Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(105)

“Then tell me, already!” Sean flung back. “I’d love to hear it!”

Kev shook Sean, a rattling shake that snapped his brother’s head back. “I was brain damaged! Do you get that? Does that sink in to your thick skull? I didn’t do it to hurt your tender little feelings, brother.”

Sean’s fist whipped up, whacked into the underside of Kev’s jaw and sent him reeling back, slipping on one knee into the mud.

“Guess what,” he said. “My feelings aren’t little. Brother.”

Then Kev was airborne, and they were off and at it.

Bruno watched with horrified fascination. Watching Kev in combat was always a spectacle, but those two men were so perfectly matched it was like watching Kev fight himself. One got in a foot jab to the thigh. The other whipped it around, torqueing the leg and sending them both toppling into the pit. The men landed with a muddy splat.

Bruno lunged toward them. Davy and Connor grabbed him.

“Let them have at it,” Davy said. “They need it.”

Bruno twisted back to stare at them. “How about you guys? Are you all going to need a turn to kick his ass? There’s only one of him.”

Connor and Davy did the is-this-coddled-baby-punk-for-real eye roll. “Shut up,” Connor said again.

Bruno jerked his arms free, jabbed an elbow into Davy’s ribs, got in a kick to Connor’s bad knee. Both men jerked back, looking as startled as if some plastic mannequin had come unexpectedly to life and belted them one. Bruno drew the H&K, aimed it at them. “The next guy who tells me to shut up gets a bullet to the kneecap,” he said. “Clear?”

Davy and Connor exchanged glances. They nodded.

Good. That was settled and about f*cking time. Bruno walked to the edge of the pit and stared at the writhing, yelling knot of McCloud twins wallowing at the bottom of it. Dickheads. Maybe they did need this. Too bad. They could beat the crap out of each other in some other mud wallow, if mud wrestling was so therapeutic. They didn’t need to do it on the bones of Mamma’s assassin.

He pointed the H&K at the sky and fired. Bam.

They stopped writhing, staring up at him with identical, shocked looks as the gunshot echoed through the mountains.

“What the f*ck?” one of them spat out. Kev, he presumed.

Bruno went for Kev’s trademark steely glare. “You *s cool it,” he said. “This isn’t the time or place to—oh, f*ck me . . .”

The soggy ground gave way under his feet, collapsing, and he slipped and lithered right into the mud wallow, landing with a gloppy splash, his body sliding ’til it was half on top of the other men.

Aw, man. This shit always happened to him when he tried to act authoritative. He spat out mud and addressed Sean. At least, he hoped it was Sean. Who knew with identical mud-men. “Lily told me that you guys were jealous of me. I didn’t believe her. She thought it was funny. Me, jealous of you guys. You guys, jealous of me. What a joke, huh?”

The mud-men looked at each other. One of them twisted around to stare at Davy and Connor, thereby identifying himself as Kev.

Davy and Con stared back, stone-faced. Not denying it, though.

“Jealous?” Kev’s voice cracked. “Of Bruno? That is so f*cked up!”

Sean struggled up to his feet. “It’s true, I guess,” he said. “I wanted so bad to find you, all those years. To have that connection again. And don’t get me wrong, I was glad when we found you. Ecstatic, even. But you’re just so . . . so damn polite.” He sounded puzzled and exhausted. “I just wanted to get through the Plexiglas wall.” He waved his hand towards Bruno. “You don’t block him out. Just us.”

“He’s had you for his brother for about as long as we did,” Connor said from behind them. “And it seemed to count for more.”

Kev shook his head. He tried to climb out of the pit, but the edge collapsed under his knees and sent him slipping down again.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, his voice halting.

“You don’t have to.” Davy looked embarrassed. “We shouldn’t have done this to you. We know it’s hard. It’s OK. Forget it.”

Kev ignored him. “The Zen thing. The calm thing. Back after what happened with Osterman, I couldn’t talk, or sleep, or think. My brain wires were cut. I was trapped in a nightmare. I damped my feelings all down, or I would have gone nuts. I don’t have a manual off switch for that. I can’t just stop doing it on command.”

“OK, fine,” Connor said hastily, holding up his hands. “Please. It’s OK. You don’t have to harrow yourself all up for—”

“Shut up!” Kev barked. “You asked for it, you get it!”

“Uh. Yeah.” Connor subsided, cowed.

“I did miss you guys!” Kev stared at each brother in turn. “I just couldn’t get a grip on what I was missing. I was scared shitless but didn’t know of what. I wanted to run, but I had nowhere to go. I was a mess. Chilling out . . .” He waved his arms. “It was a survival thing. I didn’t mean to freeze you guys out. But calm was the way I had to be. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t glad to find you.”

Sean pressed mud slime out of his long hair from between his fingers and flung the goop, grimacing. “What about him?” he asked, glancing at Bruno. “How’d he get to be exempt from the big freeze?”