His sister was walking up the tree-shadowed lane that idled past their house, her narrow shoulders hunched like she was braced for a storm.
She'd been waiting for him. That couldn't be good.
He slowed the bike and cut the engine, needing a moment before she reached him—a few more breaths to tuck the terror of the woods into the spaces between his bones.
Sage quickened her steps, her body stiff, like a toy soldier wound too tight. Her dark brown hair was pixie-short in back and artfully shaggy in front, and she usually had a scowl on her face that looked strangely at odds with her delicate features and large brown eyes. Right then, she just looked trapped.
Really not good.
"What happened?" he demanded, throwing his leg off the bike.
"Uncle Frank was here."
His chest turned a crank. "Shit."
"Yeah."
"How bad is it?"
"Halfway to Chernobyl."
"Shit. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I got home just as he was leaving. I didn't go inside."
Curtis took a moment to think. "Take my bike to the shed. I'll deal with it."
Sage was fourteen and small for her age, and she looked so much like their mother it hurt. The bike was nearly as tall as Sage was, but she grasped the handlebars and set her back to it with a look of grim satisfaction.
Yeah, I'd rather manhandle a bike than deal with this too.
Curtis cut through the hedgerow of their lonely country road and headed up the long-overgrown lawn toward the house.
The house. The freaking house. Sometimes he wished he could burn the damn thing to the ground.
A three-story red-brick Victorian with sagging dormers and trim turning green with age. It had been beautiful once—the crowning achievement of the family in its day—but now it was just a reminder that the business was going to shit. The family always had been shit, and the house had become the blinking sign, the buzzing motel billboard that told the world there was something sick and festering at the heart of the Garrett clan.
He ascended the front steps of Garrett House, listening carefully. Yelling and pounding from the second floor.
Okay.
He opened the front door and called out: "Dad."
There was no response, just the continuing angry voice and loud scraping sounds from the floor above.
"Dad, it's Curtis. I'm coming up."
He took the stairs, eyes alert, the old steps groaning under his feet. He reached the landing and stepped into the little pool of muted rainbows cast by the stained-glass window that glowed in the base of the dark wood paneling.
He was seven when they'd moved into the old family legacy, and the rainbow was the only place he'd felt safe. He used to sit there on the plush carpet runner with its faded background of crimson and pale roses, moving his hands through that rainbow light. He imagined he could take those colors into himself and go through the world with the shades of light rippling over his skin, like a fantastic chameleon.
Sometimes his mother would sit there with him, and she'd pretend to catch the rainbows and pocket them.
But she was dead now.
Curtis glimpsed the study door down the long hall and took the next six steps more carefully, leaving the fallen colors behind. From the study came the sound of furniture being moved, a voice rising and falling.
"Dad, I'm coming in."
He eased the door open, careful not to get too close until he knew what he was dealing with.
His father was pushing an enormous walnut-carved bookcase across the wood-paneled room, the muscles in his broad back and thick arms roping with effort. Antique leather-bound books and gold-gleaming trinkets shuddered and toppled with each strenuous shove.
"Dirty, thieving, double-crossing, no-good, traitorous blood. Thinks I don't know. Thinks I don't know!"
With a final lurching effort, he shoved the bookcase against the back wall, blocking the large lead-paned window completely. A crystal paperweight shaped like a bull fell and shattered on the hardwood floor. He turned, and Curtis tensed, ready to dodge, but his father continued as if his eyes hadn't just slid over his own son. Crystal shards crunched under his steps as he put his hands to the massive cherry-wood desk, a thing that should have taken two strong men to budge.
"But I do know. I know. I'm no fool." He shoved and skidded the desk toward the bookcase.
"DAD." It was a risk to get loud with him, but the man couldn't be touched when he was in this state.
His father turned and seemed to notice him for the first time.
Tom Garrett was a handsome man: dark haired and strong jawed, with even features. He was Curtis, but magnified—six foot three inches where Curtis was six foot one, barrel-chested where Curtis was lean muscle.
He was the dark mirror Curtis hated to look into.
Tom's wide eyes took too long to clear with recognition, and Curtis swallowed hard.
"Oh, Son. Good. I need your help. I've got this room, you go start on the next."
Curtis was breathing very carefully, in through the nose, out through the mouth. As though mathematically precise control of his own body would balance the inequality between them, dissipate the hurricane of chaos that boiled at the other end of the room. "What are you doing, Dad?"
Tom took a sudden step forward, arms swinging, and Curtis's heart jolted.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm making sure that damn dirty thief can't worm his way in here in the night! That brother of mine, always plotting. Well, I've seen now, I know what we have to do."
"Dad, have you taken your pills today?"
"Didn't you hear me, Son? He's coming! He'll be back!"
"Okay, Dad, but first you've gotta take your pills."
"Pills aren't going to keep that son of a bitch from coming back here and taking what's mine!" Curtis's father bellowed, storming toward him. "They slow me down! And that's when he'll be back, that bastard—he's just waiting for his chance."
"I'll make sure he doesn't come back, Dad." Curtis could feel Sage in the hallway just out of sight, listening, trying to gauge how bad things might get. Her fear made Curtis stronger, left no room for error. "Take your pills, and I'll keep an eye out tonight. I'll make sure he doesn't get in." His father stared at him, eyes wild, chest heaving. "Please, Dad."
The man deflated all at once, slumping into a green damask chair, his hands going to his temples.
"My head," he moaned.
A movement caught Curtis's eye. Sage with a glass of water and a handful of pills. He took them from her and moved toward the giant slouched in the chair.
He stretched his hand out. For a moment, there was nothing, just his father's heavy breathing—then a large hand shot out and clamped around his wrist.
Don't react. Don't pull back.
His father stared at him through eyes too intense, then took the proffered pills and swallowed them in one gulp.
"You should get some rest, Dad."
His father nodded but didn't move. Curtis backed away, into the hall, into a full breath. Sage was standing at the top of the stairs, her face tense. She looked to him. He nodded his reassurance, even though he felt none.
They descended the stairs together.
There was no more noise from above.
