BLOOD DREAM (Ongoing)

8.3: Your Son Was Caught Throwing Rocks At Windows Again

Kitra couldn't get her brother out of her mind. After learning the truth about his betrayal in murdering Patrick, she thought it would be easy to hate him, but it wasn't. She always knew she couldn't stomach losing him and even now, when he was at fault for all the pain and the fear in the pack house, she just... wanted to talk to him. She wanted to know why. She wanted to see him one last time and know for sure that she'd been wrong, that he was unsalvageable, before he disappeared from her life forever. But she didn't know if she'd get that, or if the last thing she ever would have said to him would be...

Fuck you. You're just trying to get laid.

She spent most of her time with Liam, Gabby, and Dorothy since Patrick's death. Kitra couldn't handle being in the empty house, knowing she wasn't ever going to hear her brother's car pull up and see him walk through the door and have a normal conversation again. He took that away from her. But so did the pack, somehow. She wanted to blame anybody but him, but Theron was the only who deserved the blame. She expressed this to Liam and he gently told her he understood. Then he tried to have sex with her, so she didn't think he really did.

After that, she didn't want to see him. Kitra stayed with Gabby instead, who was a much nicer host and who actually listened. Given her closest companions lately were Theron and Liam, when Gabby hugged her it didn't feel like she was being consumed, just comforted. Gabby didn't seem to want anything from her, and that was more alleviating than anything she'd felt since last seeing her brother.

The news arrived on Tuesday night that Theron escaped. She didn't know if she was relieved or if she dreaded what it meant. They told her to stay away from home for a couple days, but by Friday, the packmates stationed at her house keeping watch for Theron reported that he hadn't shown up. She needed a change of clothes, so she went there after work; it would be a quick, tolerable visit.

Kitra closed the door and kicked off her shoes, sighing. Evidence of others in her house was everywhere: dirty plates, muddy shoe prints, the toilet seat up. The air in the bathroom was humid and warm. It smelled clean—like somebody had recently showered.

She walked out of the bathroom and heard a scrape from Theron's bedroom.

Hovering in the hallway, Kitra considered whether she should text somebody. She settled for clutching her phone in her hand as she crept toward the door, open just an inch. Inside, she heard his weight shifting, his rustling through clothes and jagged breaths. The sounds plunged her heart into her stomach, but even worse was the sight of him through the sliver of the open door.

Theron leaned over his dresser, his arms deep in a drawer. He was still wet from the shower, wearing a black muscle shirt, grey boxer briefs, and black socks; his skin shuddered and tensed, his back shaking between desperate swipes. Clothes littered the floor around him. His right calf was darkly bruised, a gory wound reopened and trickling blood. Kitra entered the room, staring at him. Theron didn't look at her.

"I can't... I can't find it..." he said bleakly.

Kitra's lungs were so full of dumbfounded breath she almost couldn't speak. "Find what...?"

He gripped the edge of the drawer. "M—My other blue tie."

She took a second to recall the tie in question. "It's in the laundry basket in the living room," Kitra said automatically. "It almost went in the wash. I took it out to hand wash for you." The conversation was surreal.

Theron blinked and a tear glittered off his chin into the drawer, shattering her heart.

"What are you doing here?"

"I have to go to work, Kit."

Kitra shook her head. "You shouldn't be here."

His shoulders bunched as if the words whipped him in the back. Theron dropped his head and quaked. "Kit, I'm..." His face hid behind his bicep. She heard him fight back a sob, saw a few more tears hit the floor. "Please don't tell anyone."