Grieving them was a harsh, strange thing, a double-edged knife that caught Isaac unawares each time he thought, perhaps, he’d begun to heal. It had only stopped hurting as much once he stopped trying to stanch the flow of his agony, once he accepted that his grief would always be an open wound.
But then a voice rang out from behind him and gouged it all open again.
“This fucking family, indeed,” said Gabriel. “Shit, I hate this place.”
Isaac turned around, trying to push down the steady pulse of panic in his chest as he stared at the only brother he had left. Gabriel had towered over Isaac when he’d left four years ago, but a growth spurt had evened the gap between them. They were about the same height now, although Isaac was lanky where Gabriel was broad-shouldered and muscular. Tattoos spilled out from beneath his brother’s sleeves and across his forearms, covering the scars Isaac knew lurked beneath them. Isaac studied the ink on the hand closest to him: a skull with a dagger stabbed through the eye socket.
His own scar, a line drawn across his neck, began to throb beneath his high-necked sweater. A souvenir from the last time he and Gabriel had been together.
“You wanted me to meet you here,” he said softly, the words echoing off the marble walls. “We didn’t have to do this in front of the dead.”
“You’re wrong,” Gabriel said evenly. “This is a family affair.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Isaac asked angrily. “To make me join them?”
Gabriel sighed. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
Looking at Gabriel was like glimpsing a portal to the past. It had happened the first time Isaac had seen his brother a week ago, too, at the Sullivan ruins. Isaac hadn’t said a word. His strength to speak had been gone, replaced by the sharp, insistent press of fear. He’d bolted instead, the scenery blurring with a memory he’d pushed down a long time ago, the memory of his fourteenth birthday, the night his family had taken him into the woods behind their home and tried to slit his throat.
He’d run that day, too, staggering through the trees. Crimson had followed in his wake, falling in dark, uneven splotches on the yellow leaves.
Follow the blood, he had grown up hearing. Follow the blood, and you will find the Sullivans.
And at last, too late, he had understood why.
He’d lived through that day somehow. And for the past few years, he’d convinced himself he was safe. But now Isaac understood just how wrong he’d been. He’d agreed to meet with Gabriel because he was tired of running. Because at least now he could face his brother, not in chains, but with the full might of their family’s power in his blood. But so far, Gabriel hadn’t tried to attack him. He genuinely seemed to want to talk. Which was almost worse, because Isaac had made a terrible mistake all those years ago and he deserved to be punished for it.
“Listen,” Gabriel said, his voice even. “I’m not here to hurt you. You’re my brother. I’m here about Mom.”
Isaac stiffened. “What about her?”
Maya Sullivan was in a vegetative state at the nearest hospital. Had been for the last three years. Isaac was the only Sullivan who visited her because he was the only one left to do so.
“I don’t know if you know this,” Gabriel said, “but I’ve been getting updates of her medical records while I’ve been gone—”
“I’ve seen her medical records, too,” Isaac said sharply. “And I’ve seen her. Have you ever bothered to visit?”
The shame on his brother’s face was answer enough. Isaac felt a sharp twinge of smugness.
“That’s not the point,” Gabriel said evenly. “Her condition’s worsened lately. The doctors recommend that we take her off life support.”
Isaac glared at him. “She didn’t sign a DNR.”
“I know,” Gabriel said. “But do you really think she’d want to live like this?”
Isaac flinched. Maybe Gabriel was right, but his mother was the only family he had left who still loved him. It was hard not to hope that as long as she drew breath, there was a chance of her coming back.
Love had always been painful for him, a weapon held to his throat that his family and friends had used to control him. It was an unanswered question, a constant ache in his chest, the distant echoes of memories he wished he could forget. Yet none of that could quash the hope he carried that, one day, he’d be able to care for the people around him and have it feel like victory instead of surrender. That his emotional bonds would make it easier, not harder, to be human.
“You don’t know what she would have wanted,” he said. “Neither of us do.”
“And we’ll never find out,” Gabriel said. “Which means we need to make the best decision we can with the information we have. We’re both legal adults now—we share the power of medical attorney for her. They’re not going to do anything without both of our consent.”
“Good.” Isaac felt his power surging through his veins, building with his anger. His palms itched the way they always did in the moments before an outburst. “Because I say no, and I’m not changing my mind.”
“Isaac…” Gabriel’s voice was thick with warning. “You’re not a child anymore. You know these kinds of decisions aren’t ever easy, but they’re necessary. At least promise me you’ll think about it.”
Isaac raised a hand in response. The air around him had begun to shimmer, purple and red light collecting around his palm. Gabriel stepped backward slowly.
“You’re right,” Isaac whispered. “I’m not a kid anymore. Now leave me alone.”
He turned away from his brother, his hand closing into a fist, terrified that the tears collecting behind his eyelids would show if he looked at him for a moment longer. When he turned around again, Gabriel was gone, and Isaac’s phone was buzzing in his pocket.
He scowled and fished it out, waiting for some kind of manipulative text. But it wasn’t from Gabriel—it was from May.
“Oh no,” he muttered, staring at the words on the screen. Reluctantly, he typed a response.
A few minutes later, May appeared in the doorway of the mausoleum. She wore her usual disdainful expression and a large amount of pink, but there was something slightly unraveled in the way her nails tapped anxiously against her thigh as she surveyed the vaults of founder remains.
Looking at her was painful, too, but in a different way. She bore too close of a resemblance to her older brother for comfort.
“You were just hanging out… here?” she asked him dubiously as she stepped inside, her heeled boots clicking on the marble floor.
Isaac shrugged. He didn’t want to explain Gabriel to her, or to anyone. “You know. Paying my respects.”
“Uh-huh.” May sat down on the mausoleum’s lone bench and gestured for Isaac to join her. “Well, it’s private, at least.”
Isaac sat beside her, staring at the engraving of the founders’ seal carved into the center of the floor. It was a circle with four lines cutting through it, almost but not quite meeting in the middle. Visitors would have thought it was a cross; Isaac knew better.
This town lived in fear of a very different kind of god. Something more monstrous than holy, although for the founders they had been the same thing. Power was power and people would always want it, whether it was dressed up with pretty words and careful manipulation or stripped down to teeth and claws.