Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“You act as if I’m damaged,” Smite continued. “As if one foot put wrong will cause me to collapse. But nothing is wrong.”


Silence stretched. Ash set his hands on the mantel. Finally, he spoke. “I see. You live in cramped quarters on your own, eschewing all servants, when I know damned well I’ve given you enough money that you could afford an entire estate. You do that all for the fun of it?”

Smite stared straight ahead.

“You scarcely visit, and you never spend the night. That’s because you’re just an ordinary fellow? And you harbor no resentment toward me at all.”

“I never said I was ordinary. Just that I wasn’t…wrong.” He was feeling more and more wrong now. As if he’d given away his center. As if he’d sent it via train to London.

“Oh, no.” Ash rolled his eyes. “You’re not wrong. You’re never wrong—always damnably precise, you are. Still, I must wonder—why are you always so angry at me?”

“I’m not angry!” Smite growled. “I just don’t need you to do anything for me. How can I make you understand that?”

Ash threw up his hands. “How am I supposed to believe that nothing is wrong? I remember when I first found you on the streets of Bristol. My God, Smite. I left you and Mark with Mother at her worst. You won’t even tell me what happened. How can you not hate me for that? I can scarcely stand to think of it myself.”

Smite spread his hands. “It was noth—”

“It’s always nothing with you. I don’t believe you.”

Smite could almost hear Miranda, could almost see that resigned smile on her face. You are the worst liar. But that unbidden memory nearly overwhelmed him. He shut his eyes and turned away. It was almost a physical pain, that tearing in his gut.

He took a deep breath and thought of the only thing that could dislodge that wave of sorrow.

“She locked me in the cellar,” he said flatly. “It flooded. I nearly drowned. I have nightmares about it still, and I can’t bear to be around other people. I hold no grudge against you specifically. It’s everyone.”

Close enough to the truth.

“I’m so sorry,” his brother began.

Smite slapped his fist into his palm so hard that it stung. “Don’t be. It made me who I am. I don’t wish what happened to me undone. And when you do, you wish me less of a person.”

Ash crossed the room to him. He lifted one hand a few inches at his side, and then let it drop. “Very well,” he finally said. “If you say you’re not angry with me, that there’s nothing you wish I had done…”

“I didn’t say that,” Smite heard himself rasp out. He didn’t know where the next words came from. He surely hadn’t thought them out. But still they spilled out of him. “You should have saved Hope.”

It was an ugly thing to say. Ash’s face grew pale. It was entirely unfair. Ash had been little more than a boy when their sister had died. What he could have done to combat that ugly fever, Smite didn’t know. And yet, cruel as those words had been, they felt right. True.

“You should have saved Hope,” he repeated. His voice shook. “You were older. You were stronger. You always knew how to do everything. You should have found a way to save her. But you didn’t, and I had to face the fact that my big brother was human. That you made mistakes.”

“Oh, Smite.” Now Ash did set his hand on Smite’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Smite shrugged the touch off. “I’m not finished yet. You should have saved Mark. When Mother truly began to go mad, you should never have left. You have no idea what I had to go through, keeping him fed, keeping him safe. Keeping him away from her notice when she was at her worst. You should have been there. You should have saved him.”

He hadn’t even known he felt this way—black and ugly and unforgiving. But he couldn’t hold back the tide of his anger, now that he’d given it voice.

“You should have been a god. I’ve never forgiven you for being merely mortal.”

Ash shook his head. “Why don’t you say what you really mean? I should have saved you.”

For a second, Smite felt choked by floodwaters. He could feel his hands numbing, beginning to lose their grip no matter how hard he held on. But what brought him back to the here-and-now wasn’t his brother’s concern, but the sharp feel of metal cutting into his skin. Miranda’s hairpin was in his pocket. That much of the present, he could hold on to.

“There you’re wrong,” he said. “I don’t need saving. Nothing is wrong with me.” He took a deep gulp of breath. He didn’t need saving, damn it. And yet…