Page 15 of This Blood That Breaks Us (This Blood That Binds Us, #3)

Twelve

Luke

“You can’t keep avoiding this,” Ezra said with furrowed brows.

We were in the “green room.” The rooms in the castle were flashy and themed with thick rugs and intricate wallpaper. And this one was just green. The couches. The wallpaper. The curtains.

“You picked the wrong person for this.”

“How can you be the wrong fit if it’s your destiny?”

I wished Zach was here—he was a better arguer, but he was with Sirius, like usual.

“All I’m asking is for you to escort them through town and make sure they don’t get into trouble while I meet with a client. It’s good practice. Normally, I do all of it.”

“They’re not going to listen to me.”

“Of course they are.”

They weren’t. He didn’t get it. The men there were many years older than me and hated me. The resentment didn’t bother me as much as what I was doing. None of them had a choice. They were my brothers, in a way. Stuck like me, only they were taught to be happy about it. I couldn’t save them as much as I couldn’t save myself.

“Luke, you’re the only one that can lead them.”

“Why?” He was doing a pretty good job of it.

“You know why.”

“Stop with the prophecy. I don’t believe in it.”

“Yes you do. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself yet.”

Is this what it feels like to be “psychoanalyzed,” as Presley would say. I understood why it was so aggravating. I missed him.

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” I said.

He didn’t understand me and everything he was asking me to give up. This role he wanted me to play was asking too much. I guess I didn’t even understand me either. How one part of me could be scared and broken and the other fiercely fighting and excited for the challenge of what came next.

“I’ll do it. But Thane comes with me.”

Ezra sighed. “Fine. But don’t even think you’ll be able to sneak him out without me knowing.”

He understood me a little more than I thought.

“Got it, captain.”

He led me to the yard where a group of fifteen boys dressed in their all-black suits were waiting. A few I knew, like Connell and Henderson, and some looked familiar.

I cleared my throat. “Alright, we’re going to town. I’ve been instructed to make sure no one gets into trouble.”

Connell smiled and gave me a thumbs-up while everyone else stared at me with unmoving expressions.

“So, what do you guys do there?”

“We go to the pub sometimes,” Henderson said.

The group snickered.

“You go to the pub while Ezra meets clients?”

Connell raised his hand. “No! We’re supposed to mingle around town with the shop owners. Collect money, see how they’re doing and if they’re having any trouble.”

“Good. That we can work with. We can split into teams.”

“Great idea, sir.” Henderson’s eyes narrowed as he whispered something to his friend with a sly smirk.

Connell raised his hand again.

“Yes?”

“I can show you the town!”

“That would be great.” I tried to hide the smile. It would be nice to have someone who was excited about the prospect of helping me learn the town. None of the others were saying anything, just staring at me with blank expressions. Surely, there had to be things they wanted . . . dreams. A better life. I made myself stop. It wasn’t their fault, and I was being a hypocrite. I had none of those things either.

“We move out in ten minutes.”

“Sir, yes sir.” Henderson winked at me.

“Sorry, I’m late. Got a little caught up.” Thane appeared next to me and bowed.

“You’re right on time. Let’s go, boys.”

The town wasn’t far. The rolling hills contrasted the gray sky, and the frost lingered on the car windows. We’d taken a few cars into town. They were too flashy, and we all stuck out like black sheep.

“This is Cauldbury. It’s one of the oldest towns in all of Ireland.” Connell’s eyes lit up as he pointed to all the colored buildings that were mostly stone and stumpy. But there was something otherworldly about it. With the cobblestone bridges overlooking a pond, my world didn’t seem real. Nothing about it was familiar, and the landscape was covered in a wash of gray, yet it was warm. It was like a dream, and I enjoyed thinking of it like that.

I’d instructed the others to split up and complete their tasks while Connell, Thane, and I patrolled the city.

“This is where I used to live. My house was a ways out, but this is the spot. Ask me anything you want to know.” He pointed to a stone fountain in the middle of the town overlooking the pond. “This is a wishing fountain.”

A stone cherub tipped a vase into the basin, and the water trickled out of it. At the bottom of its murky depth lay silver chains, jewelry, and a few coins.

“It’s bad luck to put anything but silver in, but they say those who sacrifice more to it, get greater rewards.”

“Don’t people steal from here? That stuff looks expensive.”

“Oh, never. It’s a bad omen. The deadly kind. They say the gods will strike you down. The last time someone stole from this fountain, he ended up face down in that pond. Freakin’ lunatic.”

“You ever put anything in there?” Thane asked. Connell was the only one who would talk to Thane and Will.

“Yeah, I threw in some of my mum’s old jewelry. There. See it over in the corner.”

He pointed to a few silver rings in the corner that were growing moss.

“You must have wanted something pretty big to give up that,” I said.

“I did, and I got exactly what I wanted. A real family.”

Sadness reverberated in my ribs. All I could think of was Connell’s mother. What she’d think of her son turning out this way. Brought into a cult that would only continuously take things from him.

It only made me miss my mother and think of all the things I’d done to make her cry. How she’d never understood. How could she if I could never be honest with her?

“ Just tell me ,” my mom said, gripping Zach’s arm, tears welling in her eyes.

We’d been beaten to hell and dumped on the footsteps of the hospital after initiation. I always wondered why they’d taken us to Mom’s hospital. I remember feeling pain like I’d never known, and I thought it was the worst I’d ever feel. Wishful thinking.

Zach said nothing, turning his head to the side to shield himself from her.

“Baby, you can tell me anything. Tell me who did this. We’ll do whatever we need to, we’ll move—”

“No.” Zach cut her off. “We’re not moving.”

Her red eyes settled on me, and I braced myself for the guilt of making my mom cry, but she didn’t know what we knew. We were keeping everyone safe and together.

“Why won’t you tell me? You can tell me anything. You know that.”

She grabbed onto me, and my resolve slipped.

“I know, Mom. I know. Please don’t cry.” I let her hug me, and Zach gave me a warning glare.

We say nothing. That had been our rule. He was worried I’d cave. He knew me well.

“I don’t understand why you won’t tell me. I can help you, baby. Let me help.”

I’d buried my head into her shoulder and tried to smother the heat building in my face.

She didn’t deserve the stress. All I’d ever wanted to do was to make her life easier. She deserved better sons. Sons who didn’t keep secrets and make her cry. I’d only hoped she was happier without me.

“So, are you going to throw something in?” Connell looked at me expectedly. Thane wasn’t paying attention to us anymore, and instead, he carefully scanned the area.

I thought for a minute, knowing only one item of silver I possessed. I carried it in my pocket for good luck, and even in the scramble to get to Ireland, I’d held on to it.

“No.” Not today, anyway.

Connell escorted us through the town, and we greeted the shop owners. Most had lived there for their entire lives. Generations upon generations settled there in the shadow of the castle.

“Anything else you want to know?” Connell practically skipped next me.

“Not really. Unless you know any secret passageways or tunnels.”

“Oh, not here. But there are some when you take the ferry over to Ironsburg. The whole town is full of them. They made them during one of the old wars, I think. I don’t know as much about the mainland as I do here.”

I hid my internal excitement at the news. Our plan was slowly coming together. If we could get Will and Thane out through the harbor, we might be able to hide them in the tunnels and find a way out.

A scuffle down the street caught my attention. Yelling, along with the sound of furniture and glass breaking resonated around us. We followed the sound to a pub, but it didn’t look like a bar fight. Henderson was outside with two others, taking a chair to the windows and breaking the glass. Inside, they were beating a man. I smelled the blood.

I was there in an instant, pulling them off him and holding the man up by his shoulders. He couldn’t have been younger than late forties.

“He didn’t report his earnings for the third week in a row and blatantly shows disrespect.”

“Connell, call a doctor for this man.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Connell disappeared.

“What are you doing?” Henderson said.

“What are you doing?” I stood in his face. “I didn’t instruct you to take action of any kind.”

“You gave shit orders.”

“Then let me be clear. Do not touch them. You don’t think without my permission. Got it?”

The one next to him spoke, “Respectfully, sir, you don’t understand how things work here.”

“I do understand. You all listen and do whatever you’re instructed to do. This is me instructing you to do exactly as I tell you to. Do you understand me?”

I towered over them, with a familiar fire brewing in my chest. It had been so dim I forgot it existed.

“Yes, sir,” they said.

“Good. Now you’re going to clean this place up. And I mean every last shard of glass. I want to see you lick the floor to show me it’s clean.”

A woman tended to the wound on the man’s head, and it didn’t look deep.

He spoke slowly, “T-thank you.”

“I’m sorry about your store. We’ll pay to repair your windows. When you’re feeling better, we can work out whatever the problem is. I promise.”

I wondered if he could even understand me, but he held out a bloody palm for me to shake.

“Good . . . good man.”

As we left the pub, Thane whispered, “Can you really do that?”

“I don’t know.”

But I did. And I intended to keep that promise.

Amid the crowd that had gathered, a crashing of metal trash cans smacked the cobblestone. I easily identified Henderson’s voice.

“What does he know? He’s wrong for this place. He’s going to ruin everything. How could She pick him?”

Another kicking of some trash cans faded behind us.

He was right. I didn’t belong here, but I belonged nowhere. Not in Brooklyn or Blackheart. I couldn’t stop myself from hoping. From pushing and believing that one day I would belong somewhere, and some day, things wouldn’t feel like this.