Page 137 of Broken Brothers

That eye of the hurricane metaphor now seemed apt, because I could see the oncoming wind from the wall of the hurricane making its way back over to me. I could see the winds of chaos making their way toward me, and it would hit me before the day was done. If Morgan was coming back to my place, then shit would surely go down as soon as I saw him.

“I am so fucking confused,” I said.

“Are you scared?”

I bit my lip.

“I don’t know that scared is…”

No, that was a lie. For losing Morgan, that was very much an appropriate word.

“Yes,” I said.

To my surprise, Layla came up to me and gave me a gentle, tender hug. It wasn’t much, and it definitely did not have any sexual connotations to it, but on the heels of what had happened the night before, it was a nice reminder that I wasn’t as alone as I might have feared. Claire was gone, Sarah wasn’t messaging me, and Morgan was now on some weird adventure, but at least Layla was still giving me her support despite me running off of her.

“I was wondering if you would ever admit such a thing,” she said.

“Yeah, it takes something like this for that to happen.”

Layla just gave a quick snort and a gentle laugh. She pulled back and put her hands on my knee, but that also seemed more comforting and less innuendo.

“You’ll be fine,” she said.

Then, as if to prove otherwise, my phone rang. I looked down and saw Morgan was calling me. I guess it was time for the moment of truth.

“Hey, bud, where are you?” I said, trying to hide my obvious paranoia and discomfort.

“Hey, Chance, come to Hunt Industries. I’ve made a deal with Dad.”

56

So, this is it.

And you made a deal without me. This should go so, so well.

“Be there in twenty,” I said, followed by me hanging up before I could say anything regrettable.

I sighed as I put the phone down.

“Morgan?” Layla asked.

I nodded.

“I should get going.”

Layla didn’t fight it. She knew that whatever happened at that meeting would dictate everything—there was nothing she could say that would affect anything else. She got up, walked me to the door, and gave me a wishful hug. It did nothing to change the seeming finality of the situation.

I walked down the stairs of her apartment, feeling like I was descending into a sort of hell that was about to wash over me. When I emerged from the building, a massive gust of wind blew right in my face. It moved so violently, in fact, a nearby trash can got knocked over, spilling debris onto the street.

I began the slow walk over to Hunt Industries, girding myself for a fight and a negotiation. No matter what happened, I decided, I would stand up for MCH remaining an entity, I would demand that Edwin lay off the tactics, and I would demand Morgan have freedom to do as he wished. Everything else was negotiable, and I didn’t have that strong ties to anything else.

But I did not need to see either of us succumb and I did not need to see anyone else’s good name dragged through the mud.

On the way, I got a little bored and pulled open Facebook, hoping to see that Sarah had messaged me back. To my surprise and then my concern, though, not only had Sarah not messaged me back, it looked like she had deleted her account entirely.The fuck? Did my photo get her banned? Doesn’t seem like it would, they don’t ban girls who receive pics worse than mine, just the sender. And my account is still active, so…

What the fuck is going on?

I could still access the archives of our messages, but instead of showing “Sarah Hill” it showed “Deleted User” and instead of her profile photo, it showed just the classic silhouette of an unidentified user. I still had the old photos she had sent which gave me a temporary smile, but as soon as I scrolled away, the old feelings of paranoia came roaring back.