today’s victim bears the same mark. Liza, it’s your brother.”
For a second, her world turned sideways, and she backed up a step until her back was against the wall. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand. Julian? No, I just saw Julian. He was . . . on the land that—”
“He had a parole officer—Anderson. The guy hadn’t called me back yet. I know he was staying on your family’s land, but we found out that he actually used your address here in Cincinnati. Maybe he didn’t know where he was going when he first got out. I’m not sure. But he had gone to the Office of Adult Parole downtown to see Anderson today. Apparently, someone interrupted him, forced him to the roof in some manner, marked him, and either made him jump or pushed him. Liza, we have no idea how he fits in to this.”
What? “He’s dead?”
“He’s alive, but I met with his doctor before you arrived, and there’s no brain activity. He won’t recover.” He was watching her so closely, as if trying to catch the barest flinch of her features that might clue him in to how she was taking this.
“Okay. Okay.” Truthfully, she didn’t know what she felt. Shocked, yes. Scared, definitely. But other than those two emotions, she felt mostly numb. But she had this sense that other, more complex feelings were bubbling under the surface, ones that she didn’t want to think about at the moment. She sucked in a breath, tamping them down. For now.
“Can I . . . see him?”
“Yes. Of course. He’s on a ventilator. It’s breathing for him right now. I don’t want to rush you, but you have some decisions to make.”
Decisions. She licked her lips, nodding. He paused for a moment, that grim look returning to his features and then he led her down the hall again until they reached a hospital room. He held the door open for her and when she crossed the threshold, he began to turn back toward the hall. “Wait,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Will you come in with me? I mean, if you don’t have work to do. If I’m not keeping you from something else?”
“Of course I will.”
Reed followed her into the room and stood behind her as she walked slowly to the bed where her brother lay, his head and half of his face wrapped in gauze, tubes running from his body, a machine beeping methodically next to him. He looked small, smaller than he’d looked as she’d spoken to him on their family land a couple of days before. Small and . . . helpless. It felt like something was expanding in her chest, filling it, making it difficult for her to catch her breath. She walked forward, sitting in the chair next to him. She looked at her brother, no longer the monster of her nightmares, but a flesh and blood human trapped inside a broken body, the same way, she realized now, he’d been trapped inside a broken mind. She thought of the times she’d looked to him for help as a child, and how each time he’d turned away, or looked through her. It had hurt.
But . . . she knew now, trauma had caused Julian to retreat inside himself. She’d tiptoed through those dark corridors too; she knew the allure of that internal refuge. But she’d also suspected—even in her deepest despair—that if she traveled too far inside, she’d never find her way back. Or if she did, it would never be the whole of her. Some part would always remain there, safe, but gone.
As she looked at her broken brother, all she felt was sadness. Who would you have been, she wondered, if you weren’t born in hell?
She turned her head sideways, addressing Reed. “They’re sure?” she asked. “That he won’t recover?”
His voice came from behind her. “They’re sure.”
She looked back at Julian, and reached out, taking his limp hand in hers, blood beneath his fingernails. His own she imagined. The internal damage to his body must be extreme. “His organs . . .”
Reed paused. “Yes. Not everything. There’s considerable damage,” he said haltingly as though choosing his words. “But, yes.” His heart? she wondered, her gaze rising to the machine that beeped steadily next to him. Maybe someone else could use that organ in a way her brother never had.
Liza squeezed his hand. She’d never held Julian’s hand before, not even when they were young. A