Page 21 of This Blood That Breaks Us (This Blood That Binds Us, #3)

Seventeen

Zach

The castle was flooding. Little drops of rain fell into the bucket next to me, and thunder shook the painting above the fireplace. It had poured all day and into the night. Will and I sat by the fire in one of the common rooms. The castle was big enough no one would bother us. They were too busy running around patching holes and cleaning up ruined carpet. Ezra said it was the biggest storm Ireland had seen in nearly ten years.

It was hardly the karmic justice they deserved, but it made me laugh a little. Will and I giggled like schoolgirls while watching the others pace the halls in a frantic mess to clean; I hid him so he wouldn’t have to help.

The warmth of the fire made me think of Blackheart and my brothers. I wondered what they were doing and if they, too, might be staring into a fire. Presley was probably getting into trouble somehow, and I hoped Aaron was taking good care of Kimberly. He was good at it when he got out of his own way. It was strange. I never imagined my little brother with anyone. All of his high school girlfriends were nothing special, but I knew immediately when I saw that look in my brother’s eyes after he met her. It reminded me of when I’d met Ashley.

I wondered how she was. Better off without me, that I was sure of.

I hoped Aaron and Kimberly were happy and together and they’d get to do all that fun couple shit.

“What do you think the love birds are doing right now?” I asked Will to snap him out of dissociation. He was sitting on the floor by the fireplace and staring into it like he might jump in. “I was thinking of them all. Wherever they are.”

I wasn’t technically breaking my rule because I hadn’t said their names.

William grinned and took a swig of his drink. “Probably fuckin’ like bunnies, I’d presume. New relationship and all that.”

I laughed thinking of that night Aaron came down the stairs to get Kimberly’s water. His hair messy and his face glowing with happiness.

“I’m glad someone gets to be happy.” I raised my glass, and William clinked his to mine.

The door opened, and Luke and Thane emerged looking more chipper than ever.

“You look happy.” I laughed.

“Because I think this is going to work. And because I got this.” Luke smiled, pulling a bottle of liquor from his jacket.

“You’re drunk.” I laughed at first. Then the worry set in. “Wait, why are you drunk?”

Luke almost drank himself to death after Sarah disappeared. Thankfully, he was already a vampire, so he wasn’t in any real danger. That didn’t stop me from calling Ezra just in case.

“Good news—stop with that look.”

“He’s okay. Really, I’ve been with him all day,” Thane said.

I grunted an acknowledgment in his general direction and got to my feet to survey my brother.

He smiled from ear to ear. “You worry too much.”

“Just about you.”

“The guys gave him this bottle and made him take a double shot of it. I think it’s pretty much pure alcohol.” Thane stumbled. “It’s got a kick to it.”

“They like me now.” Luke smiled radiantly. “That, or they gave it to me to kill me and weed out competition.”

I patted him on the shoulder and took the bottle so I could smell it. “Tell me the good news.”

“With the flood, they’re going to bring in a lot of people for repairs tomorrow. Ezra was really adamant on getting it all done in a day.”

“So, that means?”

“It’s our opening!” He pushed me playfully, and I had to steady myself.

“You think we’ll be able to hide in the chaos,” Will said.

“Exactly. Ezra had to stay over on the mainland because of the storm, so he won’t be back till after it clears. He wants Zach and I to go meet with a client in the early morning. We can take the main ferry. And you two can sneak in the cargo hold. It can work.”

“What about Sirius?” I asked.

“Luke took care of that too. He’s going to be with the queen all morning. And then he’ll be occupied with all the workers coming in and out of the castle.”

“It’s going to work! This is it.” Luke was too stupidly happy about it.

It’s not like I didn’t think he was right. It could work. Now that we were given more freedom and we only needed a minute or two of really good luck to sneak Thane and Will on the ferry, it was possible. Especially with Will’s and Thane’s mind capabilities. I wasn’t sure I believed, but like every time before this one, he made me want to. It was a shitty curse of believing in unlikely things.

“We could be home in a few days. See everyone, wouldn’t that be great?” My brother’s eyes sparkled from the light of the fire. Fuck.

“Yeah, that would be great.” I took a drink from the bottle and recoiled. “Holy fuck. This is battery acid.”

“It’s good! Come on. Let’s celebrate. Let’s do something fun.” Luke practically vibrated with energy.

I knew that look.

Everyone got to see this tame, fully responsible brother of mine, but the Luke I knew was wild at heart, and though I hadn’t seen it a while, that fire burned in his eyes and took over all his other features. His eyebrows were raised, and his smile overflowed with unbridled optimism. This motherfucker.

“What type of trouble do you have in mind?” I took another swig of the bottle and handed it to Will. My throat burned down to my stomach.

“You’ll see.”

The four of us hunkered down in the hall, and a crack of lightning lit up the hardwood floor. We brought the bottle. We really shouldn’t have brought the bottle. It occurred to me then, we should have tried to jump in the ocean and escape in the storm or something logical like that. Though I wasn’t sure it was logical because we’d probably sink to the bottom.

“Stop pushing me.” I elbowed Thane.

“Sorry,” he said, then moved to lean into Will.

“Ow, fuck off,” William replied.

I elbowed Will. “Be quiet.”

“Scoot over.”’

“You’re supposed to address me as ‘sir’ here. Didn’t we establish this?”

“You never respected my authority, why would I respect your fake cult Chosen One bullshit?”

Thane fell back onto the hardwood, and Will turned his attention to some plant next to us with long tendrils of leaves touching the ground.

“Oh, god. These people are monsters. Why is this here?” He peeked to check the soil. “Dry as a bone and too little light. I’m taking it.”

“Taking it where? Your dark dusty cell?”

“Anywhere is better than this life-sucking hallway with this dated wallpaper.”

“Guys. We have a special mission.” Luke used the doorframe to keep himself steady.

“Why are we here?” I leaned my face against the cool wood of a door.

“Ezra took my stuff, and I want it back.”

“When?”

“When we got on the plane. He took it, and I want it back.”

“It better be good, Calem.” Will hiccuped, and I had to grab him before he fell into my brother.

“Oh, it’s good.”

“You’re not going to share what it is, are you?”

“Nope. Secret. Come on.” Luke grabbed the collar of my shirt, and the world spun.

“Will, get the bottle!” I shouted.

“Got it, your Most Glorious Jackass.”

I blinked, then we were in another fancy room. They all looked the same, especially when I was drunk, but this one had a similar layout to ours. Bed on the bottom and a loft, but a lot more books and shit all over the ground. Luke hated clutter. He’d never let it fly.

“This isn’t Ezra’s room,” I said.

I knew because I’d been brought to his room many times to be scolded.

“Oh, you’re right,” Luke said, grabbing our bottle and taking another sip, then I did too.

“You took us to the wrong room?”

“The doors all look the same.”

“Wait, whose room is it?”

We all dispersed. I tripped over a stack of records on the floor. Every surface was covered in dust like it had been abandoned. I opened a wardrobe, and the smell of a familiar cologne jogged my memory.

“Akira.”

Luke and I shared a look, but there was no pain. The alcohol was doing its job to keep every bad feeling shrouded beneath numbness. I plucked a record from a suitcase record player.

“Akira listened to K-pop?” I snickered. “And Duran Duran?”

“Look at this.” Thane pulled a shirt from a drawer. Some boy band.

“I found a diary!” Luke held up a linen-bound notebook.

We scrambled toward the bed where Luke was sitting.

“Get your ass off me, Calem.” Will pushed me.

“I don’t think I can move.” I’d somehow lain across the laps of both Thane and Will in my mad dash to read the diary of some dead guy. “Yeah, I’m toast. Give me a sec.”

I lay my head on Luke’s arm because the room was spinning. “Tell us what it says.”

“It’s a lot of poems.”

Ashley loved it when I wrote poetry for her. Only, it was a little bit fucked because I was shit with words and didn’t actually write them. Luke helped me with all of them. I’d rifle off what I wanted to convey, then he’d take a little blue gel pen and scrawl it out on a piece of notepad paper. She loved it. I was eventually gonna tell her it wasn’t me. I wanted it to be me. I knew how I felt but not how to put it into words. It didn’t matter anymore.

“What do they say?”

“She is fortunes high. Marvel at the throne, and behold the coming of the prophecy.”

He flipped another page. “This one is just the phrase I adhere to The Divine Path over and over again.”

“Blah. Blah. Blah,” I mumbled.

“And he called me an ‘altar boy.’ I fuckin’ hate this place.” Will shifted under me. “Move your ass or quit your wigglin’.”

Luke flipped another page. “There’s a drawing of a . . . I don’t know who that is.”

I snatched it without looking. “Let me guess, it’s the queen.”

“Don’t you think I’d know it if it was?”

The picture was a detailed sketch of a guy with light skin and dark hair. He had a distinct widow’s peak and little facial hair.

“This is that guy Presley liked. Um . . . Harry Styles!”

“No, it’s not. Give it here.” Luke grabbed it and held it close to his face. “Oh. You’re right. This is him. Presley is obsessed with him.”

I guess the no-name rule didn’t count when we were drunk.

“Apparently, Akira too.”

“Wait, there’s more. Look.”

In the notebook were sketches, shoulder-up portraits of four people easily identifiable when all lined up. The Guard as it had been: Sirius, Akira, and Ezra, and what had to be Eros. He had thick brows and curly hair that curled around his ears and neck, and he was smiling. None of the others were smiling.

“ My guardian. My brother. Wait for me in the stars ,” Luke read the words sketched under the portraits.

“No way.” Thane grabbed the notebook. “Can I keep this?”

“If you hide it,” Luke said.

“And you say please,” I said.

The door opened behind us, and Connell stood in the entryway.

“Oh. I thought I heard a noise. ’Tis forbidden to be in here, sir.”

My body moved on its own to grab Connell and push him out the door. His eyes went blank, and his mouth hung open.

“What are we doing in the hallway, sir?”

I looked down at my hand. I must have taken that memory, blocked it or wiped it. Connell might be the only person in the castle I was able to use that power on.

“You were telling me how excited you were to spar earlier today.”

He was so shit at fighting it was torture to watch. I tried to straighten my back so he couldn’t tell how plastered I was.

“Oh, right! Yes, it was great. And I thought I’d heard . . . ”

“Nothing. Only me. Carry on with your duties.”

“Will do, sir.” Connell’s eyes sparkled with determination, and he left as another crack of thunder shook the walls.

I motioned the others out into the hallway when he was far enough away. “I did it. The super mind trick thing.”

Sirius was teaching me to use it more, but it was something he assured me I’d get more acquainted with as we got older, and it wasn’t that useful in battle when you had an equal opponent. Only something I needed to learn to dodge in someone older and stronger.

“This one is Ezra’s room!” Luke plowed through another wooden door, and we followed.

He was correct. The room was more well-kept and had warmer colors. No record player or any band merchandise. Everything was simple and had a place. He didn’t look like he collected anything, and I doubted he’d be the type to have a diary.

“We should do something while we’re here,” I said.

“What are you gonna do? Switch the conditioner with the shampoo?” Will said.

“It would piss him off.”

“You’re such a rebel.”

I motioned for Luke. “You look for your thing. I have an idea.”

While Luke rummaged through drawers and cabinets, I moved every piece of furniture and tested the weight. With one arm, I lifted the leg of the bed and chipped a piece of wood in the bed frame, that way when he got on it, it would cave, and he’d never know it was me. I moved through various other places in the room, jamming the drawers and removing pieces of the furniture legs. I even pinched the pipe in his bathroom sink.

“I found it!” Luke said.

We gathered around a singular polaroid picture.

“Pres gave me this one. He said it was his favorite.”

It was all five of us together sitting by the fire on Kimberly’s birthday. Luke had an arm wrapped around me while I held up my drink. Presley was grinning, and his clothes were dirty from where he’d drunkenly fallen earlier in the night. Kimberly wore a tired, content smile next to Aaron, who was looking at her with wide-eyed admiration.

They were out there somewhere. Did they think of us? Were they waiting by the door?

“Totally worth it,” I said, and they all nodded in agreement.