transform. He became moody. He stopped talking. He withdrew from the boy I knew and attached himself to a corpse. I didn’t get to witness it for too much longer, because he eventually stopped coming home, or when he did, we never saw each other.
He forgets that I know him, though. Not just his corpse, but the soul he hides beneath it. I know all of him, and I don’t just mean his dark parts, because all of Brantley is dark. With some people, they become this way because of some unfortunate event that made them that way. That’s not Brantley. He was born like this. Nature over nurture, though nurture did not help.
“I had other shit I had to attend to,” is all he says. We sit in silence for a while, and listen as Eli and Tillie go back and forth on baby names. Nate adds in his two cents every now and then. I relax slightly when I realize I’ve warmed up to the setting. Brantley pulls out his phone for a few minutes before the people who were here partying are being escorted out by men in suits. I recognize a couple of them as being around the house at times over the years. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Then it’s just us. But Hunter and Cash come and grab Eli, and Nate and Tillie call it a night, leaving just Brantley and me. Alone. For the first time in what feels like ever.
He stands, tossing his bottle into the trash beside him. “Do you remember much about your life before Lucan took you?” The music is still playing in the background. I think it’s an Eminem song.
His question knocks me out of focus, because out of everything that I was wondering, that was not one of them. “No, not a single thing. Why?”
I stand beside him when he doesn’t answer, my hand on his arm. “Brantley…”
His lips curl between his teeth as he finally faces me. “There’s a whole world that you don’t know about, and I’m hoping it doesn’t know about you.”
“What do you mean?”
He sits back in his chair, shaking his head. “Said I didn’t want to do the secrets thing, since Bishop went theatrical with his bullshit with Madison and it ended up ruining them both.” I can sense he’s not finished, so I don’t interrupt.
One second.
Two.
Three.
After a few seconds of silence, he opens his mouth. “I’ll start by explaining The Elite Kings Club.”
“Okay,” I say, taking the seat beside him.
He starts talking and I remain silent. I absorb all of the information he tells me, even the parts that are hard to follow.
“You have commandments?” I ask, and I don’t know why that’s the first thing I want to ask, but I do.
He nods. “Yeah. They’re engraved into the Vitiosis tombstone in the graveyard. We take them seriously.”
“Tell me one of them.” I’m fascinated by the story that he told me. How from generation to generation each last name has a legacy and a meaning. Bishop Hayes, Devil. Eli Rebelis, Rebel. Nate Malum, Evil. Brantley Vitiosis, Cruel or Vicious. He went on to explain the other last names, like apparently Madison’s real last name is Venari, Hunt. All of their last names stem from Latin, the dead language, which is the original tongue of their ancestors. It’s all confusing and hard to follow, but I think that’s what makes it all the more magical. I’ve always loved fantasy and fiction. It opens the human mind, spins the mundane and basic into worlds that we could only ever visualize in our dreams.
Harry Potter, for one. As a fellow Ravenclaw, I rewatch the movies and reread the books any time I need to be reminded that I’m home.
I look to the Slytherin.
Slytherin chuckles. “All right, but the first thing you have to know is that nothing in our world makes sense to commonfolk.” His finger is teasing his upper lip, his eyes remaining passive on mine. “Fourth commandment. What is yours is your brothers’, unless a King calls red.” Brantley pauses, leaning his elbows on his knees while never disconnecting. The flames are dying down now, but the music is still playing. The night is as dead as the corpses that are not ten feet behind us. “Do you know why they called it ‘red’?”
I shake my head. I’m not sure I want to know, which is ridiculous because it was me who wanted to know everything to begin with. “But I don’t