K A N E

Over Jake's shoulder, Delphinium locked eyes with me. "What did you just say?"

"Benny is my older brother. He went missing five years ago, and now I know where he's been this entire time."

"Okay, but Kane-"

I cut Jaxon off by pushing myself off the car and taking a few purposeful steps towards Delphinium. "You said that you had no idea whose face was behind that mask."

"I did." I hated that I couldn't read her expression.

"You lied. Why?"

She said nothing.

"I know why you lied," I said, taking another step closer to her. "I know why you couldn't bear to tell us his name."

Her voice was quiet. "Why?"

"Because you're guilty," I spat, pointing a finger at her. "You escaped. He didn't."

"Kane," she said, noticing the anger rolling off of me. "Okay, I did make an unwise choice, but-"

"You left my brother there to rot. To die!" I yelled; the echoes of my voice pierced the quiet neighborhood. "You knew how horrible is was to be there and you still left him."

"Wait." I remembered how she'd told us about how she'd burned down the fortress during her escape. "You didn't just leave him there. You purposely torched the entire place, even knowing that he was still enslaved there. You knew that he could die and you still did it."

I was getting closer to her now, so angry that I didn't know what to do. "He was your only friend, the only one who helped you there," I threw her own words back at her. "And look how his kindness was repaid."

"He's still alive," she told me in a controlled tone. "His life isn't over yet."

That meant almost nothing to me. He might have been alive, but that didn't erase the years of trauma and abuse he'd gone through. Friends didn't leave each other behind, especially not in a place like that.

"My brother is a murdering assassin now, like you. Do you have any idea of how that happened?" My voice shook with anger. At my sides, my fists curled.

"No." Another lie. What was she hiding this time? "I only ever knew that he was their prisoner. He was never an assassin when I was there."

"Or," I drew out, "Their favorite assassin escaped the fortress, leaving the spot open. He was probably the next one in line to be groomed as you were."

She looked at me. I was close enough to her to see her calm face in detail. Why was she calm? Did she know all these things already?

Nodding slowly, she said to me, "That does sound like them. They need someone to garner a dangerous reputation, someone to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. Of course they'd fill that spot once I was gone."

I glanced downward when I caught a flash of movement. She was holding one of her knives in her hand, ready to hurt me if I got any closer.

She left my older brother alone against Imperium, lied about it, and now she was ready to attack me? That was it.

I lunged forward. She didn't even seem surprised as she stepped to the side and kicked out her leg to trip me. I almost fell, but caught myself and got back on balance.

"Guys, we all know how much I love a good fight, but please-"

I didn't hear the rest of Jaxon's plea to us because before he could finish, I grabbed Delphinium's arms and pushed her against the brick wall that surrounded the community. There was a thud as her body gently collided with the stones. The knife fell from her hand with a clatter.

"Let me go," she demanded through clenched teeth. Her physical strength was no match for my own.

"You left my brother for dead," I repeated, my voice quieter now.

"He's not your brother any longer."

"Don't say that," I whispered. My arms were shaking but I didn't know why. Was it because of the anger or my sadness after learning my poor brother's fate?

"You need to know that," she continued on, looking up at me. "You need to know that after what they've done to him, he's not the same."

Did she think that comment was helpful? Was she actually using it to try to calm me down?

"Kane," Delphinium said slowly, "Get off of me. I don't want to hurt you."

"You don't want to hurt me?" I chuckled a bit. "You already have. You lied about my brother! What else are you keeping a secret about?"

Her frown deepened. Then, she ducked down and ground her heel into my foot. The pain shot through my leg but I didn't dare let go of her wrists.

"It doesn't have to be this way," she said, meeting my gaze again.

"Yes it does." I tightened my grip on her arms as her leg swung up to kick me. Because she was aiming for my groin, I jumped back. That caused me to weaken my hold on her so she was able to wrench her hands away.

As I curved my fist downward, she blocked my arm with her own. I did the same with my other arm but she dodged it and caught it with her free hand. Knowing that I had the advantage here, I began to force her back with slow, yet, steady steps forward. She was compelled to move where I was pushing her.

When I'd built up enough momentum, I pushed her hands away from me, causing her to go flying back. As she hit the ground, she rolled her body to absorb the impact and got right back up with a heated facial expression.

With a wave of her hand, the knife she'd dropped rose off of the ground and stopped inches away from the center of my chest. She was threatening to stab me but I wouldn't let that happen. I grabbed the hilt and tried to pry it away from me. The invisible force of her mind was strong, but I was stronger.

Through panting breaths, I finally pushed it off of me and threw it aside. We stared at each other intensely across the street. I began to walk forward, unsure of what I'd do when I reached her.

But I didn't get far. Jake threw out a hand, almost lazily, and formed a wall of ice between us. I couldn't see Delphinium through it.

"Are you two done?" Jake asked flatly. "We have work to do."

I wasn't done. I didn't know what I'd do about this new realization, but I'd figure my new plan out quickly.

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Jaxon stepped back from me when he finished tying me up in the poorly lit storage room. "This is just what Jake said to do. I don't know, man, just...sit in here until you've cooled off, okay? None of us want you and Delphinium to kill each other."

I said nothing. I didn't want Delphinium dead either, especially not at my hand. But her secret had deeply hurt me; I wanted her to feel the pain that I felt. My brother couldn't do anything about it anymore, so I would.

Shutting the door softly, Jaxon left me alone in the room. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back to face the dark ceiling. I forced myself to remember my lost brother despite the pain it caused every time.

I tossed and turned in my sleep.

In my dream, Benny had left Mama and I, just like Papa had. I was screaming and trying to run after his retreating form, but Mama held me back by the collar of my jacket.

She was whispering loudly, "Kane, let him go. It's your fault that he's leaving. You should have been able to save him." My heart froze when I heard her, and I stopped trying to break out of her grip. Was it my fault? What had I done?

"No," I murmured, refusing to believe it.

"Yes," Mama insisted, still holding me back. "Niño, look what you have done."

Who would leave me next? Mama? She was all I had now.

Then, I heard a different voice in my ear saying, "Kane, wake up! You're dreaming."

My sleepy eyes opened to find my brother sitting on the side of my rickety bed in the room that we shared. His face held kindness and comfort, while the Benny in my dream had been angry and merciless to my feelings.

"Do you want to talk about your dream?" Benny asked. I shook my head, and he nodded, respecting my wish. That's the thing I loved most about him: that he never judged.

"So what do you want to do now? Go back to sleep?" he asked me, concern shining in his kind brown eyes.

I thought for a minute, unsure of what I wanted, "Sí. Yeah, I guess."

He nodded again and got up from my bed, taking his warmth with him. I pulled the thin blanket up higher as I heard the creak of his bed as he climbed in.

There was silence in the small room before I broke it by asking, "Benny?"

"Yeah?" came his voice in the darkness.

"You won't ever leave me, right?"

He chuckled slightly, like the idea was so absurd that he'd never even considered it. "No, Kane. I'll never leave you. I promise."

I laid back in my bed, satisfied with his answer.

I didn't know it then, but he'd never kept his promise.

He'd lied.

Within a few years, he vanished from my life. He was gone, and no one knew where he went. My family had mourned him as if he was already dead. I'd been destroyed for weeks afterward. Eventually it had sunken in, but I never got used to it.

Surprisingly enough, he wasn't the only brother I'd lost. My mom had adopted a baby after she'd finished school, my older brother Alejandro. I hadn't been as close to him as I was with Benny, but he was still my brother, and I'd loved him as much.

We were all so proud when he joined the army fresh out of high school. As an eight year old, I didn't quite understand the gravity of what he was doing. I didn't understand why my mother was wiping tears out of her eyes as he left.

But a month later, those weren't the last tears for him.

Alejandro had saved his brothers-in-arms by jumping on a grenade that had been launched into where the troops had been stationed. He'd saved countless lives that night. But he'd been blown to pieces in the process.

As if my family hadn't already been torn apart enough, my father couldn't take the strain anymore, and he left my mother. He severed all ties with us and his much-needed income stopped supporting our already-struggling family. My mother was thrown into working three jobs, all while still taking care of four young children and my abuela.

When Benny went missing, something in me had just snapped. I'd already lost so much. So many people had just simply walked out of my life. So I'd distanced myself from my mother, wanting to protect myself from getting hurt any more.

When everything in my life had been flipped over, whether it was my father's departure, or Alejandro's death, Benny had been the one that was there for me. He'd been the only stable, safe point in my life. The only constant.

And then he was gone so quickly, and my world was quickly thrown into chaos. Without my one stable point, everything came crashing down.

Now he was back. Right as I was starting to come to terms with his death, he was just introduced back into my life.

And now he was a...murderer. A killer. He'd ended lives. The brother that I'd idolized, the boy that had been good at everything was now a cut-throat assassin. What had happened to him?

But then there came the biggest question: What happened when the ONNT ordered us to kill Benny? They wouldn't leave someone so erratic and dangerous alive. Would I actually have to kill my own brother along with my willing crew? Or would I risk trying to save him and have the guns turn to me instead?