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Chapter fifteen

Female of the Species

The way Kenny looked at Aaron right then snapped him back to the present, shattering the lingering fog of hypnosis. His expression was razor-sharp, eyes dark with something Aaron couldn’t place. But he felt it, low in his gut.

“Who is this?” Kenny asked, voice edged in cold steel.

Aaron glanced at Jack just as Jack stepped forward, his body tight with alertness. He’d noticed it too. That barely perceptible shift in Kenny’s demeanour. This wasn’t frustration over an ex’s incessant calls. This wasn’t about Taylor pushing his way back into Aaron’s life after what he’d done.

This was something else.

Someone else.

Aaron couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but the way Kenny’s knuckles blanched white around the phone sent a chill creeping down his spine.

It wasn’t Taylor.

A sharp slither of unease coiled in Aaron’s stomach as Kenny snapped his gaze to his, tension barely leashed beneath the surface. Then, without a word, Kenny stood, turned his back, shutting Aaron out.

“Where’s Taylor?” Kenny demanded into the phone.

Aaron’s stomach plummeted. He surged to his feet, closing the distance between them, pushing closer, needing to hear.

“No. You tell me .” Kenny’s voice was a lethal, controlled thing, his grip on the phone iron tight, and he was blocking Aaron out of it all again. Holding the weight alone. Slipping into that same protective instinct. The one that screamed at him to keep Aaron away from this .

Aaron couldn’t have that.

“Kenny.” Aaron reached for him, gripping his arm, fingers pressing in, demanding attention.

Kenny shook his head, silent, resolute, keeping the phone locked to his ear. So Aaron slid his hand along Kenny’s arm, ghosting his fingers over the taut muscles beneath his jumper, then covered Kenny’s hand clutching the phone with his own. Kenny turned. Met his gaze. Aaron gave a curt nod. A silent plea.

Kenny’s jaw tightened, a battle between instinct and trust. Protection and surrender. And he held his grip on the phone for a second longer. Fighting with himself.

Then he closed his eyes and let go.

Aaron took the phone. And just like that, Kenny relinquished.

“Who is this?” Aaron spoke into the phone.

“Oh, happy birthday, baby brother. I was calling for you, but I think your boyfriend might be a little controlling, y’know. You should watch that. Those ones tend to turn violent.”

Aaron drew in a breath. That voice, slithering through the phone and threading itself through the cracks in his mind, was like a knife twisting in his chest.

Her .

The sister he had unknowingly forgotten. A ghost buried so deep inside him she’d never been more than a whisper of memory. Out of reach. But she had been there . Watching. Waiting.

And now, she wasn’t just a shadow in his past.

She was here .

Aaron’s body locked tight, the war inside him tilting between fear and something far more treacherous. Guilt .

He should have remembered her.

Should have saved her.

“Why do you have Taylor’s phone?” Aaron brought down the mobile from his ear to press speakerphone, allowing everyone to listen.

Kenny signalled Jack behind him, gesturing at the phone, a silent message Aaron barely processed. Jack had already pulled out his mobile, flying his fingers over the screen, probably calling in a trace.

“Oh, poor Taylor can’t come to the phone right now,” she cooed . “But I must say, you do have good taste in men, brother dearest. He was deliciously yummy. Shame he did something very silly. Looks like you have a thing for possessive ones. Could that be a result of your upbringing perhaps?”

“Where are you?” Aaron stared at the phone, at Taylor’s name on the screen, rotten dread searing through him.

“Me? Oh, don’t worry about that. You never did before.” Her voice lilted, amused. “But, hey, what you should be happy about is that without your very naughty ex-boyfriend, I might never have found you at all. Very good video skills. It was so mean of those nasty authorities to separate us and not tell us where we were. Keep us apart. Did you know your new boyfriend had a hand in that? Very manipulative, don’t you think? Controlling?”

Kenny’s gaze sharpened, his steady voice a clinical counterweight to the taunting lilt of hers. “That’s not true.”

“No? You didn’t say I wasn’t fit to be in society?”

Kenny shook his head. “It was a shared decision. A preventative intervention based on thorough risk assessment. It wasn’t only my assessment that drew the conclusions you were unstable. Mine was research based. Academic.”

“But even when you started fucking my brother you knew about me. And you didn’t tell him. What’s that about?”

“It wasn’t my place to tell him. The authorities made that call. For safety.”

“Safety? Ripping siblings apart is for safety?”

Kenny kept steady. “Sibling pairs exposed to the same adverse experiences don’t necessarily process them in identical ways. One may develop resilience, while the other succumbs to maladaptive coping mechanisms. Manifesting in aggression, dissociation, or even psychopathy .”

Aaron’s breath hitched.

“Are you diagnosing me as a psycho, Dr Lyons?”

Kenny’s voice threaded between cold analysis and unshakable authority. “You don’t need me to diagnose you. You already know what you are. And you didn’t experience the same trauma. You experienced very different things. You could have held resentment towards him. Which, judging by this call and what you have done so far, it looks as though you do.”

The laughter booming down the phone was pure madness. “And thus, believed the boy was worth saving but the girl…fuck the girl! Put her in a box and ship her off to a psycho unit!”

“To keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Yourself.”

“Well, that is a good thing, because I certainly wasn’t safe from all those doctors. Y’know, the ones who came in my room at night and told me to be quiet.” Her voice dropped to a threatening growl. “I am so lucky you sent me there.”

“That must have been a profound betrayal.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Do you need me to be sorry?”

“Fucking hell, he’s clever, isn’t he, brother? But he’s right, I don’t need him to be sorry. As mother always said, ‘don’t be sorry, just don’t do it!’”

Aaron flinched at the ferocity, and he could see the pain written on Kenny’s face, so he asked again, “Where’s Taylor?”

“Why do you care?” She went back to her casual tone. “You didn’t care when he was alive.”

Aaron held Kenny’s gaze, his presence solid, grounding, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from the overwhelming fear.

“What have you done?” Aaron whispered. “Where is he?”

A pause. Then, “Let’s just say…those naughty boys won’t be getting their deposit back. You’re welcome. Happy birthday!”

The floor tilted beneath Aaron’s feet.

No. No. No.

His muscles coiled, breaths short and sharp. And he dropped the phone as he curled forward, bracing against his knees, vision swimming. Kenny was saying something, Jack was moving, but it was all white noise. A meaningless blur. And it was all his fault.

My fault. My fault. My fault.

Something inside him snapped .

A raw, desperate sound tore from his throat, halfway between a gasp and a scream.

Then, before anyone could stop him, he bolted.

“ Aaron !”

Aaron lurched forward, tearing through the living room, shoving past furniture blurring in his peripheral vision and he fumbled for the door, yanking it open so hard it slammed against the wall. Then he ran. Out of the house. Barefooted. He wasn’t sure what he was running to. Or from. He just needed to know . Had to see . The same need for Kenny to pry open his past, to rip the memories from the shadows, forcing him forward.

Because he hated being in the dark.

Not now he’d seen the light.

Nothing but adrenaline and dread propelling him, his lungs burned, vision swam, feet cut on stones and gravel, but all he could hear was her voice, taunting, and the unshakable certainty that if he didn’t get to Taylor now, he might never get another chance.

So he ran.

Tearing through the woodlands, branches lashing his face, toes scraping on tree roots, the damp earth swallowing his pounding footsteps, he forced onward. The river gleamed beside him, the rush of water drowned by the roar of blood in his ears. He barely registered the streets when he hit the tarmac, barely noticed the blurring of houses, streetlights glimmering overhead like dying stars.

Blue flashing lights stopped him. The chaos of emergency response. Gasping, he hunched over, hands braced on his knees, but no breath came. Only the dizzying wave of dread slamming into him at the sight of the crime scene unfolding before him.

Taylor’s tiny mid terrace student house was surrounded. A forensic tent erected just beyond the open doorway, evidence markers glinting under halogen floodlights. Figures in white Tyvek suits moved in and out like phantoms, their gloved hands carrying bags. Clear, labelled, filled with pieces of what had happened inside.

Aaron forced himself forward.

Blue and white police tape stopped him, screaming Do Not Cross.

He went under anyway. Or tried.

A uniformed officer blocked him before he could sneak through, hand firm on Aaron’s chest. “Step back, son. You can’t be here.”

“I have to—” His voice cracked. “I know him. Taylor. What happened? Where is he?”

“I need you to move back.”

A car screeched to a halt behind him, tyres skidding on wet tarmac. The doors burst open, and Kenny and Jack launched out, Jack moving fast, flashing his ID as he shoved past the barricade.

“Sir.” The officer snapped to attention.

“Get me in a suit. Now .”

“Yes, sir.”

“And keep them out.” Jack jerked a finger at Aaron and Kenny.

Aaron lurched forward before he even processed the words. “ No!” Desperate, feral, he tried to shove past, but Kenny grabbed him, arms around him, locking tight, urging him back. “Let me in! Let me see what she did!”

Kenny held firm. “Aaron, baby, stop. You don’t want to see it.”

Aaron thrashed. “I do! What did she do ? What did she fucking do!” His voice cracked, unrecognisable even to himself.

The forensics team kept moving, detached, efficient, carrying out their duties while Aaron disintegrated in the street. He saw a blood-slicked evidence bag. The unmistakable weight of something covered being carried out on a stretcher.

Aaron yelled.

Pure, guttural agony tore through the night like a wound splitting open. “Fuck!” He didn’t even know who he was aiming it at. The police? His sister? His mother ? The doctors? Himself ? It didn’t matter . “Fuck all of you !”

Kenny’s grip didn’t falter. He held him through the rage. Through the broken cries ripping his throat and the tears blurring the horror in front of him.

“Okay, baby, it’s okay…” Kenny’s voice wavered, thick and just as fractured. He couldn’t believe that. It wasn’t okay! How was this okay ?

But Aaron gave out. Fight collapsing under everything caving in on him. He spun in Kenny’s arms, clenching his fists into his jumper, and sank into him. Kenny enveloped him. Without hesitation. Without question. And he guided them both down to the curb, easing Aaron to sit. The flashing lights burned behind them. The quiet chaos of forensic work continued. And all Aaron could do was press his face into Kenny’s shoulder, body wrecked, breath ragged, hands clutching him as if he was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

There, in Kenny’s arms, time blurred.

The world beyond the barricade tape was a disjointed reel of motion and sound. Flashes of stark white forensic suits drifted like ghosts through the crime scene, the rhythmic pulse of blue lights painting the night in flickering streaks with the inaudible murmur of officers logging evidence, voices muffled by death.

Aaron couldn’t see inside the house. Didn’t need to.

He could feel it.

The gravity of it pressed down on him, heavy on his chest, dragging his mind backward. Twelve years ago . When it had been his house flooded with this much commotion. When he’d been led through a sea of uniforms, hushed voices speaking over him, around him, but never to him. He could still hear the static squawk of police radios, the click of cameras capturing the aftermath of the carnage his parents left behind.

The flash of their faces in the papers, in the courtroom, in his nightmares .

And just like then, Jack had been there. The one who’d found him in his hiding place . Kenny had been there too, watching from the periphery. The man who would later dissect his past as if it was a puzzle to be solved.

Now, years later, everything had shifted. But the horror was the same.

Aaron shuddered, the tremors rolling through him in relentless waves. Kenny held him through it, steady as a lifeline. He didn’t speak. Didn’t even try to soothe him. Words wouldn’t mean anything. So Kenny just held him.

A figure stepped forward, forcing Aaron to raise his head, sluggish, dazed, the salt of his own tears drying his skin. Jack, fully suited in white Tyvek, hood drawn up, face pale and tight behind the mask, pulled it down, revealing a grim expression carved from stone.

“Is he…?” Aaron couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t say it .

Jack inhaled through his nose. “Yes.”

“How?” His voice cracked. Fragile.

Jack hesitated.

Aaron could see the weight behind Jack’s eyes, the knowledge he wasn’t saying. The details he’d already compartmentalised and filed into neat forensic reports while Aaron was drowning in them.

Still Jack didn’t answer.

So Aaron stood. “ How ?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, you fucking can!”

Kenny stood, holding Aaron’s arms. Not tight enough. He wasn’t an unleashed puppy. He was the feral rottweiler.

“We have to conduct a full examination.”

“But you know . ” Aaron’s chest heaved. “You fucking know .” He jabbed a shaking finger at Jack, accusation and grief tangled in his words. “Tell me.”

“Aaron, listen to me.” Kenny’s voice was low but firm, forcing him back from the edge. “Jack can’t tell you. It’s a live investigation. Chain of evidence. Protocols.”

Aaron wasn’t listening. Couldn’t hear it over the hammering of his own pulse.

“Shot?” Aaron raised his voice. “Stabbed? Suffocated ?”

Jack exhaled hard, scrubbing a gloved hand over his mask before yanking it off completely. “Strangled.”

The word hit like a bullet to the chest.

Jack’s voice was clipped, procedural, but his eyes… his eyes held it all. “With a belt.”

Aaron’s knees buckled. The street tilted, floodlights searing into his retinas, and suddenly Kenny was there, catching him before he hit the ground.

Jack yanked off his gloves and tossed them into an evidence bin. “Take him back to my place. Not yours. I need forensics in there. If she’s been in your house, we need to find prints. Anything. I’ll call ahead to Fraser. Let him know you’re on your way. And I’ll have an officer posted at the door.”

Aaron heard nothing else.

It all dissolved. Jack’s voice, the crime scene, the sterile efficiency of people cataloguing Taylor’s death like another case instead of a person. A shitty person, yeah, but still a fucking person . And his only crime was to have got involved with Aaron. His limbs disconnected from his body and Kenny’s arms around him were the only thing tethering him to reality. He let himself be led. Dragged . Carried through the blur of sirens and rain-slicked pavement and flashing lights.

Because what was the point of fighting anymore?

What was the point of anything?

Everything he touched was doomed.