“I’d believe that if you ever acted your age,” I teased, shrugging it on and in turn held Roan’s out for him.
People stared at us as he pulled it on and I remembered my error. It was uncommon for women to help men with their tasks, whether it was as important as keeping track of money or as menial as holding a door open. Father and I had changed our ways when Mother died. Roan and I had always been this way, as long as I could remember, but the townsfolk didn’t understand. That was why, when a man sniggered at the bar, I tensed. Roan wasn’t a man you wanted to fight, even before he lost his family.
“Is there something amusing, friend?” Roan asked, adjusting his collar.
“Not at all,” the man slurred. “Just didn’t realise women wore trousers.” I panicked albeit for a second before I realised he meant Roan, not my ‘other’ brother.
I felt his body shift toward the man at the bar. Quickly, I grasped his arm and lifted my chin, meeting his eyes with a soft, but firm, gaze.
Roan cleared his throat. “Yes, well, you should hear the things people say about my beard.” He gave a tight smile and people chuckled around us while Roan turned to leave. Relief flooded through me and I smiled at the man, dipping my head to him as he turned his attention to me. He finished the contents of his tankard and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand.
“At least you make a better woman than the harlot you came in with.”
I stopped. The man was either out for blood or just plain stupid. Either way, Roan stopped mid-stride and my heart went into a flutter. He could overlook things people said about him but not what people said about me.
“That’s not very polite, is it?” Something about Roan changed that instance. Whether it was his voice, his energy or the way he held himself, when he turned to face the man I could see something was off. His eyes had grown dark and by a sharp flinch I saw that his hands were bleeding. The man could sense it too as he recoiled sharply, but not quick enough as Roan pulled him out of his chair by the collar. “I’d like you to apologise.”
“I’m sorry.” The man trembled.
“Not to me – to her.” Roan leaned in closer as his words came out in a hiss.
“I apologise for being disgraceful,” he almost screamed.
“Good.” Roan dropped the man and walked back to the door, muttering an apology to the keeper’s wife as he passed her. He stumbled down the steps outside and I glanced back at the man before following. His face was red and sweaty as he weighed up whether to let it drop or continue.
“Don’t do it,” I muttered under my breath. “Don’t-”
BANG.
I’d only gotten a few steps down the street by the time I heard him. He was clearly not a smart man as his footsteps stomped across the Shack. The door burst open and he shouted, “Take your filthy kind elsewhere, you motherless cretins.” Roan had already walked the length of the street and I continued after him, ignoring the unstable tap-tap of the man’s shoes on the cobbles. “The whole neighbourhood celebrated when we heard about your family, Keller. Your father was a poor excuse for a man. Always making deals he couldn’t keep; always taking other people’s wives to bed. It’s no wonder your poor mother killed herself-”
His sentence was cut short as my patience snapped like a violin string. I drove my fist into his throat and a hot, white rage bubbled up inside me. He doubled over and coughed before he locked his fingers in my hair. I squealed short and sharp and people turned to look, all except Roan who continued storming away from us.
“Hey!” someone called from the crowd, and I took advantage of the distraction. I pulled out of his grasp, ignoring the sting as some of my hair came away with it, and ducked under his arm. For a drunken beast he was still fast enough to catch me across the cheek with an open hand and I stumbled to my knees. I waited for his advance, fingering one of the loose cobblestones at my feet, and brought it up to his head with an almighty CRACK. The stone collided with his skull and his eyes rolled back in their sockets before he hit the ground.
The stone dropped from my fingers and I waited for people to carry him back inside. It didn’t take long for the streets to clear after that. Had the man been sober my chances would have been less than favourable, but another couple of drinks would have done the same to him.
Who was he to Roan though?
My hands shook angrily as his hateful words spilled into my mind again. I knew enough about Roan’s past to understand the stain his father had left on the city, and his own family for that matter. When Father had brought him home six years ago his body was black and blue. The finger-shaped bruises around his arms and burns around his neck made it quite clear what sort of man his father was. With his mother gone, his father had no problem releasing Roan into my family’s care. It was one less mouth to feed, and as the years passed he only ever heard from his grandmother.
Then it happened.
Three months ago, just after the first snow, something tore his family home apart. An animal; a person; no one knew what it had been for certain. The following morning there wasn’t much left to go on, only that both his father’s and grandmother’s blood stained the snow as bits of them were recovered. All that could be heard were screams and snarls. Of course, no one ventured outside their homes to investigate. It wasn’t unusual for screaming to come from the house on a regular day.
When Roan had heard of the slaughter he didn’t sleep for days, maybe weeks. Father and I never saw him enough to judge it until he returned several weeks later a changed man. We didn’t ask where he’d gone; we only cared he was home, and I mirrored the grief he felt for his grandmother. I spared none for his father, the man who abused and abandoned him. I wasn’t sad to hear of his death.
My shoes echoed dully across the street as I followed after Roan, only, something stood out at the edge of my vision: a shadow. As I turned my head the shadow became a solid figure and beneath the figure’s cloaked hood was a flash of silver. My heart leapt into my throat. Marcus. Eyes like that were hard to forget. Whatever his business was, the way he stared after Roan made me pick up my pace and angle myself between them, ignoring the warmth in my back as I broke his line of sight. I had to get Roan home.
Once I’d finally caught up to him I stopped a few feet short as a hideous, heavy feeling blanketed me. The same as the Shack. The same as the kitchen last night and that morning. My locket pulled around my neck and made all the muscles in my upper body ache against its weight, dragging me down – down – down – but I wouldn’t let myself fall.