My third thought is… Let’s see how this plays out.
That’s before Lev ends up on his ass on the floor, rocking back and forth as though he’s going to explode out of his skin. I’ve seen this happen enough times to know that he’s close to a full-blown breakdown. And if that happens, calming him down is a huge process. Hours of incessant murmuring and comforting and pleading.
Then comes the recovery period. Sometimes, it takes a day or two. Other times, much, much longer. That’s the last thing I need right now. I can’t afford to let things spiral out of—
I freeze when Alyssa drops onto the floor in front of Lev and covers her face just like he’s doing. She mirrors his every movement until it becomes a game. Until he drops his hands and stops looking so terrified.
She’s halted the meltdown right in its tracks. It took me fucking years to get the hang of it. How the hell did she manage that in a single try?
Maybe she’s a witch.
It’s so much easier to accept than the alternative, which is that she’s just a good person.
I remain fixated on the screen as Lev starts to interact with her. From afar, it looks like a real conversation. I put the audio feed on belatedly but they’re both talking so softly that I can’t tell what they’re saying. It doesn’t really matter, though—I don’t need to hear them.
Watching them is enough.
I end up watching through the hours of video games and several bowls of cereal. I catch Lev smiling a couple of times. The light is dim, but I could swear his cheeks blush, too.
Hours later, Lev finally leaves the basement in his usual abrupt style. But not before they exchange a few words at the door. Alyssa is smiling when she lies back on the bed, her eyes trained on the ceiling.
What is she smiling about? I wonder.
It dawns on me a second later that I can just go down and find out for myself. Sitting and stewing has never been my style.
I barge in in my usual fashion and Alyssa bolts upright. The fact that she’s still wearing her dopey smile tells me that she’s expecting someone else. It curdles as soon as she realizes she’s not getting what she wants.
“Oh,” she says dully. “It’s you.”
“Disappointed?”
Her lips seal together and she shrugs nonchalantly. A little too nonchalantly, in my opinion. “I was hoping for Svetlana. I requested French toast for breakfast today.”
Would I have believed that blatant lie if I hadn’t just spent the last several hours watching her? Probably not, but I wouldn’t have thought the little kiska would hide something as jarring as my brother. Good to know—the girl can do a lot more with her tongue than just suck me off.
You fucking fool. Don’t go there.
But it’s too late. My cock is already perking up. My reckless thoughts are partly to blame, but my proximity to Alyssa has a little something to do with it, too.
Not that that’s happening again.
Once was enough. Twice was too much. A third time would be fucking catastrophic.
“How’s your morning going?” I ask coolly.
“As well as can be expected when you’re locked in a room without fresh air or human company.”
I narrow my eyes. “It seems you had plenty of human company the last few hours. Unless of course you’re making a crack about my brother being less than that?”
Her eyes go wide. It’s cartoonishly cute. “You were watching us!”
I shrug. “Yes.”
She glowers at me and those blue eyes of her turn piercing. “Are you ever not being a total fucking creep?”
“You keep giving me reasons to.”
“Oh. right,” she scoffs viciously, “because I’m the one who can’t be trusted. I’m sure you saw it all happen, but in case you forgot, I’ll remind you: Lev is the one that entered the basement of his own free will. I didn’t make him do anything. I can’t even open the damn door on my own!”
“No, but you did just lie to me about his visit.”
She jumps out of bed and squares up with me, all fighting form and indignation. It’s hard to take her seriously in those pajamas, though. Strawberry-and-lemon printed sets don’t exactly strike fear in a man’s heart.
“I’m sorry—I don’t see how you can expect honesty from me when you give me nothing in return!”
“That’s not how this works, narushitel.”
“Of course not, because contrary to the bullshit you’re feeding me, I’m your hostage!” Her eyes flash as she takes an angry step towards me. “And I didn’t tell you about Lev’s visit because he was worried you’d be mad at him. I didn’t want to stir up shit by tattling on him and I certainly wasn’t going to risk upsetting him.”
She’s breathing heavily. Apparently, my presence causes the exact opposite reaction to Lev’s.
Great—first, I was jealous of a purple dildo. Now, I’m jealous of my little brother. Things are going fucking swell.
“You were really good with him.”
My own words take me by surprise. I don’t recant them, though. I’m not usually in the habit of handing out compliments but in this case, Alyssa deserves the credit. She really was incredible with him.
My sincerity must take her off-guard, too, because she stops short, her eyes going wide, her anger deflating. She clears her throat awkwardly and shuffles her weight from one left to the other.
“Well… he’s a kind soul.”
That’s the first kind thing I’ve heard anyone say about him in a while. Lev doesn’t meet new people anymore. I made that decision early on after the accident. Or rather, Lev had made the decision for me. Each of the few instances we did manage to get him out of the estate ended in disaster. Something would happen, Lev would react, and then other people would react to him. They’d point and stare; some would laugh; others would yell.
Strangers can muster up patience and compassion for a child, but Lev is not that in their eyes. He is the grown, unhinged man who snatched a stuffed rabbit toy from a toddler and refused to give it back. He is the hulking brute who started sobbing hysterically because someone popped a balloon ten feet away. He is the scarred, hunched, frightened twenty–two-year-old who starts screaming in fear when a random stranger brushes too close past him.
No one sees the broken child inside that huge, tortured body.
And even if they could…
They wouldn’t understand the first fucking thing about him.
Eventually, I realized that our outings were doing more harm than good. He took days to recover from them and, even after the dust settled, he’d walk a little slower, talk a little quieter—as though he was the one who had something to be ashamed of.
“He’s a kind soul,” I echo gruffly. “Yeah. Not everyone sees that.”
She chews on her bottom lip. “He was really agitated when he first saw me.”
I nod. “He’s not used to people he doesn’t know. And when he has been exposed to them… well, they haven’t been very nice to him.”