KEREN

Voices giggled and gossiped around the classroom before the end of class. He sat in his regular seat, close to the window with his notes in a pile in front of him, along with the assigned homework. His school datapad rested in the slot of the table and ran through the day's projections and slides. His finger clicked the tabs to upload them one by one as his I-pen balanced in his fingers. He frowned at another, sharper laugh, and turned to investigate the gaggle of his classmates at the small lockers embedded into the back wall. Their compearl menus lit up in their faces, but their conversation failed to reach him as he sniffed and turned back to his work. Lines of numbers filled the margins of his notes, and he rested his palm against his temple to eye the road outside. Roxton's metal canopy plastered itself around the horizon, but the school grounds placed itself in a slower zone to avoid the city traffic. He found himself trying to pick out the ships who landed on the intercity spacepads to deliver goods or drop off people from outlying towns for work.

His fingers dug into his cheekbones as he finished off the last equation as the clock ticked down with his classmates giggles and mutters. Ethan's tranquil, subtle anger shook his legs and brought a wave of regret through his heart for his stupidity. His fingers twisted into the empty dockets on the table to give himself an electric jolt, but it cut itself off with his teasing of the power. He went to click off his work, but stopped at an echoing crack coming from Roxton. It went silent, then popped three more times.

Everyone fell silent, but when it went silent once more, the group at the back of the class discussed the latest 'party'. Keren frowned when their voices drowned out the tiny hints of screeching tires on asphalt, further silenced by the school alarm ringing. Malice dripped down his spine and locked him in his chair while the rest of his class dragged themselves out of their seats with varying levels of energy. He shivered as it drove wedged teeth into his back. Compearl menu open, he rolled through his contacts to find Ethan's name.

He pressed it.

It chirped, and continued to chirp as he walked out of the class.

It fell silent.

He sped past the Starcross players as fast as he could before they could zone in on him — their upcoming game with Eastpoint Collegiate on everyone's minds and driving them into a raucous frenzy of competitive spirit, which often led to them taking out the excess energy on the quieter ones who just wanted to get to their next class. He shivered with the intent crawling on his spine and refused to leave him alone like the jocks. One more call to Ethan, and he drove his teeth into his lip when it rang out in full to go silent.

In his next class, it drove deeper into his collarbone at the sight of Sanctum ships throwing out alert lights and diving deeper into the city. It stuck at the back of his throat long after he was released from his last class, running out of the school. He expected to find Ethan waiting for him in the parking lot, but he frowned when the Cobra never fit itself between cars. Calm... Keren switched on his heel to head for the other meeting place off the side of the school, the small park, and passed it to the pond.

He paced the edge several times and continued to call Ethan's number.

It chirped.

It chirped.

It continued with the Sanctum alarms and the crackling pops.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the incessant chirps of an unanswered compearl. "I'm sorry, Kellzoro. I know I was stupid..." He pressed his name again to get him to answer. "Where are you? You're usually here by now..." He kicked a pebble into the pond, and the waves shimmered. "You know I don't like walking back home." His own steps bounced along the pond and he followed his fleeing reflection as the clock clicked on past the school time. Any attempts of serenity slammed into his mind and caught in his lungs. No, Keren, maybe it was traffic. Get a grip. He slapped his hands against his temples, but it shook straight to his knees at the lack of answer from Ethan. Animosity cracked his bones, and he tried to chase away the dread crushing his lungs and making him lose his breaths.

Where is he?

He planted himself on the seat, but it burned his thighs into action.

It's okay...

He whipped around at the sound of footfall on crunchy grass and fallen leaves. They crossed into the light of the evening lamps when they flickered on in preparation. "Ethan!" Keren released the tension, but slammed to a stop when Ethan shambled over in rigid movements and an emptiness of light in the greens. Dark crimson dotted his shirt and a swath of his pants.

Images of numerous plague movies of the walking dead filled his mind in terror, but he blinked when Ethan whispered with a sense of misty helplessness, "Sellzora."

"Where were you? I've been... waiting here..." Keren drew back when the crimson shone in the lights around the pond. "Ethan, what is..." He met his older brother halfway to examine him, but jumped when Ethan wrapped his arms around him and brought him close. He relaxed his arms when Ethan squeezed tighter and rested the side of his head on his own.

"You're being weird, what's going on?" Keren asked, but embraced Ethan.

Ethan brought his hands to cup his cheeks and look him in the eye without answering his question. Examined himself, Keren kept himself still when Ethan rubbed his face. "You are unharmed."

Not a question, a statement.

"Why would—" Keren gave up when Ethan brought him close again. "Ethan."

"We're going to get out of here."

Keren jolted when Ethan held his forearm and guided him out of the school grounds. "Are we not going to go home? Where's your car?"

"Back at home."

"Ethan—"

Ethan's hand squeezed his, and he held his questions at his brother's non-verbal insistence. Keren kept his pace as they rushed to the outside of Roxton and found one question he needed an answer for. "Where are we going?"

"The cottage. Just... Just for a little bit so I can... compose myself."

I'll hold everything else, then. Keren studied his older brother's facial features, ashen and pale. He rested his cheek against Ethan's arm when he slowed his pace. Streetlights spread oozing pale light to reflect off the concrete roads. Every so often, Ethan's footsteps quickened with his breath, stumbling to outpace whatever spooked him. Keren clung onto his arm and tried not to ask too many questions, trying not to stumble as well with the sudden rush urging Ethan onward. Stars glittered past the canopy of layered smog, and he bit on his tongue when Ethan directed them onto the hiking path to the camp grounds.

Trees cracked against their neighbours at the breeze. Over the gravel path into the parking lot, the cottage sat in its own shadow underneath the rising moon over the lake. Ethan rushed them up the planks, and Keren jumped when he fumbled the door handle. Owls hooted in the trees when it gave in to Ethan's desperation, and Keren followed his brother inside. "Ethan, what's going on?" he asked again and closed the door when it was clear Ethan would not. "What was the rush for?"

In the darkness, Ethan's shoulders tensed.

Keren swallowed. "Look, I-I'm sorry for what I did, okay? I talked to Mom about it, but maybe we should... talk? Just the three of us?" Keren came closer to his older brother's back. "I want to understand what's going on between you two and—" He went silent when Ethan swayed on his feet. He held himself still when Ethan turned with an owlish blink. Glassy riptides filled the greens as he crept closer, and he found himself in his brother's embrace once more. "Please tell me what happened to you. That's blood, isn't it?"

"Keren," Ethan said in a low, flat tone. "It's not mine... We were attacked near North Park... I was told to run by Miama." His grip faltered on his shoulders. "I couldn't do anything, Keren..."

It coursed through his veins with a sense of eternal numbness when Ethan's knees slacked and he slipped to the ground, forced along with his older brother's fingers dug into his shirt. Keren shook his head and whispered, "Ethan?" Left in the shadows without the moonlight, he got a good look at Ethan's face when it pierced through the shuttered window, sending razor sharp streaks across his cheeks. Tears, on old trails and new, carved ones fell down his jaw. Ethan folded under the pressure of the night as he tugged Keren closer, and cried into his shoulder.

"What are you saying?" Keren rasped at his older brother's tears.

Ethan's voice blurred as numbness filled his lungs and expanded them close to ripping.

Mom... was shot?

"Why?" he asked. "What did she ever do?" Ethan shook his head, but Keren dug his fingers into his shivering shoulders and tried to awaken him from the wave of tears. "You're mistaken, Ethan. You have to be. Come on! Let's go to North Park and figure out what happened!" Keren went to stand up, but jolted when Ethan locked him in a vice grip.

"No."

"Ethan, let me go." Knives tore through his heart as he squirmed. "You're wrong." He shuddered when Ethan refused, the emptiness of the universe filling the greens, though his tears continued to fall. "No." No... Keren clung onto his forearms when the moonlight shimmered off his cheeks. "If this is some sort of comeback for what I did—" Knees trembling, he shook his head once more to tear off the veil of a lie.

Ethan hugged him again, and the numbing ice returned to steal the air in his lungs. It went empty, silent that his ability to hear Ethan's quiet sobs drained into the lake outside. He rested his hands on his older brother's back, trying to grasp at the straws of life as Ethan used his other sleeve to wipe his face. It dragged across the moving light when Ethan pulled him back onto his feet. His limbs cracked with the freeze in veins when he sat on the couch. He jolted when Ethan turned on the lights of the kitchen. "Ethan—"

What do I say? What do I do? What do we do?

As if Ethan heard the questions leave his lips, he sniffed. "I'm going to call Jestirian."

"What?"

"I need a pair of eyes around here that I can trust," Ethan mumbled as he plugged in the drink mixer.

"Ethan—"

Ethan raised his hand and released it with his shaky breath. "I... just need you to wait for a minute." He turned his head around with a wide-eyed, but empty expression. No more tears fell, a stubborn, stone refusal for anything more. "Do you want hot chocolate?"

"Kellzoro..." It flayed into his chest with metal whips, but he nodded. "Ethan, are you sure you're—"

"I am unharmed."

He tried to sort through the icy numbness along his tongue, sorting through the escaping feelings at the tips of his fingers. It coiled, writhed into a crimson-spotted tempest in his head, but he drowned underneath an frozen film. Ethan returned to him with a steaming mug, pushing it into his hands, but the warmth never broke his skin. Ethan leaned in front of him with another insistent nudge of the cup.

Light shed across the unstirred lake, through the cracks of the canopy. It bounced along the roof, a monster on a screen. One more prod, he drank deep of the steam, but it never melted the ice keeping him trapped underwater. It never filled his lungs with comfort and warmth, and he bit down on his tongue when Ethan brushed a hand through his hair before shuffling to a lonely corner, a hand to his ear.

Underneath the thickness of love, his broken reflection.

He used the spoon to stir the small marshmallow flakes Ethan dipped inside and eyed his older brother, stuck in the corner as he spoke under his breath in serrated words.

Why can he only trust Jesti?

Keren waited and took another sip to quell the cold snap in his heart, but he choked on air when Ethan returned to him, sitting down beside him with the same empty expression, and the moonlight disappeared. "Ethan..." Keren sank farther from the frozen film when Ethan wrapped an arm around him, holding him close. Why can't I say anything?

"I'm sorry for overwhelming you," Ethan mumbled. "You can cry, Sellzora. I'll be here."

But...

It soaked his entirety, but never slipped down his cheeks.

Miama.

He drove his teeth into his lower lip and wanted the comfort of trust and love, but Ethan never cried into his shoulder again, the light dim in the greens from the gentle glow of the kitchen and the moonlit lake both.