Kellan (22 page)

~
SIX ~

Slade

“I got a call from a friend of mine,” Iris
said when we finally managed to get to her place after the long drive from the
airport. I’d gotten a rental and followed her to her apartment—no way was I
going to be stuck without a way to get around in this shitty town. “She said
that she saw Kellan over at an old foreclosure down by Baxter Street in
Hawthorne Grove.”

“There are probably a lot
of foreclosed houses over there,” I said snidely, setting my bag down by her
couch. “Hawthorne Grove is like this town’s shitty version of the projects.
What the hell was your friend doing in that part of town, anyway? Did she at
least give you an address?”

Iris shot me a glare,
apparently not at all enjoying my sarcastic tone. I’d been around Hawthorne
Grove when I was younger, and it was no wonder Kellan had gone there on his
bender. The few junkies in town all flocked to that dump, clustering inside the
many abandoned and condemned houses that dotted the neighborhood, and since
they were “squatters,” they couldn’t be evicted.

“She works for a realtor
that was looking into picking up some of these properties. Hopefully that means
someone is going to start cleaning up that part of town. But yeah, there’s an
address,” she said as she pulled out her phone. “We’re going in a few minutes,
once I—”

“You’re not going
anywhere,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “Especially not to a place like
that. Hawthorne Grove is a shit-hole, and it’s not safe. I’m going by myself.”

Iris raised her eyebrows
at me. “So, now you want to be the big honorable hero?” she asked, her hands on
her hips. “Well, this is new. Why the sudden change?”

“You act like I don’t
have a heart or something, Iris,” I said, feigning a wound over my heart. “Come
on. I may be a dick, but I’m not about to let you go somewhere dangerous.”

“Then you’re going to
give me your cell phone number,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “If
you
get hurt and can’t call me, I’m going to be so angry, Slade.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said,
handing over my phone for her to punch her number into my contacts. “Not like I
can’t handle a bunch of strung-out junkies.”

“That’s not the point,”
Iris shot back, handing me my phone once again. “I
expect
you to call me
as soon as you get there. Okay?”

“Yeah, all right,” I
said, laughing off her concern as I headed toward the door. I called her phone
to automatically input my number into her recent call history, then hung up.
“Christ, I’ve been here ten minutes and you’re already jonesing for my number.”
I ignored her withering look. “Just text me the address. If everything goes
well, I’ll have Kellan home before the day’s over.”

“It’s not going to be
that simple, Slade,” she said softly, but I turned my back on her. She was
right, obviously, but women didn’t always need to know that—especially not a
girl as stubborn and pigheaded as Iris Walker.

Hawthorne Grove was every
bit of the rat’s nest it had been when I had left seven years ago, maybe even
worse. I couldn’t even remember how many foreclosure and condemned notices I’d
passed on my way in. I felt bad for the people who
did
still live here,
especially since you’d hardly ever catch a cop anywhere near their
neighborhood—it was too dangerous to send officers down there on patrols. There
were no kids playing out in the yards, no neighbors mowing lawns or washing
cars. Anyone you
did
see outside were the people you usually wanted to
avoid, for better or worse.

I pulled up into the
cracked and uneven driveway of 204 Baxter Street around five o’clock in the
afternoon, and from what I could tell from my car, the place was completely
deserted. Every window was boarded up tight with a glaring red notice posted
right on the peeling, white front door. It probably would have fooled the
casual observer, but Iris’ friend was sure that she’d seen Kellan going inside.

Fucking
junkies
, I thought as I pushed open
the door to my rental car and stepped out into the late afternoon sun. I could
almost smell the human garbage the moment I breached the open air, drawing my
lip into a sneer of disgust. How could my brother have sunk so low?

I pulled out my phone and
shot Iris a quick text telling her I’d arrived. Calling felt like a little too
much, like we’d already gotten close again. A text was easy, impersonal, cold.
I needed to keep my distance from her, despite what my “lower brain” wanted.

I walked up the drive and
over the lopsided pavers that led the way to the front door. The closer I got,
however, the less convincing the house’s foreclosed status became. The notice
had been taken down and stuck back on so many times that it was barely legible
anymore, and the lock on the door was completely smashed in—probably from when
they’d first invaded the house.

I reached for the knob,
grasping the rusty metal and trying to turn it without any luck, but as I let
go, the door slowly swung inward. Beyond, the hallway was almost completely
black, save for the swath of light that cut through the entryway.

If I thought it had
smelled bad outside, I was completely unprepared for the stench that greeted me
now. Everything from the smell of human bodies all crammed into one space to
the mixed scents of shit and piss all assaulted my nose all at once. My only
saving grace was the fact that I had smelled a lot worse working in an
emergency room for the last few years, otherwise that smell might have taken me
off of my feet.

As I stepped over the
threshold, I turned on my phone’s flashlight app, illuminating a path as I
picked my way through the bottle-, needle-, and garbage-littered floor.

It didn’t take me long to
find my first junkie, sprawled out in a corner on a ratty-looking floor mat, a
loose tourniquet dangling from his upper arm. I moved past him without the
sorry piece of garbage even stirring one bit. It didn’t even occur to me until
that very moment that he might have been dead.

The rest of the house
didn’t look much better, and the farther in I went, the worse it became. There
were more and more junkies strewn across the floor and what little furniture
remained in the house was soiled and stained. Disgust welled inside me as I
watched two of the squatters start shooting up in a corner, closing their eyes
as their drugs of choice washed over them and carried them into a heavenly
stupor.

“Kellan?” I called out,
scanning the bright white light of my cellphone over the sprawled out
meth-heads and heroin addicts. “Kellan, are you here?”

As I cast my light around
the room I began to hear groans and complaints from the prostrated junkies as
they tried to cover their eyes, grumbling for me to keep it down. Naturally, I
didn’t listen to a damn thing any of them said.

“Kellan! Come on, it’s
Slade,” I said, hoping that would encourage him to answer. At first I didn’t
get a reply, just a few more snarls and gripes—and even a few slurred
curses—when someone screamed for me to shut off the light.

But then it started
paying off.

“Slade?”

I almost didn’t recognize
the voice, it was raw, hoarse, like he’d been gargling razor blades. I turned
around, the sounds of rustling drawing my attention to the threadbare couch
sitting against the far wall.

Kellan looked like he’d
been through Hell and back. His face was dirty, along with the rest of him, and
he looked even paler than he had when I’d left. That dark hair of his was
longer, his locks matted together with dirt and sweat and God knows what else.
He blinked at me for a few moments before he finally managed to pull himself up
from the couch and stumble over.

“What do
you
want?” he asked, his bloodshot eyes narrowed at me. His lips curled into a
sneer as he looked me up and down. “Well, shit. Looks like you’re doin’ pretty
well for yourself. Big important doctor, right? You don’t belong here with us.”

Us.
Kellan made these sad excuses for human beings sound his like
family. Christ, was he that far gone?

“You need to come home,”
I said, ignoring what I knew would be a dicey conversation if I let him draw me
in. “Your mom and dad are worried—”

“Don’t fucking talk to me
about them,” he snapped, glaring up into my face. Kellan was still shorter than
me by at least four inches, but that didn’t stop him from puffing up like a pit
bull ready to charge. “I’m not going back to them, not after everything that
happened.”

“Kellan,” I said in an
attempt to calm him down, taking a step back as he clenched his fists. His
shoulders were tight, hackles raised. Over the repugnant odor of everything
else in the room, I could smell trouble. “Listen, let’s just talk this out,
okay?”

“Like how you talked Iris
onto your dick, you fucking
rapist?!”

Rapist?

What. The. Fuck.

My stomach turned at even
the mention of the word. First there was a hot flash of anger, even rage. I was
a lot of things—an asshole, a prick, an arrogant bastard—but there was one
thing I wasn’t. I wasn’t a fucking rapist.

But then something else
seeped into my bones, something much heavier and colder—dread.
Is that how
Iris told it? Does she think I raped her?

I felt Kellan’s knuckles
colliding with my face before I even had time to register that he’d thrown the
damn punch. I stumbled backward, right into another junkie, who had just gotten
up to figure out what was going on. I saw stars for a moment. Holy shit. My
little brother had learned how to throw a pretty killer punch.

But as I looked back over
at him, I noticed that while he might have had the strength, he certainly
didn’t have the balance. I regained my composure quickly and rushed Kellan,
pushing him back onto the couch from which he’d gotten up. He needed to be off
his feet before he hurt himself.

“What the fuck are you
talking about?” I asked, stepping back as he looked up at me, his face filled
with color and his eyes wild. “I didn’t…”

Had I raped Iris?
Did she
really
want
what I’d given her? All the times she and I had fucked, the countless secret
rendezvous after our parents had gone to sleep… she’d needed convincing that
first time, of course, but I’d never touched her before she’d told me yes. But
did she
want
it?

“You’re a piece of shit,”
he said, spitting right in front of where I stood. “I fucking looked
up
to you. I wanted to
be
you! And after all that time, I found out all you
wanted was my fucking
sister!
You were my hero, Slade! How could you
betray me like that? Betray our family?”

“It was never
my
family!” I shouted, fists clenched as I felt heat rising in my face. I felt
defenseless, exposed—I needed to hurt him back. “I never wanted a new mom! I
wanted my
old
mom! But instead, my dad went and started fucking yours,
in
her
bed! So don’t tell me about betrayal!”

“You’re fucking
pathetic,” Kellan laughed, standing up from the couch once again. “I’m
surprised
anyone
would fuck a loser like you, let alone my sister. I
wasn’t able to defend her back then, but I can sure as hell do it now!”

Kellan took a swing at me
again, but this time I was more than prepared. I leaned back as he threw a hard
left hook at my face. I only wished I’d leaned back farther.

I felt Kellan’s knuckle
connect right against my mouth, almost knocking me off balance as I tried to
step backward. His fist twisted as it met my face, the impact lessened, but the
rotation proved enough to tear open a nasty cut on my lower lip.

Behind me I could hear
more of the junkies rousing themselves, shouting for me to get the hell out.
Out the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of something shiny in the one of
their hands. A knife? A needle? Either way, I didn’t want to find out.

Kellan was still
disoriented from whatever drugs he’d injected into his arm. As much as I could
have, I decided not to press my advantage this time. His fellow addicts had all
started to surround me, calling for me to leave, “or else.”