Chapter 1: QUIN NASH

One

QUIN NASH

M y best friend has no idea how bad things have been since she left Kansas. I'm a different person than the one Juliette left behind. I weighed myself the day she left, and now I'm so much heavier than that – 200 lbs – pretty heavy for a woman my height. It doesn't feel like I gained an extra fifty in the time she left, but I have objective proof that I did.

It's not like I can help it. Well, I could. But it's the only pleasure available to me in captivity. So I eat. I gain weight. And I text my best friend who is off on her wild adventure like everything is just fine…

Because it has to be. Because that's what I have to pretend for me to survive under these conditions. I tried escaping. But you don't understand what it's like to live with not one but two people who feed off each others' darkness, watch them feed off of each other to destroy another person, and then leave that person behind to destroy you. My life started off crazy with the fact that two white Christians adopted me and then later, my older brother. But they had me first, technically.

My adoptive parents, Marie and Klaus Nash met on a mission trip to New Orleans after the big hurricane in 2004. They were older – much older – and when they died last year, they left me in the custody of my older brother. They adopted Eugene after they adopted me, but he's still three years older and he's always been… strange.

You would have to understand my parents to understand why they chose him of all people. I can hear him from my bedroom as I lie in bed, one hand lazily moving blue Takis from the bag to my mouth. I don't dare let him know I'm awake yet. I can hear Eugene's heavy grunting as he does his "workout" downstairs.

For the first three months after he came home when they passed, I thought he was serious about going back into the Army until I found the dishonorable discharge documents that mean he's out on his ass with no healthcare or benefits, just the money our racist, German parents left us in their will.

Shit. Silence follows the heavy grunting as Eugene shuts the television off. I don't know how he knows I'm awake. Maybe he just senses it, maybe it's because he just knows me too well.

"QUIN! GET DOWN HERE!"

I'm nineteen, right? I shouldn't have to listen to him. I don't have to listen to anyone. I know I locked my bedroom door, so against my better judgment, I defy Eugene's command and throw my blankets over my head. I would much rather scroll on Instagram than have another fight.

I should just leave. Except Eugene has a shotgun leaned up against the outside of my door and a rifle in his bedroom. Guns cover every last inch of this house and he has made good on his threats to use them. There are still two holes in the front door from where he "warned me" with a .22.

"QUIN GET YOUR FAT ASS UP," he yells. I squeeze my eyes shut and hope he gets bored instead of coming upstairs. I have been Eugene's punching bag since I was ten years old and he was thirteen. I never asked for a brother and I definitely never asked for one like him.

When I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs, I can't help but hop out of bed and rush to the door. I've gained so much weight the past few months that it takes everything in me to get to the door.

He won't let me leave the house. He hasn't let me since they died.

When I call the cops, who do you think they believe?

He mutters angrily to himself as he walks upstairs. I think he's hearing voices. I think something happened in the Army that started them, but I don't know what it is. I'm not a damn psychologist. All I know is that I'm stuck with this man until I convince him to set me free or find another way out.

My palms sweat as he approaches the door and the bubbles in my stomach flutter around until they clog my throat. He knocks on the door.

"I can see your feet under the door."

"I'm unwinding, Eugene."

"From what?"

I can see his feet under the door too and judging by the gentle rattling, he's trying the handle and he doesn't want me to know.

"Just leave me alone."

"I want to see you, Quin."

No.

"We hung out yesterday, Eugene. I'm tired. Maybe if I could get some sunlight–"

He interrupts my request by slamming his hand against the door. Hard.

"Goddamn it, you bitch!"

I can't help myself. I flinch and back away from the door. He scares me, but he has limits. Somewhere beneath the demon that took over my adoptive brother's mind, I imagine there are limits. There have to be.

"Relax, Eugene," I respond. "I'm just saying–"

He normally calms down after breakfast. After he gets a few things done. After he works out his demons for a few hours.

"You weren't just fucking saying," he says, rattling the door handle more intentionally this time. "You know I'm keeping your ass safe."

He rattles the door more aggressively. The sweaty palms and tight throat turn into full blown panic symptoms. I already tried using everything in my bedroom that could be a weapon. But have you ever tried fighting off a 6'5", 260 lb American soldier? He wins. Every time. It doesn't matter what weapons I have.

I lick the blue Taki dust off my fingers, but the remnants of salt and cheesy flavor do nothing to bring me the immediate calm I have come to count on.

"You don't understand how bad it is out there–"

Here we go again.

He blames the government for killing our parents. He thinks they "unleashed the virus" and that our parents' unfortunate death from the disease that swept across the globe is a government conspiracy by "pedophile elites". Shortly after they entered the ICU together after their Florida cruise went wrong, Eugene got his discharge.

Their deaths turned him into… this. And I am utterly at his mercy.

Or I was.

Today, I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of being trapped. I'm tired of the way my body feels from all of this weight gained, lying here in my bedroom staring at a screen while life passes me by just because Eugene is completely fucked up.

"Get away from the door, Eugene."

He stops rattling the door handle, but I'm not foolish to think that means he's giving up. We've been here before. Too many times.

"Why won't you let me in, Quin?" he asks as the tone of his voice transforms. He sounds eerily calm and even more terrifying — insincere.

"Just go away, Eugene," I say, sounding frustrated. "You just need… breakfast."

You never know the right thing to say when you're dealing with someone who doesn't think rationally. I don't quite understand how he connects the dots in his head.

"You're right," he says. "Can you make something for me? My head hurts."

He complains about these headaches on most days and they seem to affect how he functions with various degrees of severity. I approach the door and almost unlock it. Our last fight ended with me getting cuts all over the backs of my calves, so I'm hesitant to open the door and subject myself to another brutal beating for some perceived slight.

"Promise you won't do anything crazy?"

The length of time he pauses should give me cause for concern, but I'm too busy managing the stress wrapping all my muscles in tight, impossible knots.

"I promise."

For all his faults, he has never broken a promise before. I hide the tension I feel with a calm smile on my face. He is too unpredictable for me to show any emotion beyond… this.

"Are you sure?" I ask as my hand hovers over the handle.

"I promise, little sister."

It has never sounded right for a pale, 6'5" white man to call me his ‘little sister'. Eugene was originally from Ukraine. I remember Klaus saying, "We wanted a white baby in the first place", when they got the opportunity to adopt. He didn't care that I was right there.

Neither of them cared about stuff like that. They acted one way in private and completely differently in public. Living like that was hell. It took a lot of time alone to even figure it out. But they were total hypocrites.

"We teach our kids to see beyond race," my mother said to a group of parents once. "All the stuff is in the past. We don't need black and white. We just need Jesus."

And we had a lot of Jesus. Maybe a little too much Jesus judging by some of the deranged prayers I've heard coming out of Eugene's mouth when he should be sleeping. But he's not talking to himself now and he seems a little more calm, so I remind myself that my body just responds like this out of habit.

He hasn't killed me yet. I can get through this interaction…

So I open my bedroom door.

And scream.

Eugene lunges forward holding a large butcher knife in his hand. I slam my door immediately, squeezing his hand in the frame, but not hard enough for him to drop the knife. He grunts and forces the door open. I take a couple of quick steps backwards before losing my balance.

It hurts like hell when I fall. The pain sears through my hips and back and I nearly black out for a second.

Eugene lunges forward wielding the knife with every intention of hurting me. I can see it in his eyes even if I have no explanation for it…

He wants me dead.