Page 97 of The Little Liar

Sebastian, feeling his brother’s weight, was almost toostunned to speak. Udo Graf and Nico? The pair he’d been obsessing over his entire adult life? Finally, he had them both. But not the way he imagined.

“It’s really you, then?”

“It’s me,” Nico grunted.

Sebastian tried to get used to the voice. The last time he’d heard Nico speak, he was a child.

“I hated you, Nico. All these years.”

“It doesn’t matter, brother.”

“It does. The truth matters.”

“Which truth?”

“That you lied to us. Why did you do it, Nico? Why did you help them?”

Nico lifted his head.

“To save our family.”

Sebastian blinked hard.

“What?”

“Graf said you would all come home. He promised we’d be together again.”

“And you believed him? For God’s sake, Nico, they were Nazis!”

Nico sighed. “I was a kid.”

Sebastian felt the tears welling up, as if decades of misplaced anger were melting behind his eyes.

“Where did you go? How did you live? Where have you been all this time?”

“Atoning,” Nico rasped.

He forced a smile, but his breathing was labored. Sebastiantried to muster a righteous rage, but it was failing. At that moment, he could only hear his father’s final request.Find your brother one day. Tell him he is forgiven.

“You can stop atoning now,” Sebastian finally whispered.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, until the age wrinkles and graying whiskers seemed to melt away. They were back to being two young brothers, resting atop one another, as if they’d just finished wrestling in the bedroom.

“Listen,” Nico said, his voice growing thin. “I have Graf’s Nazi papers. With fingerprints. They’re in my pocket, OK?”

“What?”

“My pocket. Take them.”

“You’ll give them to me later.”

Nico squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t think I will.”

As Sebastian shifted, he felt something warm and wet on his chest, and he realized it was blood, a great deal of it. It was sticky, bonding them together.

Nico rolled and flopped backward, his eyes to the sky. He’d taken two of Graf’s bullets, and was bleeding badly below the chest. His mouth fell open in a half smile, as if watching something amusing in the clouds.

Suddenly, Fannie was next to him. She leaned over, crying, cupping his face.