Chapter 16

Berga wasn’t sure what he should do. He’d spent the better part of the past ten minutes wiping at the blood on his knee, but all he’d done was make it worse. Now there were smears of red all over his fingers and palms.

He was huddled in the corner, just beneath the stairs leading up to the second level, debating whether or not he should duck into the bathroom when he heard footsteps approaching. They were soft and light, followed by the hum of a tune he also knew by heart, having heard it so frequently.

Doll House Awakening had a beat that started bright and full of potential, only to lead the listener down a tunnel of despair before bringing them back up to the light. It was an emotional song.

Or so he’d been told.

Berga didn’t really much care for things like that. Things like music and ballet. But his sister adored them, and he adored her, so he’d memorized it and sat through all of her practices. She’d gotten the lead role in her school’s upcoming show and had been preparing earnestly. With only three days left to go, the excitement in the house was practically abuzz.

Maybe that’s why Berga had been so careless. He’d gotten up too quickly from the coffee table in the living room and had hit his knee against the edge. It was bad enough to draw blood, but he’d hurried out of the room before he’d made a mess of the carpet.

“Oh no,” Beryl appeared in her pink tulle skirt, probably having come straight home from practice. She stooped down before him and inspected the gash on his knee. “You hurt yourself, silly!”

“It looks worse than it is,” Berga said. “I made it worse.”

She took in his hands and hummed in agreement. “Come on, I saw mom put the extra bandages in the basement.”

The door leading down to that level of the house was right behind her, so it was a quick turn. She had it open and passed beneath the threshold before Berga moved an inch.

The light source to that area was all the way at the bottom, and even though he was six now and more than capable of taking care of himself, their parents still warned him against going there alone. He didn’t really mind, since stumbling about wasn’t really his idea of a fun time anyway.

Beryl never seemed to care though. She’d pop in and out of the basement without hesitation, so whenever he needed anything, she was more than willing to grab it for him or have them go together.

“Bergie,” she called to him, moving in the dark, “hurry up, you’re getting it all over! Dad will be angry with you again!”

Reminded of how he’d been scolded just yesterday had him shooting into action. They’d gone to Beryl’s favorite fast-food restaurant for dinner last night after her practice, and Berga had stupidly knocked her drink over into her lap.

She’d laughed it off since she’d only been in one of her practice outfits and had more, but their father had gone on and on about responsibility while their mother had struggled to blot the stains out of the tulle—purple, then.

“I like the pink one better,” Berga found himself saying, though the second he stepped onto the landing of the stairwell, it got too dark for him to make the color of her skirts out. Vitals had good night vision, but he was too young for his to really kick in yet.

“What did you say?” Beryl turned to glance at him over her shoulder and he made out the movement, though he couldn’t distinguish her features. She laughed, and he didn’t get the joke but smiled knowing she could see him at least. “Just don’t touch anything with those bloody hands.”

“Okay.” He held them out in front of himself, determined to listen. He always did what his big sister told him to. She knew best. There wasn’t a smarter person on the entire planet than Beryl.

“Follow me closely; I know you can’t see well.”

Berga listened to the sound of her steps on the stairs and concentrated on keeping one behind, the creaking of the old wooden boards leading him as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness surrounding them. He could make out her shape now but not much else.

“Is Rae coming to your performance?” he asked, wanting to before he forgot, but he must have said something wrong because his sister abruptly stopped.

“What? Why are you asking that?”

“I saw the two of you outside school the other day.” Berga frowned. “Aren’t you friends?” They’d been holding hands with each other. Oh. “Is he your boyfriend?”

He may only be six, but Beryl was fifteen and a teenager. That was practically an adult. Personally, he didn’t think that scrawny Rae Danvers was good enough for his sister, but she’d once explained to him that, as her brother, he needed to respect her decisions, so he’d pretend to like Rae if that’s what she wanted.

“Sort of?” She blew out a breath and started descending the stairs again, though her steps weren’t as careful as they’d been prior to his question.

He saw her head turn and peer at him a second time over her shoulder but barely made out where her mouth was when she spoke again.

“This is important, Bergie. Don’t tell—” Her words were cut off by a sharp scream as she missed a step and tumbled forward.

Berga lifted a hand toward her outline, about to grab onto her, but then recalled the blood on his hands. She’d told him not to touch anything, and here he was already about to break his promise. He pulled back and watched as her form crashed down the rest of the stairs and landed with a hard thud.

“Beryl?” Berga remained paused in the center of the staircase, blinking against the darkness. “Beryl, who shouldn’t I tell?”

Why wasn’t she answering?

“You said it was important,” he reminded. When there still wasn’t an answer, he folded his arm, careful not to touch his hand to his chest and stain his own shirt, and blindly felt around until his elbow made contact with the railing. Using that to guide him, he slowly made his way down, listening.

“Are we playing a game?” Sometimes she liked to tease him. She’d hide behind one of their bedroom doors or in their closet and jump out to give him a scare. “It’s not fun this time because I can’t see.”

Berga’s elbow came to the end of the railing and he paused before crouching down. He sat on the final step, planting both feet on the concrete floor before sliding them forward to doublecheck it was a flat surface from there. When his toes bumped against something, he frowned.

“Beryl?” He moved to his knees and shuffled forward until he came up against whatever was blocking the path. A rough material tickled at his skin and he recalled his injured knee too late. “Sorry. I don’t think I got blood on you though.” The bleeding had stopped before she’d found him hiding, after all. “Hey. Who shouldn’t I tell? You didn’t finish your sentence.”

This wasn’t going to do. He was going to need to use his hands.

“If you don’t say anything, I’m going to touch you. I know you said not to touch anything but…” It was obvious she’d fallen, he’d seen it happen—mostly—and clearly this was her on the ground and her skirts brushing against his knees. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Was she afraid?

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell dad.” Maybe her outfit was dirty and she was afraid of getting punished like he’d been. “Being grounded isn’t so bad. Beryl?”

She didn’t respond so Berga did as he said he would and reached out with the hand that’d been less dirty at the beginning. It’d probably dried there as well and he wouldn’t spread any blood to her anyway.

He felt the poof of her skirts first, then lifted his arm, carefully moving it up a couple of feet to where he imagined her shoulder might be before trying again. His fingers came into contact with something silky and soft and he realized it was her hair.

“Your clip fell out,” he said, still blindly touching her. Whenever he was scared, she’d cup his face and put their foreheads together and reassure him it was all going to be all right. He wanted to be there for her the same way she’d always been there for him. “Don’t worry, I—”

There was something wet.

“Are you crying?” He tipped his head closer but he couldn’t hear anything. It didn’t sound like she was crying. It didn’t sound like…

Anything.

“Beryl?” Berga forgot about her order not to touch anything entirely and reached out with his other hand, finding her shoulders and lifting her. It was a struggle because she was so much bigger than he was, but he managed to gather her close enough he knew her head was now in his lap.

He stared down until he could make out the blurry outline of her face. “Are you hurt?”

His fingers were sticky now around her throat, and he felt something sharp prick at the pad of his thumb but couldn’t identify it. Had she knocked herself out from the fall? It was possible.

“Kids?” his mother’s voice came from upstairs and he froze.

“Quick,” he whispered, leaning closer to his sister. “Tell me who I shouldn’t tell before they find us!”

“Where are they?” his father’s voice came next. “Beryl texted that she’d gotten home from practice safely, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” his mom said.

Beryl had been allowed to leave the house, but Berga had been grounded because of dinner last night. It wasn’t surprising they weren’t worried about where he was, and he didn’t really understand why that bothered him. Beryl was the talented and pretty one. Of course their first concern would be for her.

He should let them know where they were so they could help wake her up since it was clear she’d definitely fallen asleep now.

“Down here!” he called, waiting until he heard them coming down the hall. “We’re down here!”

His father appeared in the open doorway first, a dark outline with the source of light behind him. As a fully grown Vital, he could see perfectly in the darkness, and he must have seen something because almost immediately after he appeared, he started to curse and race down the stairs.

He barreled towards them and Berga actually clutched his sister closer. “She—”

Beryl was ripped away from him and shoved hard enough that he slammed into one of the metal cabinets. A box of stuff was shaken loose and fell over him, hitting his shoulder. He cried out, but his father didn’t seem to notice, too busy scooping up his sister.

“What’s wrong?” his mother arrived then. She didn’t seem to notice the same thing as their father, because she came down with more ease, reaching for the string to turn on the light at the landing. “Are the kids—” The light flickered to life and instead of finishing her sentence, she let out a shrill scream.

Why didn’t anyone want to keep talking to him?

Berga frowned and then followed her gaze, rubbing at his eyes first as the sting of the sudden light hurt them. When he blinked them back open, he thought maybe he was seeing things.

There’d only been a little blood before so how …

There was a trail of it leading across the gray floor where his father had pushed him. It was pooling at his heels still, and when he glanced down, he discovered crimson had stained through his light blue shorts and white t-shirt, practically dying them both red.

It was on the tip of his tongue to promise he wouldn’t touch anything and get it dirty, but then he took a better look at Beryl, now clutched tightly in his father’s hold.

She looked…off.

And there was blood all over her as well.

Sticking to her cheeks and her arms and…

“Why does she have a horn in her neck?” he wondered. The same sparkling material as the two tiny horns on his forehead protruded from the side of her throat, but it hadn’t been there before. His horns and hair color were the only pretty thing he’d gotten that she hadn’t, and he felt another wave of that odd feeling.

Their parents already liked her so much more than him…

His mother dropped to her knees and wailed, and though he’d never experienced sadness before, Berga recognized it from that time at grandfather’s funeral. She’d cried then, too, though not as fiercely. The look was the same though, he was positive of it.

What had Beryl called it?

…Grief.

One felt grief when a person died. So why—

His sister was always the best out of the two of them. This was no great revelation. If their roles had been reversed there was little doubt in Berga’s mind that she would have understood exactly what had transpired long before needing to witness their mother grieving.

That wasn’t a horn coming out of her neck.

It was bone.

His sister wasn’t sleeping. She was dead.

He’d had the chance to catch her but he hadn’t because she’d told him not to get anything dirty, yet here they both were, drenched in blood anyway. He was a dummy.

And judging by the loathing and disgust swirling in his father’s gaze when he looked over at him, their father knew it too.

“Butcher,” a new voice purred from the dark corner of the basement, the only area where the light swinging above them didn’t reach. “You look badass and dangerous.”

Berga frowned, mind blanking for a moment, unable to understand what was happening because…that wasn’t right. There hadn’t been anyone else with them at the house that day—

That day.

That day sixteen years ago.

This was a dream.

Almost as soon as he realized it, Madden stepped from the shadows. He was in his military training pants and boots but shirtless. The look he settled on Berga was kind despite the man’s overpowering stature—almost comforting. He crouched down, still a ways away, and smiled softly. His hair looked pretty as always. Sparkling in the basement’s golden, swinging light.

Berga wanted to touch it. But there was still blood on his hands.

“Planning on experimenting on me, Butcher?” Madden asked. “Mad Scientist? We can be mad together, what do you think?”

His parents were still screaming and crying, clinging to his sister’s corpse, but their sounds were getting harder to hear the more Madden spoke in that low drawl of his. It was confusing. Everything jumbled together, not making any sense.

“Butcher,” Madden’s gaze dropped to the blood-stained t-shirt Berga was wearing. “You look badass and dangerous.”

“That’s not…” He shook his head and dared turning back to his father. “He thinks I’m disgusting.” Unlovable.

“You look badass and dangerous.”

“No, I—”

“Should we help him?” another voice, this one more challenging to place and coming from nowhere yet everywhere all at once.

“He told us to protect the Butcher,” a reply from someone else, harried and clearly concerned.

“Yeah, but Madden is outnumbered down there! What if he’s injured or—”

Berga frowned at the dream Madden, who didn’t look the least bit concerned about what the voices were saying. “What’s going on?”

“I think it’s sexy,” he said. “I think you’ve never looked hotter than you do right now.”

When he glanced back at himself, Berga was no longer his six-year-old self but fully grown and dressed in his school uniform.

Because this was a dream, and everything Madden was saying was just repeats of things he’d said in the real world. But those other voices…Ah. One of them belonged to one of the racers Berga had walked in on that first night he and Madden had hooked up. The other was Bay.

He was fairly certain they hadn’t said anything then about Madden being outnumbered, which most likely meant…

He needed to wake up.

He needed to wake up.