing to do with
liking
anyone, little brother. You loved your mother, and you still—”

“Shut up.” My heart punches me in the ribs, over and over again. “Do you hear me? Shut up.”

“It’s the pursuit of the emotion that matters.”

My voice is a whisper. “Stop talking.”

“You’re hearing me. I know you’re hearing me. What spurred it? Did you and your mother have a fight?”

My throat is closing up. “I don’t remember. She was asleep.”

“You remember, Tommy.”

I squirm in my seat. My head is buzzing. “Stop calling me that!”

“She should have told you,” he says quietly. “You could have protected yourself. You could have seen the signs.”

“Stop.” I’m practically wheezing. “Please. Stop.”

“Did you have a fight? Fighting can bring on aggression, which can bring on fear, which can turn to—”

“I didn’t kill my mother!” I shout at him.

He winces. “I think you don’t know your strength.” He glances at me again. “And I think your brain built a wall to protect you from it. That’s why the truth keeps breaking through. Those visions? They’re
yours
.”

“You don’t know any of this! This is all
fake
. This is all a
joke
.”

“It’s not,” he says. “You want proof?”

“Yes.” I suck in a breath like I’ve been drowning. “No.”

He pulls the car over to the side of the road. At some point, we’ve found our way into the city. My brain is so scattered I don’t know if he’s brought me to Baltimore or Washington, D.C.