I UNLATCHED the door to the storage room in the barn where we’d set Carter up with his usual restraints and efforts toward making him comfortable. I didn’t know if he’d be any more receptive to my overtures this time than before, but with our final attempt to take down the Blood Hunter on the horizon, I couldn’t resist the urge to give him one more chance. Especially when his skills could get us closer to our goal.
Maybe if he contributed, if he played a role in taking down a real monster directly, he’d understand how much better it was than the sick, convoluted ceremonies our family had carried out. But I couldn’t force him to comply. He could just as easily screw us over.
I needed to see if I could trust him enough to give him this small but important responsibility.
My brother was lying on his sleeping bag when I came in, the food I’d brought earlier eaten and his water bottle half empty. He wasn’t sleeping, though. At the squeak of the hinges, he pushed himself upright. We’d taken off his gag again as soon as we’d gotten here, since the vacant farm was too far from any other habitation for calls for help to reach anyone’s ears, but I doubted he was happy about the handcuffs or the tie around his ankles.
“What do you want now?” he muttered, sounding exhausted.
My heart wrenched despite myself. For all the horrible things he’d been party to, he wasn’t much more than a kid himself, only a few months into adulthood at eighteen. I didn’t like that I’d had to treat him this way, but trying to justify it again seemed pointless. My reasons didn’t matter to him.
I sat down on the hard, straw-scattered ground across from him, just out of reach if he made a move to attack. “You said before that you might be able to help us with our missions. It turns out we have a plan where your forgery skill could come in handy. It might allow us to take down the Blood Hunter for good.”
Carter’s eyes narrowed at me. “If I do you a favor, are you going to let me go?”
I sucked my lower lip under my teeth and just barely managed not to worry at it. I had to be honest with him.
“No. Not just like that. But it’d be a step in the right direction. I still need to be sure that you’re not going to turn on us, and what we’re about to do is too important to leave any loose ends. Once the Blood Hunter is gone, we’ll at least be able to figure out where to go from here without being constantly on the run. We can bring you someplace where you’ll be more comfortable—we’ll have more time to talk.”
“Great. So I’ll be a more comfortable prisoner. I’m not seeing why I should bother.”
I inhaled slowly to settle my temper, which started to flare at his stubbornness. “Your entire life has been about stopping crime and injustice, and the Blood Hunter is the root of a hell of a lot of both of those things. He sells people like they’re animals, he slaughters his own employees on a whim, he manipulates the people who should be serving our country into doing his bidding, and that’s only the start of it. If we stop him, his crimes and all the harm he’s doing will end with him. Shouldn’t you want that?”
He shrugged. “All I’ve got is your word that he’s doing those things. Why should I believe you when you lied about so much else?”
I couldn’t hold back a snort. “I lied? The only thing I lied about was what job I currently do. With everything else, I just left out the details that I knew our family wouldn’t accept. You and the rest of the family hid at least as much from me as I did from you. If you can understand why you didn’t spill the beans to me upfront, you should be able to understand my perspective.”
“That still doesn’t mean I should side with you.”
“Well, then, how about this? You’re still here, still alive. Because I don’t kill people I don’t think deserve it. I know you didn’t come up with the idea to hurt those kids on your own, and you didn’t attack me the same way Iris and Ruby did. Both they and the Blood Hunter have treated so many innocent kids so horribly. So from where I’m standing, I don’t see how I could look like the worse choice here. And I’m giving you the chance to be part of exactly what you always thought you were doing.”
Carter simply hung his head without a response. Had I actually lost ground with him? What would it take for him to accept what I was offering? I didn’t see how I could lay this situation out in any clearer terms. For all practical purposes…
I paused over that thought. Giving him all the logical reasons why he should support my cause hadn’t gotten us anywhere in all this time. But he’d asked me for something else before. He’d asked why I cared. At the time I’d dismissed the question because I hadn’t seen how it mattered—but maybe it did, more than anything else.
What the Maliks had been doing hadn’t been based on any concrete evidence, after all. It’d been all about feeling they were making a difference.
I scooted forward a few inches, watching his face until he lifted his head just enough to meet my gaze.
“You asked me before why I care,” I said, “and I told you this situation wasn’t about that. But it is. I’m sure we could find another forgery expert if we wanted to. I didn’t need to spare your life. I did because I care about you, about keeping some part of my family if I possibly can.”
“You killed the rest of our family,” Carter spat out.
I swallowed thickly. “I did. But…”
The words stuck in my throat. Did I really want to open up to him this much—to admit how hard it’d been? How much I’d cared about all of this?
How could I expect him to trust me if I didn’t?
“I hated having to do that,” I went on. “You have no idea how much I wanted to be part of a happy family, to belong and be accepted. I never had that in my entire life. I had trainers, but otherwise I was basically alone. I was willing to suppress so much of who I am to try to fit in with all of you. I’d have given just about anything to shake Mom and Dad and everyone else out of their delusion. But not only were they tormenting and murdering children, they made it clear that they wouldn’t let me live my life unless I was willing to join them. That was a price I wasn’t willing to pay. Because I don’t want to cause unnecessary pain.”
“Then why don’t you kill me too?”
“You’re the only family I have left. And even if I hate what you were a part of, I can’t help holding on to that bond when I think there’s still a chance we could be real family, the kind of family that supports and relies on each other. No matter what you’ve done, you’re my brother.”
Carter stared back at me, and in that moment I saw a flicker of the uncertainty that’d made me take a chance on him in the first place. His defiance had faltered. When he spoke, his voice quavered. “What makes you think I’m any better than the rest of them?”
Was that part of the problem? Did he think he was too far gone to come back from the crimes he’d been a part of? Maybe that was why he was clinging to the family legacy even after the rest of them were gone—because he was afraid of what it’d mean about him if he admitted what they’d done had been wrong.
I could relate to that fear more than he could have imagined.
“Do you want to know how I really grew up, Carter?” I said softly. “The Blood Hunter sent me to be raised by a criminal organization. They trained me from when I was a toddler to be a killer, someone he could send to assassinate whoever he had a beef with. I thought the people who looked after me were the good guys and that I was taking down threats to our safety. But I was wrong. When I realized how many innocent people I must have murdered, I was horrified. I hated who I’d been and what I’d done.”
Carter’s forehead furrowed. “How did you stop hating yourself?”
I gave him a small smile. “It took some help, but I recognized that I hadn’t been given a choice. I’d been brainwashed into believing what I was doing was right for as long as I could remember. But as soon as I found out that I’d been wrong, I made a promise to myself not to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. To make sure my actions really did stop others from getting hurt. Now that I know, I can make an actual choice, and that choice defines who I really am.”
I paused and motioned to him. “You’re in the same situation in so many ways. You were brainwashed by our family into believing that the rituals were for the greater good. You didn’t have anyone pointing out the flaws in their stories. But I’ve seen that some part of you can tell that it wasn’t right. You aren’t set in their ways like the rest of them were. You could make different choices now that you’re free from them, and I want to give you the chance to make those choices. To be who you’d really want to be, not who they expected you to be.”
“You and I aren’t the same,” Carter said, but his protest sounded weak. There was something hungry in his expression at the same time, as if he wanted me to convince him.
“I know we’re not,” I said. “I just understand your situation in a way most other people couldn’t. I can’t force any decisions on you. It has to be your own choice for it to mean anything anyway. And you don’t have to agree with me. I just hope you’ll find it in you to break away from what our parents taught you and make up your own mind with everything else you’ve learned. You’re smart enough to recognize that their claims don’t hold water. What you do from there is up to you.”
He lifted his free hand and ran it through his hair. His gaze had slid away from me, his expression tensing in a way I couldn’t read. Then his jaw wobbled. He swallowed audibly, like he was trying to hold back his emotions. Like he was adrift with no idea where to turn and terrified about the road ahead.
Like a lost kid who had no idea how to find home again and no one he thought he could count on to really care.
I’d told him that I did care, but words weren’t necessarily enough. An impulse ran through my body that I balked against, wary that this might be another trick like his stunt with the lawn mower. But everything from the slumping of his shoulders to the hitch that’d come into his breath felt genuine to me. His questions had gone from accusing to confused.
How could I expect him to believe that he wasn’t a monster if I acted too scared of him to really reach out?
I shifted forward to kneel beside him, sliding my arm around his back tentatively in case he jerked away. But after a momentary tensing, he leaned his face into my shoulder. A tremor ran through his body. I let myself wrap my other arm around him, squeezing him in a gentle but emphatic hug.
“I’m here with you,” I said. “I’ll help you get through this and find your way as much as I can, if you want me to. That’s what true family does.”
He gulped, and then his arms rose to return my embrace. He clung to me for a few minutes, just struggling to smooth the rasp out of his breathing. When he finally eased back, he was blinking hard. His voice came out rough.
“That’s the first time— Since I was twelve— When I got old enough, Mom and Dad stopped offering any kind of gestures like that, physical affection or whatever. They said I was becoming a man, and I should be strong enough to stand on my own. But sometimes I felt so alone…”
A lump rose in my own throat. I squeezed his arm, still sitting close. “You’re not alone now. We’re in this together. As long as you’re willing to try.”
“I’m really confused,” he admitted. “So much has happened. I miss them, but I also— I only ever wanted to make sure there’d be less pain in the world.” He lifted his head to look me in the eyes. “You really think that taking out this Blood Hunter guy will do that?”
“I’m sure of it,” I said, my certainty ringing through my voice.
Carter sucked in a breath. “Okay. Okay. I don’t know about everything else, but we can figure that out later. For now… I’ll help you stop him. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
