Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Hurt me? You nuts?” My grip tightens.

What did I blurt out? Why am I afraid to know? And why won’t he tell me?

“Let go now.” And he’s still cool. Cool and relaxed, despite the paleness of his face, cold in the face of my anger and fear, when I’m still seeing after-images of gore and my fucking heart still hasn’t slowed down. “I really have to go to work. We’ll talk later.”

He’s seeing right through me, straight to my weakness, my issues, the rotten core I don’t wanna let anyone see, when he should… he should…

What, Merc? Be your friend? Your brother? What does JC owe you?

Nothing.

“Let. Go,” he hisses, his cheeks finally flushing, a dangerous glint entering his eyes. He grabs my hands and pries them off him. He straightens his shirt. “Goddammit. Maybe I was wrong about you.”

“Maybe you were.”

“You’re looking for a fight. I’m not gonna give it to you. You should see a therapist, dude, like I am, help you work through your issues.”

Rubbing my hands over my face, I let out a long breath. Is he right? Is this what I want, to throw some punches, roll about, get my heart pumping for a reason other than terror?

“Fuck…” What am I doing? “Sorry.”

I stare at him, at this cool stranger, stare as he nods at me, then walks out of the kitchen. The apartment door slams shut behind him, and I stagger back until my back collides with the wall. I let myself slide down to the floor.

What the fuck am I doing? What’s happening to me? I haven’t picked a fight since I beat up my half-brother Ross, that asshole, back in Destiny, years ago.

Who are you? I ask myself. Were you inside me all along?

What have you done with Merc?

Over the following days I avoid my family, especially Gigi who can read me like an open book, and even the garage. Matt knows me way too well, and his brother and his buddy Evan who work the shop are bound to wanna talk and ask how things are.

Damn my inability to lie or wear a blank face, like JC.

Why didn’t he fight back?

Stupid question, Merc. Wrong question. The real question is why did you manhandle him? What got into you? Why did you go looking for a fight?

We haven’t talked since that morning, despite him saying we would. I’ve barely seen him this week, and maybe it’s better that way.

A headache is hammering on the inside of my skull day in and day out, and doesn’t seem to want to go away. It’s driving me up the wall, making it impossible to focus in class or on assignments, to listen to music and lose myself in its rhythm.

Between that and the sleepless nights, I’m fucking beat. Fucking done. It’s as if it’s getting worse. I’m getting worse. And no damn clue why.

There’s probably something I can do about it, need to do about it, but I’m locked in a spiral of exhaustion and stress. I bet my family know something’s off. It’s hard to hide it when I refuse to visit my sister Octavia and see the kids, when I refuse to have Sunday lunch at my mom’s with everyone. I’m not a recluse normally. I don’t a

void these meetings like other people I know.

But now I am.

I can’t see Octavia.

The thought startles me, and I stumble to a halt in the middle of campus, on my way to a history group project meeting.

Why Octavia? What’s my deal?

Wait, it’s something… something she said. She’d been talking about Destiny and Ross, wasn’t she? She’s been talking about Ross a lot more lately.

Maybe that’s why. Reminding me of Destiny, of my childhood, of everything that happened—or didn’t, because Jesus fuck I don’t even know anymore—it’s making the nightmares worse. Possibly. I mean, who the hell knows?