Queen of Nothing

“Waste of space,” she spits out at me.

I can hear her breathing heavily and I want to know so badly what’s going on in her mind right now. I don’t understand why she wants me to be punished for this. Why does she think I’m to blame? Maybe I should have done more. Maybe I am to blame. I don’t open my eyes, my head hurts, and I can’t possibly handle coming face to face with her right now.

I shook the memory out of my head like an oncoming migraine as I jostled awake in the car.

“Good dream?” Zerkos chuckled.

“Hardly,” I crossed my arms over my chest and propped the seat back to an upright position. I looked down at the navigation app, it read that we were about ten minutes out from our destination. I let a big exhale out as I tried to contain my nerves, but I knew one thing for sure, my brother and I needed to be united when we walked in there together, and the only way that was going to happen was if we cleared the air.

“I didn’t fuck her,” I told him for the second time in three days, hoping that counted for something. He only raised his eyebrow at me, barely shifting his eyes from the road at all.

“Maybe the only reason you didn’t fuck her is because, I interrupted you?” he asked, his tone void of any emotion and I worried we were slipping into risky territory here. Did she tell him what we did?

“Maybe,” I confessed, and his eyes shifted off the road to me considerably longer this time and I had to grab the steering wheel to keep us on the road. “Do you want a brother who’s going to lie to you and keep you ignorantly happy or do you want someone you can trust unquestionably?” I asked him, a bit angry that he’d get pissed off at my honesty.

“Can I trust you unquestionably?” His nostrils flared out angrily with his words.

He yanked the steering wheel and swerved off the road bringing the car to a screeching halt. He was looking dead ahead at the road, refusing to turn my way when he said, “Get out Kane.” His voice was almost monotone, but I’d learned enough in the last twelve years to know that this was when his rage took over, when he seemed most void of emotion.

“Brother, don’t be ridiculous. We’re hours from–”

“GET THE FUCK OUT KANE!” He took his pistol from the cupholder and pointed it at my head.

I was dumbfounded, but I knew my brother well enough to know he didn’t point a gun unless he meant to kill. I raised my hands above my head and opened the car door, unbuckling the seatbelt with one hand while the other stayed raised like I was dealing with a wild fucking bear or some shit.

I got out of the car and realized the fucker wasn’t completely insane, ready to strand me in between Grimm’s Reach and Cove City. He threw the pistol in the back seat and got out as well, and relief ran through me as I realized he wasn’t planning to bury me here. He crossed the front of the car in a few swift steps and his gait was enough to let me know what he was after. I felt the heavy weight of his fist against my cheek, and he knocked me back a few steps before he got another good hit in.

I caught the next hit and returned one back with my free hand and the asshole laughed at me instead. My next punch landed again, and it encouraged him to throw one more in and that was the one that split my lip open. I spat a wad of blood on the ground and grabbed Zerkos by the shirt and pulled him in closer.

“If we fight, there isn’t a winner. There’s just two dead fuckers on the side of the road and an entire organization we leave in Santo’s hands.” I told him looking into his green eyes, our foreheads pressed together throwing me back into the days when we were forced to be this close in order to best our enemies.

He snarled and turned his head to the side. He pushed me away with a hard shove and walked around the car again, opening the back door and grabbing the pistol.

I raised my eyebrow at him as he walked my way and pointed the pistol near my feet.

He fired each shot with an intense burning in his eyes that begged him to point a little more to the left.

When the click of the empty clip sounded out, he threw the gun at my feet with an angry yell before returning to the car.

I let him sit there, fuming, for probably a good ten to fifteen minutes. When I could finally see his shoulders moving a little less and his breathing started to steady, I opened the car door and planted myself in the passenger seat once again.

His eyes turned back to the road, and he didn’t say anything else but now I felt compelled to lay it all out. There was no one else I could talk to about it anyway, no one else who would understand the torment I was dealing with day in and day out. Except maybe the other man who was just as cursed as me.

“She makes me feel things brother, things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anymore. Not since Andrea.” Our eyes met again for a split second, and I didn’t see an ounce of anger or hatred in them. “She drives me insane, I’m not sure I’m even in control of myself anymore.” I kept going, “Nothing hurts me when she’s around. Except for her, she’s good at hurting me, and the worst part is that I like it.”

“It’s absolute madness, isn’t it?” he said as the corner of his lips fought a smile, “The way she does that? She doesn’t even know what she’s doing, and I think that’s the part that I love the most.” He looked at me. “You get why I’m so fucked now don’t you?” he asked.

“I do,” I told him, and he turned the key and began to drive once again.

“Stay away from my girl, or I will kill you, brother,” he said, and my stomach dropped.

We pulled into the gravel drive that took us into the Diablos Locos compound, and a skinny kid, probably barely eighteen years old, wound the gate back for us to pull through.

“Who you here for?” he asked, chomping on a piece of gum.

“I’m here to see your Pres,” Ronan told him, and the kid said something into a walky-talky and pointed us in the direction he wanted us to park. Too late to turn back now.