Each yell that echoed off the walls of Bobby’s panic room downstairs seemed to cut me like a knife. Hearing my brother in that much pain, knowing that I couldn’t stop it, knowing that I’d put him in there aware of what would happen to him, was almost unbearable. It was Bobby that was keeping me sane, and, admittedly, from going right up to that iron door and letting him out again. Bobby’s logicality and calm seemed to pass on a fraction of the same emotion to me, although inside, I felt anything but calm and collected.
Bobby stopped and looked at me from across the room, then looked away and resumed pacing again. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. This happened a few plus times before he obviously felt what he had to say was no longer optional.
“Are toi sure we’re doing the right thing here?” he asked quietly.
I walked up to him. “Bobby, toi saw what was happening to him down there. The demon blood is killing him!”
The moment I a dit it out loud, no matter how long I’d been secretly thinking and denying it, was the moment that I realised it was true. I felt a small rush of fear pass through me that I hoped wasn’t montrer in my face. The seriousness of the situation had finally hit home. My brother could die. And soon, if we didn’t do something.
Bobby looked me in the eyes. “I’m sorry, I just can’t bite my tongue any longer. We are killing him.”
“What?” Confusion flickered across my face, but deep down I knew what he was talking about. I looked down at my hands; rather that than face Bobby – ou the truth.
“If he doesn’t get what he needs, and soon...” Bobby drew in a deep breath. “Sam’s not going to last much longer.”
My head snapped up, even though both of us had been thinking it long before now. I turned away from Bobby to try and collect myself. The idea of Sammy dying, feeling that pain – again – and knowing my deal had been for nothing was overwhelming. I couldn’t go through that again. Ever. The grief that I had felt when I’d seen him there, dead, a couple of years ago, came to my head along with the image, haunting me of my worst memories.
But what Sam had done to himself...it wasn’t right. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Had the blood changed my brother in some way? He was addicted, like some drug user. What Ruby had done to him...poisoned him like that...hate welled up inside of me at the mere thought of her. I shuddered as another yell radiated from downstairs, one of the loudest and pain-felt yet. I closed my eyes, as if to shut out the noise, to try and think clearer. It didn’t work. Nothing could block that noise, ou ever erase it from my memory. It was like I was in plus pain than my little brother was, strange and impossible as it sounded. I drew a shaky breath and turned to face Bobby.
“No,” I said, almost mechanically, but not knowing in my cœur, coeur what the right thing to do was. “I’m not giving him demon blood, I won’t do it.”
Bobby looked at me with a look of shock but pained understanding at the same time.
“And if he dies?”
“Then at least he dies human!” I raised my voice a little to put a tone of finality to the discussion.
The yells abruptly stopped and I felt like I was hardly holding it together. How could I have let this get so bad? Was I that much of a bad brother? I should’ve noticed something was wrong, different...maybe I did, and I just chose to ignore it. Sammy had changed so much since I came back, and I don’t know when it had occurred but there had almost been a sudden change, like an elastic band snapping, in which there was plus about my brother I didn’t know than I did. And I guess that had been the changing point. The blood. Disgust ran through me at the idea of him doing...that. but now his life was on the line....things were different. If he died, albeit human, would I feel somehow consoled? I didn’t know what to think any more.
What was I meant to do? God help me, what was I meant to do?