Page 10 of New Nebraska Home (New Nebraska)

Brock

THE HUMAN IS brOKEN

I knew humans were said to be weaker than the rest of us, but I didn’t think their brains could snap in half like this. Liz doubled over in laughter. At least, I think it was laughter. Her breath was constricted, coming out like a rabid animal. She tried to stop several times, taking deep breaths, but the second she looked up and met one of our eyes, she started laughing again.

The way tears streamed down her cheeks, and she held her side, made me a little worried she was going to hurt herself. Her face turned a brilliant scarlet shade, and then I was worried that she was going to end up passing out because of lack of oxygen. I scooped her up in my arms again, holding her shaking body to my bare chest, trying to ignore the odd sensation of her skin against mine. It wasn’t unpleasant, far from it, but I had felt nothing in the world like what I felt when I touched Liz skin to skin.

That was a mystery for another day. First, I needed to make sure that she didn’t need medical intervention. I brought her over to the couch, carrying her over all the broken glass shards. Her head rested against my chest as she shook with more laughter and I had to stop my mind from wandering to very inappropriate places.

She was going through something traumatic, and she didn’t deserve my skeeving on her just because Callum and I were getting a little hot and heavy.

Fuck, I had kissed my best friend. I had made out with him, touched him, let him touch me. I wanted him badly, but did he feel the same? His actions made me think that was a possibility, but it could have just been blood lust. He had gone so long without a proper meal, and I was pretty sure it was longer since he had a lover or even a little something on the side.

Was he starving?

Did I let my feelings cloud my judgment and take advantage of my best friend while he was weak? Fuck. When this was over, he needed to feed and get his shit straight and I needed to be sure I hadn’t broken something unfixable with the only person who had really mattered to me in a long time.

Liz started shaking against me again, and I set her down gently on the couch. Callum sat down on the other side of her and pulled her from my arms to his.

I wanted to be the one to comfort her, hold her, and tell her everything was going to be okay. But I knew Callum needed the control right now. He’d always hated it when something he couldn’t control or predict happened. Chaos was not something Callum dealt with regularly and never easily. So, if holding her soothed him as well as calmed her, I wasn’t going to object.

Especially since I wasn’t sure where we stood.

Malik stood by the doorway, looking confused. His fists opened and clenched as he looked around, trying to figure out what he could do and how to help. That same restless irritation was clawing at my chest too.

“You got her?” I asked.

Callum nodded as he stroked her hair and gave her a curious look. His brow furrowed as he looked at her like she was a puzzle.

I assumed it was because Pandora, Callum’s last girlfriend, didn’t show vulnerability. She didn’t show emotions to those she didn’t trust, and even if she had, I doubted hysterical laughter would be how she did it. Judging by the look on Malik’s face, I would say we were all out of our depth.

Still, I had to do something. I walked into the kitchen, waving Malik to come with me, and I poured Liz a tall glass of the iced tea she had in the fridge.

“Can you grab the broom and dustpan?” I asked Malik. “I think they’re in that closet over there.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff as he rubbed that same spot on the back of his neck.

“Cool, let’s get this drink to Liz. Then I’ll help, and we’ll clean up the glass so she can at least walk around her living room.”

“Good idea,” Malik said with a nod. “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”

I had no idea what to say, so I gave him a helpless look and shrugged.

When we got back to the living room, Liz was at least sitting up next to Callum, her feet tucked under her, and taking deep breaths as he gently wiped a tear from her cheek.

I handed her the glass of iced tea, and she gave me a smile as she took it.

Malik and I started working on the glass. She tried to object a few times, saying she could get it, but we ignored her. This wasn’t her fault. We weren’t going to make her clean up a bunch of broken glass with bare feet. Even if it were her fault, I still wouldn’t have left her to clean it up.

“Do you hear—” Callum started, but then his voice trailed off. He moved at top vampire speed, a speed I didn’t think he had the strength for, not if his need to feed was as high as I thought. In a blink, he had run out of the back door.

“What the hell?” Liz asked, her eyes wide, and a little terrified.

“Vamps, when they run, they all go blurry,” I said. “It freaks me out, too.”

She didn’t say anything, but nodded and focused on her drink. Malik let out a dismissive huff. He may not have been a wolf, but there was still some animosity there for vampires.

“Are you okay now?” Malik asked Liz.

“Yeah, it’s just the way you guys were acting. I thought something terrible happened, something to do with… I don’t know what I thought, but when it was just the brick that came through the message with a little bit of hate speech on it, I lost it.”

“Just a brick with a little bit of hate speech?” I asked, my jaw falling open. “Not only was that vandalism, but someone could have been hurt. What if you were in the living room and the brick hit you? What if it had hit Leif?”

“But it didn’t,” she said, like that made it okay. “It happens, and as long as no one was hurt…”

“How often do you get bricks tossed through your window?” Malik asked as he bent down and held the dustpan, ready for me to sweep the glass into it.

“This is the first,” she admitted. “But no one got hurt.”

“And that is what made you break into hysterical laughter?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow. “I’m not going to lie. We were a little afraid your brain broke for a minute.”

“Yes, well, no. It just struck me that nothing has changed. New Nebraska was supposed to be all new neighborhoods, and I thought the place would change with people coming from all over, having different life experiences, and being different species. I thought there would be more tolerance of people and their differences.”

“There isn’t?” Malik asked.

“Not really,” she said, and I took a seat next to her, holding her hand and using my water magic to dry her tears from her skin.

“I mean, y’all might look a little different, and there might be a few subtle changes, but this town still attracted the same small-minded, ignorant bullshit as before.”

The hysterical laughter was gone now, and she was getting mad. She stood up and started pacing on the freshly swept floor. I still didn’t like it. I would have preferred to mop first, and I itched to pick her up again, but I didn’t think she was in the mood to be coddled.

“What do you mean?” Malik asked, sitting back on the couch only a few inches from me. My god, he pushed out a lot of heat. He practically radiated it. For a moment, I wondered if I could get him to cuddle in the winter.

“A few years ago, the boy who lived a few houses down started dating another boy from a few towns over. They were very cute together, both star football players on their wait for athletic scholarships. Both of those boys were destined for greatness, on and off the field. One night, someone threw a rock that said the same nonsense through his window—scared his momma half to death. Thank God his daddy was the sensible sort and protected his kid. He filed a complaint, but nothing ever came of it. The town retaliated against that poor boy. The town harassed him. They made sure he was kicked off the team, lost his scholarship, and was treated like a social pariah. All for falling in love with someone the town didn’t approve of.”

She shook her head and continued. “That family was among the first to take the money and run when the government came with checks. I think they may have already been looking at moving when everything came out.”

It took me a moment to process what she was saying. I couldn’t believe in this day that a child would get so much hate for being who he was, but I had never lived in small towns made up of mostly humans before… I had heard things, of course, but I had been ignorant enough to assume that they were things of the past.

Then I really considered what she said. It was just the same. The brick was thrown in a neighbor’s window to drive out a child for who he was, and this brick had the exact same mission.

They wanted to scare Liz so that she would take her little halfling brother and run.

I wasn’t about to let that happen, and the stern look of determination on Malik’s face told me he felt the same way.

“We need to stop this from happening again,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, mostly so I could tuck my hands away from Liz. I didn’t want her to see the way they shook with rage. She was mad right now, but she had gone from laughing to angrily pacing so quickly I didn’t want to do anything that could push that rage into fear.

“Agreed,” Malik nodded. “Do you have a plan?”

“Let’s start with the asshole that threw the brick,” Callum said, walking back in through the front door, this time with a scrawny teenager in torn clothes dangling from his grip.

“Who is that?” I asked.

Callum looked past me to Liz. “Do you recognize him?”

“No, should I?”

“He was the asshole who threw the brick.”