Brother by Ania Ahlborn

Author:Ania Ahlborn
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Gallery Books

17

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MICHAEL HELD THE pillow over his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He was trying to block out the wailing in the backyard with happier thoughts of his next visit to town. He wondered whether spending too much time with Alice, whether getting too close, would reveal the tired dismay in his eyes. Maybe someday, after he’d heard one cry too many, he’d open his mouth to speak, but rather than words, screams would pour out instead. And yet Michael could still talk, could still smile, could still enjoy himself at the movies and forget the horrors of his daily life. Somehow, despite his circumstances, he could still feel things. Like the flutter of excitement when he saw the Dervish come into view. Or what might resemble peace while he lay on a sun-dappled hill. It should have been a comforting thought—the fact that he’d somehow managed to remain human despite the things he had seen and done—but it wasn’t. If Alice only knew, his ability to disconnect would make him look like that much more of a monster. Cold. Heartless. A demon personified.

Outside, the pitch of the woman’s screaming changed. ­Michael could read those shrieks like a mother deciphering an infant’s cry. The woman had started out desperate, but that had soon slipped into defeated terror. The cries that were coming now weren’t as much for salvation as they were for death. She was getting tired, probably woozy from the blood loss.

The woman finally went quiet, and Michael pushed his pillow aside. He lay motionless on his mattress and listened to the silence hum in his ears as he waited for Momma to call his name. The crickets had chirped for a full minute before his curiosity got the best of him and he rose from his bed to glance out the window.

Outside, the woman’s body wasn’t more than a few steps from the back porch. Her face was turned skyward, her eyes wide open, as though she’d been waiting for Michael to appear. Her arms were outstretched on either side, and her legs were bent at the knees. She looked as though she was running away, even in death.

A shadow then drew long across the back lawn—Momma, he thought—but it was Rebel who moved down the back porch steps instead. He slowly circled the body. The woman’s tank top was so saturated with blood that its pale-blue color had all but disappeared. The fluffy cartoon sheep in its center now looked like a slaughtered lamb. With his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, Reb looked up as if trying to determine what was in the dead woman’s line of sight, and caught Michael in the window.

Michael’s stomach flipped. His skin prickled with nerves. He had seen dozens of dead bodies, had gazed down on more than a few in this very manner, waiting for Momma to call him. But Rebel had never circled the fallen like a vulture, and he had certainly never looked up at Michael this way.

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