Brandon had studied the martial art of aikido for more than ten years under Jackson’s tutelage, and had kept the practice up on his own through the use of internet training videos and online resources after Jackson had left the Brethren farms. As a child who had been bullied pretty relentlessly by his older brother, Brandon had found his self-confidence bolstered on account of the training. It had also proven handy on more than one occasion—particularly in the last year—in real-life situations that had required him to defend himself.
The central philosophy of aikido was the neutralization of an attack, not the implementation of one. Because of this, Brandon decided his best approach would be to get Aaron to attack him by feigning an initial move. Once Aaron came at him, he’d be blundering head-long into Brandon’s comfort zone: defending himself.
Aaron didn’t move, didn’t step back or even adjust his footing as Brandon limped forward, keeping his stride wide enough to maintain a cautious ready-stance. He just watched, his gaze locked with Brandon’s.
Aaron, it’s me—it’s Brandon Noble. He decided no matter what Lamar had said, he’d try and reach Aaron, reason with him. Listen to me. Your father’s making you do this. He’s fucking with your head.
Brandon thrust his fist forward, swinging for Aaron’s face. He’ll side-step to avoid getting hit, he figured. He’s probably counter by going for a gut punch, because I’ll have that area wide open to him.
And when Aaron did that, Brandon knew he could angle his body to match the direction of his forward motion, then use that momentum against Aaron by catching him in a wrist-lock and twisting out, immobilizing him with the shocking pain this grasp caused, and dropping him to his knees.
From there, it’s game over, Brandon thought. That kind of strain on the joints could be as brutal and incapacitating—if not more so—than any strike or blow. He’d seen men Jackson’s size caterwaul like toddlers when caught in such a hold. Aaron would go down for sure.
Aaron cut to his left, just as Brandon had anticipated, but then—unexpectedly—he reached out, intercepting Brandon’s feint, and snapping his fingers closed around Brandon’s wrist.
Shit—! Brandon thought, eyes flown wide in start, as Aaron yanked him forward, his opposite hand shooting out, the heel of his palm smashing into Brandon’s chin. Brandon’s head snapped back, and he had a split-second to realize, as Aaron’s hand slid down his arm to encircle his wrist between both hands…
Holy shit, he knows aikido—!
…before Aaron craned his wrist at an abrupt, excruciating angle, dropping Brandon to his knees like a sack of bricks. Aaron leaned over, putting his full weight against Brandon’s arm. As Brandon reflexively bent his arm, Aaron shifted his grip, grasping his elbow and rotating it toward the younger man’s shoulder. Brandon face-planted in the carpet, grimacing, as Aaron squatted, continuing to turn Brandon’s arm, effectively completing the nikiyo pin maneuver, as it was known in aikido. Just when Brandon thought Aaron meant to wrench his shoulder completely out of socket—snapping his wrist at the same time— Aaron released him, opening his hands and standing again, his footsteps light as he stepped away.
“Come on,” he said with a light chuckle. “Is that the best you can do?”
With a wince, Brandon stumbled upright, cradling his sore arm to his belly. Nice move. Where’d you learn it?
Hawaii, Aaron replied. Starting about 1952. Learned quite a few moves, in fact. I trained under Koïchi Tohei Sensei.
Brandon knew the name; Jackson had mentioned it during his training. Sensei Tohei was one of aikido’s pioneers; he’d introduced the martial art to the West from Japan after the Second World War. He was considered a true master; one of the greatest aikido experts who had ever lived.
Which means I’m officially fucked.
He stepped back, shifting his feet to maintain a ready stance, and again curled his fingers lightly inward toward his palms. Aaron, listen to me, he said—because if Aaron was responding to him, then he could hear him—at least some of the time. Lamar might have been stifling Aaron’s telepathy, but Brandon’s was returning in fits and spurts, slowly but surely, thanks to the juice. I’m not who you think I am.
Oh, really? Aaron blocked Brandon’s next strike with his forearm, simultaneously lashing out with his opposing fist. Then who the hell are you?
Brandon had anticipated the blow, and started to cut to the left. My name’s Brandon, he said. I’m here to help—
Aaron surprised him by not going for his face or head, as expected, and instead, struck him nearly straight-on in the solar plexus. Whoofing for breath, eyes bulging, Brandon doubled over—only to have Aaron thrust his knee up, catching him squarely in the groin. The blow caught him completely off-guard and unprotected. Brandon crumpled to the floor again, hands between his thighs, breathless and shuddering in pain.
Looks like you’re the one who needs some help, not me, Aaron said, stepping back, keeping his hands in light, ready fists. That was krav maga, by the way. Israeli military hand-to-hand combat. I trained with the Haganah in 1946. With a wink and a smile, he added, In case you were wondering.
Listen to me, Brandon pleaded. When he tried to stumble to his feet, Aaron sent him crashing down again with a swift roundhouse kick to the side of his head that left him seeing sparkling pinpoints of light in his immediate line of sight.
A fouetté, Aaron told him. One of the signature kicks in the savate style of French kickboxing. They prefer to use the foot alone, while in the Irish variant, speachóireacht, you use the shin predominantly…
He moved to kick Brandon again, but Brandon intercepted his leg, catching him by the ankle, leaving Aaron to hop clumsily in place.
Jesus, and you said I talk too much! Brandon exclaimed, twisting his leg sharply.
With a yelp, Aaron fell sideways, toppling to the floor while Brandon struggled to get up. He tasted blood in his mouth and spit weakly. He meant to get his feet beneath him but Aaron recovered from his surprise more quickly than he’d hoped. He drove his heel against the side of Brandon’s jaw, snapping his head toward his opposite shoulder and sending him sprawling back to the floor.
He felt Aaron’s fingers brush through his hair, then gritted his teeth as the other man grabbed him roughly, jerking his head back.
Is this the best you can do? Aaron asked again. His face was glossed with sweat, his hair askew, and he gasped for ragged breath. With his free hand, he caught Brandon firmly beneath the shelf of his chin and, forcing him to his feet, shoved him back against the nearest wall. Damn, and I thought you Serbs were supposed to be bad-asses.
I’m not a Serb! Brandon managed to wedge his fingers beneath Aaron’s thumb and, with a violent jerk, wrenched it back far enough to hurt—and more importantly, to break his otherwise iron grip against his chin. The moment Brandon felt his hand loosen, he caught Aaron by the wrist, shoving forward to torque his entire arm out. Aaron danced clumsily, struggling to break free as Brandon hyperextended his arm behind him, then pinned it against the small of his back.
Listen to me, goddamn it! Gritting his teeth, Brandon shoved him forward, slamming him into the wall. Whatever you’re seeing, whatever you think is going on—none of it’s real! Your father’s fucking with you, Aaron. You have to get him out of your head!
You’re right. With a snarl, Aaron pushed forcefully away from the wall. Brandon staggered back, losing his hold on Aaron’s arm as he fell to the floor, landing hard on his ass.
The only person who could fuck with my head is my father, Aaron said, balling his fists. And since you seem so goddamn determined to mess with me, too, I’m thinking that you and he might just be one and the same.
What? Brandon’s eyes flew wide. No. No, Aaron, that’s not—
Say something in Serbian. Aaron’s brows narrowed. Kako se zoveš? Odakle si?
I…I don’t… Brandon began, shaking his head.
I said say something in Serbian, Aaron said again as Julianne walked toward him, holding a pistol in her hand. She carried it by the muzzle, her arm extended, offering it to him butt-first. He didn’t avert his gaze from Brandon, didn’t seem to notice her at all, but when he reached for his shoulder holster—which was now empty—she positioned the gun so that he grabbed it from her in the same motion.
Aaron pointed the gun at Brandon, closing the distance between them in a single, swift stride. Brandon flinched as he shoved the barrel against his forehead.
“Nice try, Lamar,” he murmured, his forefinger flexing lightly against the trigger.
I’m not your father! Brandon cried, shoulders hunched, eyes closed. God, don’t shoot! My name’s Brandon Noble. You saved my life no more than an hour ago. You rescued me from your father, who’s trying to harvest my blood and turn it into some kind of drug—just like I saw them doing to you when I was a kid!
Aaron flinched as if Brandon had slapped his face, and Brandon felt the muzzle of the pistol slip slightly away.
What do you mean, when you were a kid? Aaron asked softly.
They’d cut up your arm, Brandon said. I saw Julien and my grandmother there. They were taking your blood. Your father told them to.
His voice faltered. I’m sorry, he whispered. I wanted to help but I got scared. My father wouldn’t believe me, and I…I was just a kid. I was scared. There was nothing I could do. They’d skinned you alive—your whole arm, from the shoulder down… You begged me to help you. You begged me not to go.
He looked up at Aaron, ashamed. In that moment, as with Julianne, he caught a sudden flash of Aaron’s memories—not Aaron actively projecting them, as his brother Julien had done, but Brandon’s own telepathy awakening after its drug-induced hibernation. He felt it surge within him, his mind opening fully, and he broke through Aaron’s defenses, the natural shields he’d erected to protect his innermost thoughts and feelings, memories he had struggled to protect from his father—or anyone else.
He saw the night of Lamar’s five hundredth birthday through Aaron’s eyes, or at least those fleeting moments after which he’d regained consciousness while strapped to the gurney. At first he hadn’t remembered what had happened to him, or where he was. He only knew that his arm hurt; his entire body, but especially his left arm, felt like it had been plunged into a bank of well-stoked embers, submerged from shoulder to fingertips among the red-hot coals. He opened his mouth, sucking in a deep breath to scream, but stopped when he sensed something—someone—in the room with him.
It wasn’t Julianne or his brother, even though they would sometimes be with him whenever he’d come to, cleaning him up and offering him comfort. It wasn’t Lamar, even though he, too, would sometimes come to sit with Aaron following whatever beatings or abuse he’d been made to endure. As a man who’d once derived sexual satisfaction almost exclusively from the acts of either forcing himself on an unwilling partner or by inflicting pain and humiliation on even the most agreeable of lovers, Lamar enjoyed watching the administration of punishment and pain upon Aaron—and was equally fascinated by his son’s stubborn refusal to physically give in to it by crying out. Over the years, it had become a challenge to him to see just how much Aaron could take. It was a threshold that hadn’t been crossed by the night of his birthday celebration—or since.
On that night, it had been a young boy whose presence had drawn Aaron’s attention. He’d found the boy—all wide, frightened eyes and dark, unruly hair—standing beside him, ashen and trembling. His gaze kept darting to Aaron’s left arm, and Aaron remembered now in grisly detail that the skin had been removed—Julianne had cut it from him in long, slender ribbons, meticulously fashioning each incision and slice so as to minimize damage to his underlying tissue, and to maximize the excruciating pain the grueling process had demanded.
The boy was Brethren; Aaron could feel the familiar sensation in his mind, even though by that point it had been more than a century since he’d seen any others of his kind except for his brother, cousin, or father. He clutched at the boy’s hand, hurting, exhausted. The physical contact triggered something within Aaron, a sensation of a deeper, more visceral sort—the realization that he and this boy shared much more in common than their Brethren heritage.
“Please,” he moaned, speaking simultaneously with his mind. You’re like me, he wanted to say, but the pain was so immense. It pulled at his consciousness as relentlessly as the tide, threatening to drag him under, to drown him. You’ve tasted the first blood.
I…I’ll get help, the boy whimpered, wiggling his way free from Aaron’s grasp.
No, Aaron pleaded. He wanted to warn the boy; he struggled against the cuff restraining his right arm to reach for him. No, please…don’t…!
Because the boy didn’t understand. If Lamar found him—if he realized there was another like Aaron with the first blood within him—he’d be trapped just like Aaron.
Don’t come back, he’d wanted to tell him.
I’ll get help, the boy said as he scampered away. I’ll get my dad. I…I’ll be right back…!
“No, don’t!” Aaron had screamed aloud, ragged and hoarse, summoning his voice at last. It had taken every last remaining ounce of strength he’d possessed; he’d been unable cry out telepathically to the child, unable to even hold on to the last vestiges of consciousness left in his mind. “No,” he pleaded, but it had been too late—the boy was gone. “No, you…you can’t…”
* * *
Aaron staggered back, shoving the heels of his hands against his temples, his brows knitted in a deep furrow, his teeth clenched as if he felt pain.
“Get…out of my head…!” he gasped. He still clasped the gun in one hand, and began to hit himself with the side of the barrel, as if hoping to pummel Brandon out of his memories. “Get out of my head—get out of my goddamn head!”
With a hoarse cry, he thrust the gun out and squeezed the trigger. He wasn’t aiming at anything or anyone in particular, but Brandon cowered reflexively, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders at the sudden, bright flash of gunpowder.
His eyes wide and panic-stricken, Aaron fired again and again, each time swinging his arm in a new and different direction, spraying the entire room with bullets. Glass showered down from overhead, along with an explosion of sparks as a bullet hit one of the light fixtures. When another struck the stainless steel wheel to which Julianne had planned to bind and keep Augustus, it ricocheted with a flash of sparks, then struck the floor less than a foot away from Brandon’s knee. Bullets flew into the walls, the ceiling, and sailed into the farthermost corners and shadow-veiled recesses of the room. Even when the clip was empty, Aaron continued squeezing the trigger, arm swinging back and forth, wild and pendulum-like. At last, the gun fell from his hand, clattering to the floor, and Aaron collapsed to his knees.
“He was in my head,” he gasped, his chest heaving, his eyes round and desperate as he stared at Brandon. “Please…God, he was inside my head.”
Not me, Brandon realized, lowering his hands from his face. Lamar. He’s been trying to get his father out of his mind.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lamar lying on his back on the floor. Julianne had folded herself over him, hiding his face, and it took Brandon a moment to realize this wasn’t a protective posture, but a grief-stricken one. Her entire body shuddered as she clutched at her uncle, and when she looked up at Aaron, her mouth hung open in a scream, her cheeks wet with fresh tears.
“Bastard!” she screamed. Brandon saw blood on the front of her dress—Lamar’s blood. At least one of Aaron’s shots hadn’t proven so random after all, and this time, it didn’t appear that the old man was playing possum.
“You bastard!” she screeched, staggering to her feet. “He…he’s dead, you bastard! You killed him!”
Fists balled, she stumbled over to Aaron and began to punch him, swinging wildly and striking him in the face, head, and shoulders. “He gave us everything! Everything we ever had! He made you what you are, you worthless son of a bitch—you’re nothing without him!” Again and again, she pummeled him, sobbing all the while. “You’re nothing without Lamar!”
He’s free without him. Brandon grabbed her roughly by the arm and spun her around to face him. Before she could open her mouth to gasp in shock—or summon another of those devastating psionic bolts to use against him—he punched her in the face with all of his might, feeling her nose crunch at the impact of his knuckles, her front teeth jarring loose from the force.
Julianne crumpled in a heap, out cold from the blow. Brandon looked down at her, his heart seized with a mixture of pity and disgust. Then he turned, holding out his hand to Aaron.
Can you walk? he asked.
Aaron blinked dazedly at him, then nodded. Hooking his hand against Brandon’s, he let the younger man pull him to his feet. “I…I think so.”
Good, Brandon said. I say we get the hell out of here.
Aaron managed a feeble smile. “Sounds good.”
* * *
They leaned heavily against each other like the blind—or in this case, the deaf-mute—leading the lame as they limped toward the doors.
Hang on a minute, Aaron said, and when he paused, Brandon glanced up at him. “I need to check on something first,” he said aloud—and didn’t need to add that the something was Lamar.
Brandon nodded. Okay.
Aaron walked slowly past his father’s wheelchair, which had tipped onto its side when Lamar had been shot, then knelt next to his father’s body. Reaching down, he tucked his fingertips beneath the shelf of the old chin, feeling for a pulse.
Is he…? Brandon asked, even though the answer seemed pretty obvious, even from a distance. Although his telepathic prowess had been formidable, Lamar hadn’t been a physically well man by anyone’s stretch of the definition. That his already pale skin had turned the color of plumbing putty and the frail expanse of his chest now appeared sunken around a single, blood-soaked depression near the breast pocket of his suit coat boded anything but good.
Yeah. Aaron managed a brief nod, letting his hand slip away from his father’s neck. He remained on his knees for a long moment beside him.
Are you okay? Brandon asked, even though again, the answer seemed pretty obvious.
“I’ve been better,” Aaron said with a ragged laugh. Then he looked up at Brandon with a nearly pleading expression. “He was inside my mind. Everything he’s ever done to me…every part he’s ever hurt or scarred…” He forked his fingers through his hair and uttered a long, shuddering sigh. “I think that’s the closest I ever came to breaking.”
How’d you know where he was to shoot him? Brandon asked.
“I didn’t,” Aaron admitted. “But when you mentioned finding me down here years ago, I recognized you. I remembered your eyes…everything. And I knew he was here somewhere, making me see things, think things…fucking with my head.”
You saw me that night, Brandon said. When I was a kid. You knew I was there. You knew we were alike. But you never said anything. You never told your father about me—or anyone else—even though it could’ve saved you.
Aaron smiled. “Yeah, well, I had to be able to live with myself when it was all said and done. Just like you.” Reaching up, he caught Brandon by the hand again, letting the younger man help him stand. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you home.”