Don't you remember what happened last time?

It was only a couple of months ago, and I was out late. Ezra had turned in with some girl, leaving me to fend for myself- not that I minded, anyway. It felt good to be alone sometimes, to have my thoughts to myself and not worry about a certain curly-haired friend ruin the silence, or otherwise a stoic older brother who would be watching my every move to make sure I toed the line.

I was strolling casually down a mostly empty street. It was a bit cramped, as I remember. The buildings were a bit taller than normal, but quite close together, making the street narrow and dingy. There were very few people about. Those that were outside at that late hour were sitting on the steps into their units, smoking or eating. There was a rowdy group of men walking behind me, their voices carrying easily through the air.

"So, what's your opinion on Idris?" One asked. His voice was gravelly and hoarse, probably from cigarettes.

"Someone who goes against the Elites can't be bad," another replied. "What's the saying, anyway... the enemy of my enemy is my friend, something like that."

"I bet fifty credits that he's the Chancellor under that mask." The gravelly voice said, snickering. A couple of others laughed, too.

"Fifty credits? That's not even a bet, that's pocket money!"

"Shut up," hissed a new voice. "Don't even mention that piece of shit around me. Haven't you realized what happens to us if he gets rid of the Elites and puts himself in power? Let me make this very clear. If he wins, our hold on this sector disappears. Are you morons telling me that you want that equality bullshit over what we have right now?"

The men lapsed into a tense silence, one punctuated by the occasional cough or rustle of clothing as they walked.

So they're a gang, I'd thought. How much power do they command, anyway?

A sudden gust of wind blew then-long hair out of my hat. I turned, my eyes surveying the immediate area. The hat had flown from me to the men. I counted seven of them. They were dressed in unusually nice clothing, very different from what I was used to seeing. One of the men, flamboyantly dressed in a bright fuchsia suit, stopped to pick it up as it had landed at his feet. He examined it briefly, before he looked up at me, his black, beady eyes meeting my own.

"Is this yours?" He asked, holding my weathered hat up. I recognized his voice as the one that had reprimanded the other men with him. His clothes looked a great deal newer than his friends' clothes did. He was probably the leader.

"Yeah," I said. "Can you toss it over?"

He did no such thing. Instead, he walked towards me, his shiny shoes repelling the dirt that puffed up around him as he walked. He held out my hat in one tanned hand. I reached out to take it, a "thank you" on my lips, when he grabbed my hand in his free one and brought me close to him.

"You know, I feel like I've been fooled."

I wasn't afraid of the man; I was confident in my ability to get away if he tried anything. I decided to entertain him for a while. "Fooled?"

He nodded slowly. "With these shapeless clothes you have on, I thought you were a man. Your hat wasn't helping the matter, either. Who taught you to dress like that, hmm? Was it your mother? Was she afraid that you'd get into trouble if you didn't look like a man?"

"My brother, actually."

The leader bared his teeth and smiled cruelly at me. He tossed my hat back to his posse and caressed my cheek. "Oh, of course, of course. He wanted to keep you all to himself. He must have quite the sister complex."

I slapped his hand away. "Don't talk about my brother like that."

The leader laughed, as did the others. He held up a hand and motioned for them to come forward. They begun to close in on me.

"Let's bond, boys," the man murmured. "Let's bond over this pretty little thing."

The collective look of hunger in their eyes was enough for me to know that whatever was about to happen next wouldn't be good. I backed away in time with their steps, looking for an opening. If I feinted left and ran right, grabbed my hat from the man in the front and bolted, I would certainly be able to get away. I could have ran and not tried to get my hat back, of course, but it was one of my prized possessions, a gift from Blake. I couldn't leave it with these men. I wouldn't.

I saw my chance and took it. I feinted left- the man's arms stretched out to catch me, but I dodged and went right, an amused sound escaping his lips. I heard his low voice over the wind in my ears as I went for the hat.

"Anyone have a knife?"

I was within reach. If I could just grab it-

A hand fisted the length of my hair, stopping me mid-lunge, and I felt a sting in my side. I fell into the dirt, looking down at my own body, horrified at what I saw. Blood was blossoming from a nasty wound near my ribs, soaking my shirt even though it had only been a few seconds. One of the men was holding a long, serrated knife- my blood was dripping from the blade, and a small scrap of fabric from my shirt hung from the tip.

I was terrified, but it wasn't from the pain. It was bearable compared to the defeat I felt. I had never been beaten before... but then again, no one had ever pulled a knife on me in an X-Brawl.

When the leader instructed one of his brutish cronies to sling me over his shoulder and carry me into a nearby alley, I tried to take action again. A punch here, a kick there-

-and all for nothing. My body didn't cooperate. It slumped into the dust, blood soaking the sand beneath me, my breaths coming out in gasps.

They ended up taking me into the alley, where they ripped my clothes away and used them to blindfold me and tie me up. They even gagged me with my hat. There wasn't any point in it, looking back. My brain was working in overdrive, but my body had sustained critical damage. The pain was creeping up on me and rendered me still.

I was naked in front of them. They'd wrapped a torn bit of my shirt around my torso to stem the bleeding- something about keeping me warm as long as possible, because that was more fun. Their hands were on me, but not in places I cared about. The leader's voice floated into my ears, that he wanted to drag this out. That he hadn't had so much fun in a while.

Underneath the pain, I wished that someone would help me.

I heard a cry of pain that abruptly faded into a gurgle. The leader spoke, and even though I couldn't see him, I knew he was afraid.

"You must be the guy with the sister complex! You look just like her," he'd said, trying to hide his fear with a half-hearted mocking tone. "Want to join in the fun? If you promise not to hurt another one of my men, you can be the first-"

"Get away from my sister."

Blake! I tried to speak through the hat, but all I heard were muffled sounds.

"Don't worry, Deva. I'll get you out of here."

"Don't make me laugh!" The leader said. "Kill him!"

I heard sounds of a scuffle, and a grunt that sounded like Blake's. I struggled against my bonds and then winced at the pain in my side. I wished I wasn't so helpless, so utterly useless. My tears soaked the fabric covering my eyes. There were shouts of agony, but the voices weren't ones that I recognized.

"R-relax, we'll let her go!" Someone cried.

"Do you really think that would make everything okay again?!" Blake roared.

"Wait, stop-" Whoever was speaking was abruptly silenced.

Things were hitting the ground. The thump was always preceded by a scream.

"Don't do this," the leader said. His footsteps sounded close; he must have been backing away from Blake. "I'll give you whatever you want- just please, please, please don't kill me-"

"Oh? Why don't you take away the trauma you've caused her? That's what I want."

There was a pause in their conversation, one in which the man began to sob. "I c-can't. I'm sorry."

"Exactly," Blake said. "That's why I have to get rid of you."

"No! Oh, shit, please no-"

Metal against flesh. Something hot splashed across my face. Then warm, familiar hands were removing the hat from my mouth, taking away the ties that restrained me, and finally, the hands, trembling, removed the piece of my shirt that covered my eyes.

"Deva, are you alright? I'm so sorry, I should have gotten here sooner..." Blake fussed over the stab wound in my side, his dark eyes filled with worry.

"How did you know I was here and in trouble?" I asked, trying not to look at the carnage behind Blake. I focused on his face instead. "Are you alright? You're covered in blood."

"I'd just gotten off my shift and saw them take you into the alley. I wasn't sure it was really you, at first, so I came to check." He looked up and met my eyes. "And don't worry about the blood. It's not mine."

"Why did you have to kill them?" I whispered.

"They hurt you," he replied. He'd peeled back the fabric around my wound, taken a clinical look at it, and then sighed in relief. "It's just a scratch. You'll be fine once I clean and wrap it."

"A scratch? But there was so much blood..."

"They tore you up with a serrated knife. That's why you bled so much." He paused, and I saw anger in his eyes.

"You're scaring me, Blake," I said, my voice tinny. "They're dead."

He'd gathered me in his arms, then, and ran a reassuring hand through my hair. "I'm sorry, Deva."

"Sorry that you killed them? Or sorry that I know you killed them?"

"Don't ask questions anymore," he said, dodging an answer. "You might lose more blood."

He'd let me go, then, and taken off his coat and helped me into it. Once I was covered, he picked me up delicately and carried me home. He stuck to alleys so that anyone out and about even at that time of night wouldn't see just how much blood there was on the both of us. When we got to the unit, he cleaned the wound, wrapped it in some old clothes, and boiled some water for a bath. A few minutes later, we were sitting back to back in the tub, the water turning red.

"That man, the leader... he said you have a sister complex."

Blake's voice sounded tight. "Do you even know what that means?"

"I think I have an idea," I replied. "Ezra says we're weird. That siblings shouldn't be this close. That you're too..."

"Overbearing? Overprotective?" Blake laughed. I can still remember how the water rippled around his body, how he'd thrown his head back in what I'd thought to be mirth. "He just doesn't understand. Nobody does. I have to be those things. There's so much danger out there, so many bad people... I have to protect you, Deva. Who else will?"

"What about when I find someone who loves me? Someone who'll take care of me the way you do?"

Something in his voice was chilling when he replied.

"When will you ever need a person like that? I'm the only person you need."

Later, after all of the blood had been washed away, he grabbed a rusted pair of scissors from the kitchen and cut my hair. It fell in long, thick pieces to the cold, concrete floor, until it was as short as I had ever known it to be: just above my jaw, uneven in places because of the dullness of the blades.

"This is for your own good," Blake had said. "Think about how they grabbed you tonight. I can't let that happen again."

I looked at all the hair on the floor. There was so much of it, all bunched together in dark curling locks. Blake picked them up and stored them away, and then sent me to bed.

As I lay there, my eyelids drooping shut, too tired to move, I felt Blake's fingers on my chin as he opened my mouth and tipped something inside. It was bitter but not unpleasant. I held it in my mouth, surprised.

"Swallow it."

I did so. When my mouth was empty, I asked, "What was that?"

"Medicine."

I nodded and rolled over so I faced the wall. Blake was still seated on the edge of the bed; he hadn't moved an inch. I was waiting for him to speak. Eventually, he did, about half an hour later.

"Are you still awake? Let me know if you are."

I stayed silent. He sighed.

"I promised you that I would protect you, but you don't remember. You can't." He groaned with frustration. "Sometimes I think it would be easier to say it to you, to tell you everything. And then I think better of it, because I'm so scared that you'll forever see me as..." He trailed off and lay down next to me.

"You're so perfect," he'd whispered a few moments later. "I can't let you get corrupted by all of the dirt in this world. My methods may not make sense to you. They may even frighten you, but it's all for your sake."

Thanks to Blake's medicine, the wound healed quicker than I'd thought possible. After only a couple of weeks, all evidence of my encounter with those men faded away, save for the shorn length of my hair. Blake had never mentioned it again until the night I'd met Idris. Maybe he was hoping I'd half forget about what he did, what he said.

The memory's stuck in my head, though, starker and clearer than any of my other ones. It's a reminder, but not to stay put and out of harm's way.

Instead, it's a reminder of the night I realized that Blake was intent on keeping me by his side forever- that Blake, my older brother, was in love with me.