Sprawled on his unmade bed, curtis stared at the stained plaster ceiling and did not think about what happened in the copse. He did not think about how excruciating pain had split his head, how the wind had sounded like voices. He did not think—
He shoved himself up from the bed and threw open the window. The sky was dark navy blotted with black clouds, and the air tasted like rain. The wind was starting to pick up speed.
Sage's laugh sounded down the hall—on the phone with one of her five thousand friends. Curtis wasn't good at friends. He had one friend, and that was all he could handle.
He lay back and stared at the ceiling some more.
They'd made it through supper without any more disasters. That was good. Routine, Curtis reminded himself. Just stick to the routine.
Routine kept them all alive and together.
Routine kept his father manageable.
But it was getting harder to make him take the meds lately. Curtis balled up his fists. And Frank showing up—that was a disaster he'd been unprepared for. Frank always left his brother in a manic state of fury that Curtis had to somehow deal with, defuse, keep everything on the rails and—
Curtis's chest spasmed and he couldn't catch his breath. He forced air through his teeth and stared at that one particular brown stain in the right-hand corner of the ceiling. He'd named it Fred. He stared at the stain and forced his breath until he felt his chest unclench.
It's just you and me, Fred. Keeping watch over this shithole. Too bad you're fucking useless.
Fred said nothing. Curtis's Spartan room stared back at him, bland and impersonal in its emptiness. Just the way he liked it. He'd fed his childhood clutter to a bonfire when he was twelve, the day he realized it was all on him.
A gust of wind sent the thin white curtains flapping, and cool air washed over him.
A whisper.
Curtis jerked upright, muscles straining.
The curtain reached, trailing out like the veil on a bride, dipping and swirling, puffing out suddenly, then dropping still. Outside, leaves skittered like the clatter of tin pie plates, and the low rumble of thunder boiled far in the distance. A high note surged, the shriek riding the top gust of wind, like the keening of a wolf.
And he could hear a voice on that wind. A whispering cadence that nattered at the back of his mind, unintelligible but familiar.
The sound from the woods.
He slammed the window shut, shaking his head. No. He did not just hear that. No.
Sick people heard voices. People like his father.
He was not like his father.
He headed for the stairs, the kitchen. His mouth was dry, bile climbing the back of his throat. He needed water.
His feet pounded down the steps and across the vestibule.
His hand was shaking as he jerked the kitchen tap and grabbed a glass, cracking it loudly against the others. He shoved the glass underneath the stream of water and drank the whole thing before turning off the tap. He leaned against the counter in the darkened kitchen, the worn and chipped marble cool against his palms.
Get it together.
A moan came from the sitting room.
Curtis set the glass down and walked heavily down the dark hall, toward the dim reddish light of the single lamp, already knowing what he would see. His father sat on the antique couch, leaning forward, his head supported by the upturned barrel of a rifle resting on the floor. His one hand held the barrel steady—his other was on the trigger.
Curtis sighed.
His father moaned again. A low, sickly sound, like an animal trapped, injured.
"My heaaad."
"I know, Dad," Curtis said softly, invisible fingers of pity clenching the back of his throat.
The muzzle was still against Tom's forehead. There was a worn patch in the Turkish carpet where the rifle butt lodged almost every night.
Curtis reached out slowly, his fingers closing over the smooth metal of the barrel.
"Not tonight, Dad."
His father looked up at him. Nodded.
Curtis took the gun.
It was a familiar weight in his hands as he walked through the darkened kitchen, up the stairs to the third floor and his bedroom. He closed the door and slid the gun to its nightly resting place beneath his bed.
He turned the light out and lay back on the bed. Wedging a hand beneath his head, he stared up at the ceiling, at the brown stain he couldn't see in the dark, but he knew exactly where it was. He let out a shaky breath.
Just another night in the Garrett house.
