Page 55 of The Monsters Within

“Thorne—”

“NO!” he yelled. “You always take her side! She grabbed it out of my hand and threw it out the window! It broke into pieces!”

“She said she was sorry, Thorne.”

“Sorry won’t fix it.”

“She doesn’t have anyone to play with.” Mom plead my case.

“NEITHER DO I!”

I heard his feet stomp up the stairs. The sound of the door slamming shut made me jump.

“Well, Rosebud, I guess you’re sleeping with me tonight. We just have to be patient with him. Your brother needs some time to himself to calm down.” She pushed me back and wiped my tears. “That wasn’t very nice, though. Your brother won’t always be able to stop what he’s doing to play with you. We have to learn to rely on ourselves.”

Later that night, I snuck into the hall when Mom went to talk to Thorne.

“I’ll get you a new one, Son.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Yes, you do.”

I sat on the floor outside the bedroom door I shared with my brother and listened.

“I know our life isn’t easy.” Thorne snorted so loud I could hear him from the hallway. “It’s my job to keep you both safe. The only way I can do that is if people don’t know about you. But I need your help, baby. I need you to protect your sister. No matter what. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to keep people safe.”

“So I have to sacrifice my life for hers?” he asked.

“If it comes to that, yes.”

It took Thorne three days to accept my apology and stop being mad at me. I wondered how long it would take this time.

Thorne stalked to the chair beside me and sat down. He wouldn’t look at me. He stared ahead, waiting to be told what to do.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he said, and I slumped back in my chair.

“Mimic, do I need to stay?” Sam asked. I hadn’t realized she’d come in with him.

“No.”

My eyes welled up at his clipped answer. In the weeks I had been here, I had never heard him talk to Sam that way. And it was my fault.

“Thank you, Sam. I’ve got it.”

Sam walked up behind him and kissed the top of his head. “I love you. We’ll talk after.”

Then she did something I never would have expected. She stepped over to me, kissed the top of my head, and whispered, “I love you, Kytten. Be patient with him.”

I stared at her as she left the room. Turning to look at my brother, I didn’t say I was sorry again. I knew he didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t a big believer in the word. He never had been.

He used to tell me if I was sorry that meant I knew it was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it to begin with. Maybe he was right. There were a lot of things in my life I knew shouldn’t have happened.

But you didn’t always have control over your own life.

“Kytten, I want you to tell your brother what we talked about yesterday.”