Prologue
Ten Years Ago
The storm raged outside, but Neil and Rob didn’t fear the howling winds nor the rustling branches of the ancient oak outside their window. The real monsters didn’t lurk outside, they came from within. They’d learned that lesson early.
“Do you hear them?” Rob asked, breaking the silence.
Rob took the top bunk. Known for being addicted to heights, he loved climbing to high places. Some of his early pursuits had nearly given Neil heart attacks. Whenever Neil told Rob one thing, he would do the exact opposite. There had always been a kind of wildness about him too, a quality that made him hard to tame but easy to love.
Voices rose and fell outside as Neil listened. They were quiet at first, but then the fight escalated to an unbearable pitch, loud enough to drown the lashing rain hammering on the rooftops.
“How long are we going to put up with this shit?” Neil demanded.
“Leave, if you hate it so much.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Neil was sure Rob knew the reason why. Nothing could move Neil, with the exception of a natural disaster or a freak accident. He cared too much. That was his curse, then and now.
They were both technically adults. At eighteen and nineteen, they refused to move out of the home they’d grown up in. St. Luke’s College might be forty minutes’ drive, an hour if traffic prevailed, but they stayed for her—Rob’s mother, Clarissa to Neil. Neil called her nothing else. Clarissa accepted no concessions. She’d never taken to him, despite the fact Neil had lived in the same house ever since the moment he’d been dumped on his father’s doorstep by the woman who’d given birth to him. He’d been twelve that day.
Rob and he had become fast friends, brothers, and forged a bond far greater than any label available in the dictionary. Neil never quite managed to melt the ice in Clarissa’s heart or soften her disdain.
They made a promise in a fort made of blankets when Rob turned fourteen. After high school graduation, they left home and never looked back—or at least that had been the plan. Freedom became short-lived when Rob discovered their father’s drinking had gotten worse. Their father, as if Don deserved that title. Technically, Rob had a different biological father, but they both referred to Don as their dad. They moved out of their shared dorm room the same day they’d arrived on campus.
If Neil was being honest, he stayed purely for Rob. Rob might be a year older, but Neil had always taken the mantle of the older brother. Thunder sounded outside, drowning out the crash of wood and Neil’s thoughts. He shut his eyes, able to imagine Rob bolting up from his sleep and clambering down the ladder. Reaching out, Neil grabbed a fistful of Rob’s shirt.
“Leave it be. It’s nothing.”
“It can’t be nothing.” Rob tugged the hem of his shirt away from his grasp.
Don’t, Neil wanted to say, but he stayed his tongue.
Clarissa’s sobs punctured the air, high-pitched and shrill, like the sound of a bird being strangled to death. Cursing, Neil rose to his feet, fumbled for the old baseball bat he’d kept under the bed the moment he’d turned thirteen, and ran after his step-brother.
“Get away from her.”
Neil had never heard Rob sound so calm, so cold. That alarmed him. Rubbing his clammy palms on his sweats, Neil closed his hands tightly around the bat. How often had he imagined the sound of the wood finding its target—their dad’s skull?
In all his nineteen years, Neil had never used the weapon. He chickened out at the last minute. Always. Instead of enacting vengeance, he took the blows meant for Clarissa and Rob.
Light filtered out from the master bedroom, the door slightly open. Panting, each step heavy, Neil managed to drag his feet closer to the room of nightmares. Clarissa lay in a crumpled heap on the bed, knees drawn to her chest, rocking back and forth. The woman might hate his guts as much as Neil hated hers, but she was the only family he had, aside from Rob. Rob yanked the door all the way open.
“What are you going to do about it, you little piece of shit?” Their dad sneered. “Being in college doesn’t change anything.”
Don turned to Neil, who held onto his bat like an anchor.
“Are you going to clobber me to death, boy? Think you can swing that fucking bat? Go ahead. See if a spineless fucker like you can do it.”
Ten years ago, Don Lovell had been a heavy weight champ making his way to the top of the boxing world. Don never reached the pinnacle. The overweight drunk who loved using his fists on human punching bags might look like a pathetic shadow of his former self, but fear still filled Neil at the sight of him slapping his favorite belt on his meaty palm.
Neil couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t even swing his weapon of choice to save his skin, or his step-brother’s. Biting his lower lip, Neil met the gaze of the only man he cared about. Rob’s eyes softened and a wave of understanding passed between them. They’d rendered the need to communicate with words unnecessary a long time ago. If the eyes served as gateways to their souls, then theirs were a reflection of each other.
Neil didn’t miss the way Don’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d come to a conclusion he didn’t like, or unveiled a dirty secret Rob and he had done their best to hide from prying eyes their entire lives.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Don began. The bastard looked like he had plenty to say, but Rob cut him off.
“Neil’s not the only one with a weapon, Don.”