Scarred

Eb was the weirdest sibling from a branch of the Fortune family that wasn't exactly noted for being normal, and it wasn't just the limp or the oddball eyes. When he unleashed—which he did more often than was strictly necessary or appropriate—people pissed themselves and cowered into gibbering blobs of oh-god-let-me-die.

He'd taken the secret name Bloodshock from a serial-killer character he played on some screwed-up online RPG, and it stuck. He might look like an escapee from the aftermath of the teenage nerd apocalypse, but you do not want to mess with cousin Eb.

I believe that allegiance is nurture, not nature. Good versus evil is a choice we all make. But if anyone on our side was born to be a villain, it's this guy.

"You'll go blind looking at that stuff." I ruffled his hair, dodging a punch. What with my Miss Universe face and bubbly personality—and growing up with Adonis and Chance for brothers—I knew how it felt to be the unpopular one. I'd made an effort with Eb ever since I'd forced us all into this charming little camping vacation, and I sort of like the guy. Even if he sometimes makes me want to brandish a crucifix in his direction. "Get a girlfriend. Oh, wait. That'd involve talking to a realgirl."

"This isn't interactive porn," Eb insisted. "I'm honing my reflexes."

"Right. When the big-breasted virgin schoolgirl zombies attack, you'll be the first guy I call. Any dinner left?" On cue, my stomach grumbled. My dead appetite had reanimated, at least in part, since my rat-happy sewer jaunt, and I hadn't consumed anything except high-caffeine cola and a candy bar since this morning.

Yesterday morning, that is. Jeez, what am I, twelve? No wonder I'm such a wreck.

Eb nodded towards the darkened kitchen's serving hatch. "Peggy made lasagna."

I rolled my eyes. Of course she did. Adonis's new lady friend was perky, red-headed, domesticated. "Did she bake cupcakes, too? Wearing a frilly apron?"

"Mee-yeow." Eb mimed a cat scratch. "You'd eat it if a certain person made it."

"Did I say I wouldn't eat it?" But I dragged the tray towards me a little too hard, spilling tomato sauce on the counter. Glimmer baked the best lasagna on the planet, no exceptions. Glimmer did most things better than everyone else. Especially me.

To be fair, Peggy did everything she could to help out, despite not really being one of us, and her cooking sure tasted nice. Everything about Peg was nice. Probably what Adonis said after he fucked her. That's nice, dear.

Okay, now I really had no appetite. I pushed the tray away. "Maybe later."

"Whatevs." Eb didn't look up.

I slunk upstairs to the second floor, where our bedrooms—read rusty ex-torture cells, andyay for that—were. On the landing, Uncle Mike's latest stray cat adoptee hissed at me with a suspicious yellow glare. Poor little bugger looked hungry. "Whatevs," I mimicked as I went by. "You wound me with your disdain, kitty. Lasagna's on the table. My treat."

The dim corridor smelled of old smoke and rust. Steel cell doors lined each wall, stretching into the distance, where the roof had collapsed in the fire and damp moonlight misted in. Light wind whistled through the twisted corrugated iron, whoo! whoo!

Electric light leaked from a single door that lay ajar on my right. I tiptoed, trying to creep by unnoticed.

"Where have you been?"

Fail. I stopped, folding my arms on a sigh. "Like you don't know."

Adonis leaned in his doorway. Unshaven, his blue eyes bloodshot. His shirt was creased, formerly an extinction-level event for my big brother, who'd spent his life wearing custom suits and diamond cufflinks, wading through rivers of adoring girls on his way to corporate board meetings and glittering charity balls. They write romance novels about guys like Adonis. He's what ordinary women think of as a hot date, and life has gifted him with what you might call a healthy ego. I wouldn't label him vain, exactly—he's too pragmatic for that—but let's just say his secret name isn't Narcissus without reason.

His blond hair was ragged, in need of a cut. It made him look a little crazy. And the bruises under his eyes shone darker than usual. He'd been losing sleep. We all had.

"Fine." His voice was hoarse, fatigued. "I know where you've been. So what the hell were you doing?"

"Stopping a crime in progress, since you ask. That okay with you?" But my chest hurt inside, and my hostility lost its luster. My brother, questioning my good intentions. My fucking brother.

He just eyed me, glitter-blue. Accusing.

Christ, I'd no energy to fight with him tonight. "I'm tired, Ad. Can we just get some sleep?"

"Vee…" He touched my arm.

I halted again. "What?"

"We've talked about this. You're not well. You shouldn't go off by yourself and—"

"And what? Do my job? We're crime-fighters, aren't we? How about we fight crime?"

My words bounced off the walls. He frowned, a finger to his lips. Of course, my phone pinged again in my pocket, over-loud.

Shit. I fumbled it to silent to make it shut up. "What?" I whispered fiercely. "Am I gonna wake up the Stepford wife?"

"I'm working. Peg's in her own room." A defiant edge. He knew I didn't like Peggy. I'd never liked any of his long-term—read longer than two weeks—girlfriends. None of 'em were worthy of him. It was a brother–sister thing. And ever since I'd murdered our father, and Adonis locked me in the nut house, and I dropped a ceiling on our elder sister, and Adonis shot me and hurled me out a fifty-sixth-story window? Brother–sister things had become a little complicated.

"Sleeping alone? So sad. Does she snore? Or are you just tired of her already?"

"You can talk."

That gloss of disgust took a hacksaw to my nerves. "Screw you, okay? I am so over you judging me. At least I tell mine they're losers as soon as I'm done."

An incredulous laugh. "Jesus, Vee. Last day to cash in this month's bitch credits?"

I swallowed, ashamed. Truth was? Seeing him like this broke my heart. He hadn't asked for what had happened to us, any more than the rest of our family had. None of it was his fault.

No. No, it was mine.

"She cooked a nice dinner," I allowed grudgingly. He didn't need to know I hadn't eaten any. "And hell, she seems to like Oreos and Bruce Lee movies. I guess there's hope for her."

He rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "She tries, okay? Give her a chance. It's not her fault she's—"

"Adonis? Everything okay?" A sleepy female voice drifted from the half-closed door.

Adonis sighed, resting his head on the doorframe.

I choked. She was in his damn room. He'd lied.

My face burned. Ugly, poison words crawled up my throat. Before I could spit them out, I clamped my teeth and marched away. He didn't call after me. I heard his door click shut. I kept walking, though I itched all over, an army of rabid ants nipping furiously beneath my skin.

I stormed past more rooms: Jeremiah, Ebenezer, Harriet, Peggy, the rest of the stray augments we'd adopted like some stupid special-needs homeless shelter since we holed up here. Jem was coughing, a horrid throat-savaging beast that no doubt we'd all catch before the week was out. I could hear Uncle Mike snoring. Mike, Dad's kid brother, who'd been as civil to me as was humanly possible, considering I got Dad killed.

They don't forgive you, hissed one of the incarnations of me that rattled around in my skull. Since the asylum, I'm like a range of Barbie dolls in there. This one was Nasty Verity, like the ghost of my dead sister Equity with a double shot of spite. They'll never forgive you. They're just humoring you, until they think of a way to get rid of you quietly, with no fuss. One day, you'll have a tragic accident…

Viciously, I kicked at the dead leaves littering the floor. Shut your face, Nasty. If Adonis was pissed at me for disobeying him? Fine. That was his right. I didn't care. I didn't even care that my precious big brother was sticking his dick in the world's most boring woman and apparently liked it enough to let her sleep in his bed, for fuck's sake.

I cared that he trusted her more than he trusted me.

He'd known Peg a few lousy weeks, and I was the one he lied to.

Fuck.