Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(38)

“You will be able to stop me,” he ended.

There was no running. I didn’t knock my chair over. I got up casually, if a little woodenly, and walked to the bathroom.

I didn’t vomit in that bug-ridden restaurant bathroom either, but it was a near thing. Gagging and dry-heaving didn’t count. Niko was doing what I’d asked him for years now. Watching me. Making sure I didn’t become too much of a monster, because, face it, there was no escaping being somewhat of one. I didn’t blame him for doing what I told him, for trying to save me before it came to that. I didn’t blame him for anything. I blamed myself. For the first time in my life Niko thought I could hurt him. I’d known I could if the monster came. I’d known the monster would try. Cal would be gone and to the monster, to the Auphe in my place, Niko would only be meat in its way.

I’d known, but for the first time . . .

For the first time Niko accepted the truth. I’d told him he should, more times than I could remember, but I’d never meant it. I’d said it and I’d not once meant it, because I was a f*cking coward.

His denial before had let me wallow in that same denial occasionally. Now that was gone. And denial. Jesus, denial is a f*cking miracle of a thing. I had no idea how badly I’d miss it—need it like the air I breathed. I wanted it back. And I wanted Nik’s blind faith in me back. The faith that while I could change and I could try to murder the entire world, that I would not do the same to my brother. I wanted to be able to see myself through his eyes and not see the constant potential of his blood on my hands.

But we all wanted something. I also wanted the old identity crisis back, because this new one was no goddamn fun. Life was like that. Hey, you over that whole tormented pity party about being a monster? You seeing the upside now? Feeling good about yourself? Yeah, that shit ain’t happening on my watch. Now stand still while I rip out your guts and make you wish for the good old days when self-loathing was your favorite hobby. I have bigger plans for your f*cked-up psyche now.

Fratricide—it’s a big word, but say it with the class, Cal. There’s a good boy.

I hung my head over the toilet and retched one more time. Then that luxury was over. Soon Nik would be kicking down the door and the manager would be calling the police.

He was giving me a moment, but it would pass. He’d think he’d broken me when it was the other way around. Okay, yeah, I had to give up a few patches of denial. Suck it up. Niko was giving up what he’d thought was the truth and having to live with a new one—his brother might not always be his brother.

That if that happened I could kill him with less thought than it took to make a gate.

Straightening, I grabbed a paper towel as cheap and rough as they came and dry-scrubbed my face hard enough to hurt. I wanted that tiny bit of pain. It distracted from the mass that roiled through me, a dirty whirlpool filled with the debris of doubt, fear, and the sharp and terrible thought that being a monster would be better. Easier. Painless.

That I’d process later. Actually, that wasn’t me, not how I rolled. I would pack it away in one of those mental strongboxes and that would be good enough. Dealing was for heroes. I was no hero. For now I would do exactly as Nik told me. If that made Grimm the better Auphe, that was how it had to be. I would do anything, stop anyone who tried to hurt my brother and that included myself. I wasn’t going to let it get to the point where Nik had to do it for me. I’d always asked him to be ready and it had not once been fair to put that weight on him. I was responsible. No one else. That he had to tell me was bad enough. How that felt for him, I couldn’t imagine.

All I could do was make sure he didn’t have to feel it again.

Tossing the wadded paper in the general direction of an overflowing garbage can, I reached for the door handle. Time to see if my brother needed gluing back together.

*

I underestimated him—mentally. I knew better than to underestimate him physically.

Rubbing my shoulder where it had impacted the wall instead of the mat, which was what I got for not paying attention, I grumbled, “Sneaky bastard.”

Folding his arms, not a bead of sweat on him, he looked down at me with raised eyebrows. “Would you like to tell me what you did wrong with that particular move? Everything. Every single thing you did was utterly wrong.”

“Isn’t it usually?” I rolled from my side to my back, making no effort to get back to my feet. The sparring area of our converted garage apartment was generally the most humbling place around for me. Nik was right. If I stopped using the gates as first line of defense or offense—offensive on so many levels—that was me. If I did stop and then went sideways in the worst possible way, he could handle me—the same way he was handling himself now. With perfect ease.

Nik was good. Fine. Better than I’d begun to hope back at the restaurant.

I, conversely, wasn’t doing such a bang-up job. Unless you counted the banging-into-the-wall part of the workout.

His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “You’re thinking. When you should be thinking, you don’t. When you shouldn’t be, you do. Research puts you in a virtual coma. There have been times I’d have been tempted to check your pulse if I couldn’t see your drool spreading over my antique books. And this”—his bare toe prodded the bottom of mine—“should be pure muscle memory by now, but your brain is bouncing so hard inside your skull that you ran into a wall simply because I stepped out of the way.”