“What did they make you do?” I didn’t feel the need to elaborate. There was only one thing standing between us. He watched me intently but I wasn’t about to back down again.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.” His tone was desolate and I wondered what he meant by that. “I made my first kill for them when I was six.”

“How? You were so young.”

“It’s amazing what you’re willing to do when you’re starving and don’t know a way out. They used anything they could to control us. Before long I stopped noticing the hunger pains or thirst and the scars healed before I ever knew they were even there.”

There were so many questions swimming in my head but I didn’t want to interrupt. His gaze was distant and his entire body was so still.

“They started me off small. First it was other kids they wanted to punish until I made my way up to adults. After two years of murdering I became one of their best. I was a fucking eight-year old kid. I stopped thinking and I stopped feeling. It kept me alive.”

“That isn’t living,” I argued.

“How would you know?” he asked with anger and I realized that he was right. I wouldn’t know – I was judging. It wasn’t like he had a choice.

“I’m sorry.” He nodded and continued.

“She came in the middle of the night like a bad fucking dream—just like you except you were much more real. I spent weeks ignoring her while they beat her endlessly. She was so small and so innocent. I thought she was weak when she wouldn’t do what she was told. One day I guess the hunger overrode her fear because one of the runners caught her digging in the trash for food and beat her. He beat her so bad that day that I finally did something I shouldn’t have.”

“What did you do?” I asked while fighting back tears for the picture he painted of the young, helpless child.

“I stopped him from caving her head with the heel of his boot as if she was nothing. Two years of work went down the drain because of one wrong move. I still didn’t regret it, at least not at first. She clung to me after that and looked to me as her protector. Everyday I took her beatings and mine and often I was too weak to make any kills so they became crueler. I began to hate her after a while. I blamed her for making me weak again when all she wanted me to do was care about her. I didn’t want to so I don’t know why I helped her. I just did.”

He moved to sit in one of the desks and held his fists clenched out in front of him. “What happened to her?”

“One day after a run they told me I had a job to do, one that would cost me my life if I didn’t do it. What they didn’t know was that I didn’t care if I lived or died but I accepted anyway. They took me to a room that I’d never seen before. Lily was there, waiting. She was naked and crying and I saw the bruises and gashes all over body.”

“Why was she naked?” I was afraid for the answer but I had to know. I needed to understand how deep their cruelty ran.

“They wanted me to – we had – they wanted me to fuck her for some sick fantasy that a lot of sick, old fucks were paying a shit load of money to get on camera.”

“Oh God, Keiran…”

“She looked so broken and I could tell she had nothing left. I couldn’t do it. Out of all the jobs and people I’d hurt, this was something I couldn’t do. That’s why I was relieved when she asked me to do it.”

“Do what?”

“To save her.”

“But you were in danger too.” He shook his head and looked up at me.

“I didn’t care what happened to me.”

“How could you have saved her?”

“The only way that mattered,” he said cryptically but I knew what he was saying. She asked him to kill her. “I took away her pain and I took away her fear. I went to her and I laid her down and closed her eyes. In that space of time I tried to find another way but in the end I kept coming back to the same answer.”

“You were only a child.”

“I was never a child, Lake. For ten years my decision has haunted me. When I saw you for the first time I thought you were her and then I thought I was hallucinating. You looked just like her. But when I finally realized it wasn’t her, I knew I was being punished. You reminded me so much of her.” He finally looked at me with a painful expression. “Are you here to punish me?”

“I never wanted to punish you, Keiran.” What am I saying?

He shook his head. “I think I was punishing myself and looking for someone to blame.”

“Did you love her?” It was crazy to feel jealousy for an eight year old but the emotion he carried for Lily was strong.

“No.”

“Because you don’t believe in love?”

“Would you?”

“How did your father get you back?” I asked him rather than answer his question. I didn’t know what to believe in anymore. “Wouldn’t they have killed you when you ruined their plans?”.

“I wasn’t killed for disobeying them by a stroke of luck named Mario. It seems his only vice was child prostitution and pornography. He saved me from being killed and severed his business ties with his partner shortly after, but not before leaving me a way to contact him if I ever needed anything but mainly if I wanted to work for him. I didn’t fool myself to think he cared.”

“And your father?”

“A couple of weeks after Lily died, I was snuck from the compound by one of the runners my father had in his pocket. I was with Mitch for a week before Sophia showed up, though I didn’t know who she was – not at first. He told me who he was right away. I didn’t know who she was until after she died.”

“Did you really kill her?”

“Yes.” I had been hoping that somehow, Mitch was lying. That Keiran didn’t kill his mother. But if he didn’t know…

“Why?” He looked up at me again, his eyes void of emotion or feeling.

“Why not?”

“Because she was innocent.”

“Was she?”

“But –”

“There is no such thing as innocence,” he barked. “How many mothers do you know would let their child be taken without even trying?”

“So you killed her because of it?”

“I didn’t know she was my mother when I put the fucking bullet through her fucking skull,” he spat.

“Are you even sorry for it?”

“I don’t regret what I can’t fix. She’s dead – you don’t come back from that.” He stood up, hurriedly and the momentum pushed the desk back a few feet. He was walking past me and had reached the door before I realized what was happening.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m done talking.”

“But what about Mitch? He knows where you are now. He knows where all of us are.”

“I know,” he said as he turned his head around to face me but kept his hand on the door. “You were almost killed because of me. I do regret that, which means I can fix it.”

“How are you going to fix it?” I asked suspiciously.

“I’m letting you go,” he said and slammed out of the room.

* * *

I was left standing alone in the dusty classroom. I’m letting you go. The reality of his words didn’t hit me until I was left standing alone with the feeling of my heart breaking. Before Keiran I didn’t think a heart was capable of breaking so many times. After everything he’d done do I just let him leave? Before I could stop myself, I stormed out into the hallway.

“So that’s it then?” The hallway was full of people heading to their first class and when I yelled down the hallway at him, they all stopped to watch us.

He turned back to face me. “That’s all I’m willing to give you.”

“You torment me for ten years, fuck me silly for the past two months, and make me fall in love with you. Then, if that’s not enough, you almost get me killed because of your asshat dad, and you think you can just walk away because you think it’s the right thing to do?”

“I don’t give a fuck about what’s right. It’s safer this way.”

“Says who?”

“Says my brother who is lying in the hospital fighting for his life because of me!” he yelled. The hallway erupted with whispers and shocked sounds at his outburst. No one knew yet that Keenan and Keiran were actually brothers.