“Boy, you knock on the devil's door
and he’ll slam your head through the wall.”
~ Sherrilyn Kenyon
WYATT
Why was I not moving?
What was I afraid of?
Was this even fear?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know why I was just standing outside his door. But that was what I was doing…standing. Gripping the bag in my hand tighter as I stared at the wooden door in front of me. My mind was blank, my feelings…I couldn’t feel. I was standing as if I were a toy solider positioned there.
This is insane.
Sighing, I moved to knock but stopped…remembering he wouldn’t be able to answer. I simply grabbed the handle, turned it to the right, and stepped inside, expecting him to still be in his bed in the center of the massive room.
But he wasn’t there.
“Ethan?” I called out to him. No answer. My feelings suddenly returned; all I could feel was panic. “ETHAN!”
Dropping my bag, I rushed to check the bathroom.
He wasn’t there.
Then his closet.
He wasn’t there.
I checked everywhere, even over the balcony, before finally reaching for the phone, dialing his cell. I heard it ring, just not on my side of the phone…but from the one place I’d stupidly forgotten to check.
Ivy’s closet.
With the phone still held to my ear, I moved, pausing just like I’d done to get on the phone before sliding the door open—
BANG!
It happened so fast I couldn’t even move, jump, breathe. All I could do was stand there.
“Missed by an inch.” His voice was heavy. In Boston, a few of the doctors had a term for the last words of men who were dying alone…heavy voices. Heavy with pain. Heavy with regret. Heavy with rage…so heavy that when whoever was dying tried to speak, their voices couldn’t carry the weight of their feelings and just came out as numb, cold whispers.
I glanced to the right of me, seeing the very real bullet now lodged into the thick frame of the door, before looking to my brother, who sat at the end of Ivy’s closet. There were still shopping bags that hadn’t been hung. Everything brand new, untouched, never used...never would be used.
“Funny thing is, she said she wouldn’t be able to wear all of this,” he said bitterly, following my eyes before bringing a bottle of brandy to his lips and drinking. In his other hand was his gun. He brushed the side of his mouth as liquor spilled, and gripped the gun tighter.
“You shouldn’t drink—”
BANG!
He fired at the floor right before my foot, stopping me from walking forward.
“Give a me good reason not to kill you,” he said.
“I’m your brother—”
BANG!