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S adie returned to sit down at her brother’s side.

“Maybe you should explain,” she urged him, “because… I need to know. I need to understand. I know that I had a better upbringing. I understand that yours was not good, and, for that, I am so sorry. Obviously I’m grateful that I did get adopted and stayed with my family, but it hurts a lot to think that you didn’t get the same treatment. ”

He shifted uneasily under the covers. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered.

“Yes, it does matter. It matters to me, but, even though I feel terrible about it, and I’m so damn sorry, I can’t do anything about it—not now and not back then either. I gather that your childhood wasn’t very easy.”

“No,” he said, staring out the window. “But whatever.… I don’t need to sit here, whining about my upbringing.” He snorted. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all.”

“But you did mention it, which means it’s an issue,” she said immediately.

“And for that…” She shrugged. “Again, I’m sorry.

” She frowned at Don. “Maybe you can explain why this sad, bad childhood is all part and parcel of the robberies and the deaths because none of us understands. So, maybe you should explain it to me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t talk about it.” And his voice was low, slurred into the sheet.

“Maybe not, yet there’s no way to not talk about it. It’s not as if the police will go away. It’s not as if you’ll get out of here and go back to your apartment,” she pointed out. “What we’re still trying to figure out is whether somebody did this to you or if you did it to yourself.”

He stared at her in surprise. “I didn’t do anything.” He looked around and frowned. “I don’t even know how and why I ended up here.”

“You ended up here because I found you in your apartment where you almost died,” she explained. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and to get permission to come in and talk to you.”

It’s obvious that her words threw him. He shook his head. “No, I was at home.”

“I know what you were doing at home,” she said, trying to keep the judgment out of her tone.

But he flushed anyway and stared at her nervously.

“I get it,” she added. “You’re doing drugs, and life hasn’t been great, and that’s been your way of coping.

However, whether you were doing drugs on your own or somebody gave you something that was not good, I don’t know, but the fact is, you were almost dead when we found you. ”

He blinked at her several times, then looked over at Morrison for confirmation.

He nodded. “She’s telling the truth. We found you and ultimately made sure you got to the hospital in time, saving your life.”

The stunned look on Don’s face revealed he had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Morrison walked closer and asked, “Any chance you got a bad batch of drugs?”

He stared at him and shrugged. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know.” His fingers started to nervously work the sheet.

“I know what this means,” she stated, pointing out Don’s twitching and nervous hankering. “That means you’ll need a fix soon, isn’t it?”

He winced and then nodded. “Yeah, you can say that.”

“I know the hospital can give you something to help bring you down. I don’t know how, but it works though,” she said, “and that will be up to the doctors.”

He swallowed nervously and looked around.

“No, I don’t do drugs,” she stated. “I don’t have any experience with it.”

“Of course not,” Don muttered. “You’re one of those Goody Two-Shoes, aren’t you?”

“Maybe, if that phrase makes sense to you,” she conceded.

“I did go to school and all that stuff, but I didn’t have a totally carefree time of it.

I had a job. When Mom got sick, I stayed home to nurse her.

So I lost a lot of my friends over that time period, and, once I found out about you, then that became my focus.

” She asked Don, “You never did find out about me, did you?”

“No, and our brother didn’t know either. So, it’s not as if we were looking for you,” he said apologetically. “Because we didn’t really remember.”

“No, I get it,” she whispered, feeling hurt on the inside. “But we can see each other now.”

“Yeah, well, according to you, I’ll be in jail for a long time, so it won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

“Considering I didn’t have family before, it makes a hell of a difference to me.”

He glared at her. “Right. As if you’ll acknowledge me when I’m just a jail bum.”

She frowned at him. “I guess the question is whether you’re done with that lifestyle or whether that’s something that you’ll continue to do again,” she pointed out. “It would be hard for me to work on our relationship if you’ll just get out of jail and go kill somebody again.”

He stared at her, shook his head. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

She sat back a bit, relaxed on the inside. “I’m glad to hear that much at least,” she said. “It’s not easy to realize you’ve got a family, only to find out they’re all criminals.”

“Is she in trouble too? Tammy?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie replied. “I hope not. I’ve never met her, don’t know anything about her yet. We don’t even know if she’s still alive, honestly. That’s something that we’re tracking down right now, trying to find her.”

He nodded. “It would be nice to know I have another sister,” he said, immediately looking at her.

“It would be nice to know that all of us can be connected in one way or another because it’s just painful to find out about each other after the fact.

” She smiled at him. “You need to cooperate with the police. They’ve been through hell and back trying to bring you guys all down before you killed even more people.

And I get it. You don’t want to turn anybody in.

You don’t want to hurt anybody else, but, at this point in time,…

you’re not going anywhere. You will be in police custody, either here in the hospital while you recover or in jail, awaiting trial.

So you might as well do something for yourself for a change. ”

“Who says I’m not doing something for myself?” he asked belligerently. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t get to sit here and judge me.”

“I’m not judging you at all,” she stated, “but, yeah, I guess I am judging you for the actions of the group.”

“I told you that I didn’t kill anybody.”

“That’s good, but it’s not enough,” she stated, almost losing her temper, “because, even though you haven’t killed anybody, people still died, and you’ll still go to jail, just by being part of the same crew.”

“You’ve got to prove it first,” he snapped, “and I don’t think you can do that.”

She leaned in as she whispered, “You mean, because you’re using energy to scramble all the cameras?

” She hoped the cop couldn’t hear or understand.

At that, Don’s face turned beet red and then went extremely pale again, enough that she leaned forward and chastised him, “Hey, no more heart attacks.” He just stared at her, then opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

She turned to look back at the cop, but he was on the phone now at the far corner.

She then glanced at Morrison, waiting for his approval.

Morrison nodded.

She leaned over to her brother again. “Yes, I can work energy too.” He shook his head rapidly, trying to stop her from saying whatever she wanted to say, but she shrugged.

“Doesn’t really matter to me, but the fact that you’re protecting the people who are killing people means I have to do what I can do too.

So, yeah, so much for finding family.” She stood up and stared down at him bitterly.

“It would be so much easier if you hadn’t killed anybody,” she whispered.

“And don’t go telling me that you didn’t do it.

I already know you didn’t, but I also know that you didn’t stop the one who did. ”

Don stared at her in horror, then looked at Morrison, who was glaring down at him. “Jesus,” Don finally whimpered.

“Yeah, a lot of shocks, isn’t it?” she murmured. “For you, for me, for everybody involved. That’s not exactly the reunion I was hoping for.”

Just then the doctor stepped in, looked at his patient, and frowned at her. “I think he’s had enough.”

She nodded. “You’re right. It is enough.” She gave her brother a hard look, then stepped out into the hallway, and turned at the door. “We’ll be back.”

As the door closed, she stopped, then leaned against the hallway wall, taking several slow, careful breaths, as she tried to get air back into her lungs. Gage stood here, with Morrison at her side, both of them staring at her in worry. She shrugged. “I’m okay. I am.”

“Good,” Gage noted. “What was that all about?”

“I told Don that I knew what he was doing—using energy to scramble the cameras—and that we were already onto him and that he needed to talk. He got angry at me. He is most definitely a follower,” she declared.

“I understand that because I am one myself. So, whoever is doing this, Don’s clearly not the mastermind behind any of it. ”

“How is that?” Gage asked.

“It’s that whole foster care or adopting thing.

In his case Don’s definitely got a chip on his shoulder because he grew up thinking that he would never be lovable, would never be loved.

Yet at the same time he still desperately wants that connection with people,” she explained.

“That’s him, but I don’t know how it is with my other brother.

I suspect Darren may be much more of a leader than this one is. ”

“I think so too,” Gage agreed. “At least that’s what our research shows so far.”

She nodded. “So, how do we get enough proof to get Don to turn in the others?”

“You may have done enough right there,” Gage noted. “Did the cop hear you?”

She shook her head at that. “No, I tried not to let him hear, and the fact that I even knew sent my brother into a tailspin, so now the doctor’s not happy with me, thinking I’ve upset his patient too much.”