Gabriel froze. “Is that what you think happened?”
Isaac’s throat went tight, and he swiveled his head around to look at Gabriel. “That is what happened.”
“Let me tell you what I remember,” Gabriel said. “About that day. About what happened.”
Isaac realized his hands were beginning to shake, and he took a deep breath, knowing he was not ready to hear any of this, knowing already that there wasn’t a chance in hell he could walk away.
“All right,” he said, and Gabriel began.
“They didn’t tell us,” he said, “that someone would have to die. Not for a very long time. I did my ritual, and Caleb and Isaiah and Uncle Simon chained me up and bled me onto that altar, and it hurt. When it was over they told me that I had taken it well, and that I would carry on the Sullivan legacy. I assumed everyone’s ritual was like that—I didn’t ask too many questions, and they liked it that way. They told me specifically not to tell you, so whenever you asked about it I just shook my head. Because I was proud of being included.
“I’d always wanted to be like Caleb and Isaiah—it would’ve been cool to shatter things—and I was disappointed at first when I realized I could heal. But soon, I felt very useful. Everyone wanted me on their patrol because I was handy if there was an injury, or if a Sullivan lost control. And it was fine for years… until they told Mom it would be you.
“I don’t know who made the decision. We’re—we were—bigger than every other family, and the uncles were the ones who really called the shots, I don’t know if you remember.”
“I remember,” said Isaac. “They never liked me very much.”
They’d thought he was weak and strange, and they’d always encouraged him to hang out with his brothers and Justin, hoping they would be a good influence. Isaac had never wanted to be the type of man they were: men who drank too much and thought too little. His mother had called them out on their bullshit for a while, but it had started to wear on her, and eventually she’d given up on them entirely.
“They were assholes,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly. “Anyway. I don’t know if you remember Mom trying to run away with you before it happened.”
“I remember,” Isaac said quietly.
“I didn’t understand what was going on,” Gabriel said. “But I know what happened after they caught you two. She was put under constant surveillance, locked in her room like a prisoner. Caleb broke her out the night of the ritual because it was the only time they let down their guard, and they came to try to free you. But Caleb didn’t tell me and Isaiah what was coming—I think he considered us in too deep—and so we didn’t realize, neither of us did, that they were going to kill you until they’d already handed me the knife.”
Gabriel’s voice began to shake, and Isaac tried not to remember, tried to block it out, but it was there, it was all there. Right below the surface, churning through him, a loss too big to avoid, a pain too great to heal.
“They told—” His voice broke. “They told me that I wasn’t just going to make you bleed, I was going to kill you. That it would make us stronger. I told them to go to hell. And then Uncle Si grabbed the knife out of my hands, and he was so quick—he pressed it against your throat; and there was blood everywhere, and I thought you were dying, we all did, we were screaming—and then your powers activated. Then Caleb and Mom showed up, and everything after that…” He trailed off. “It’s blurry. Maybe it’s better that way.”
Isaac scar throbbed, and he felt bile rising in his throat. “It wasn’t you,” he whispered. “All those years… I thought you had chased me because you wanted to finish the job.”
Gabriel shook his head. “No. I chased you because I wanted to heal you.”
A puzzle piece clicked into place: Gabriel’s medallion on the ground beside him when he’d come to. Isaac had thought he’d ripped it off his brother in the struggle, but that had never quite made sense. Isaac reached a hand up and touched the line at his throat, remembered what Justin had told him. That there was so much blood. That the wound had been too deep. But he’d lived anyway; he’d lived, and he’d never questioned why until now.
“Then why did you leave?” Isaac asked. “If you healed me… You left me in the woods.”
“I went to get help,” Gabriel said. “The Hawthornes found you before I could. And after it was all over, everything moved very quickly. Everyone who survived that night split in the next few days. They didn’t want to be around when you got out of the hospital. They were ashamed of what they’d done. And I couldn’t look at myself without thinking of how useless I’d been—I was supposed to be a healer, but I couldn’t save Caleb, or Isaiah, or Mom. It felt better to leave you in the Hawthornes’ care than to own up to everything I’d done.”
“But you saved me,” Isaac whispered, his heart pounding in his chest. All those years of running and hiding, and here it was: the truth. That Gabriel had never wanted to hurt him after all. “You saved me, and I never knew.”
“Because I ran,” said Gabriel. “Fuck it… I’m glad you destroyed the house. We weren’t a family—we were a cult. And I’ve spent the past few years turning it over in my mind, trying to understand. Why our ritual asks for so much when the others don’t. Why we did it for so many years. Why the rest of the town just let us kill children for hundreds of years. What the fuck? I mean—how did our uncles live with themselves? How could Mom have kids at all, knowing what might happen to us?”
“I don’t understand it,” Isaac said. “I don’t think I ever will. Sometimes I have nightmares that they’ve come back. That’s what I thought you were when I first saw you. A bad dream.”
“It doesn’t matter if they come back,” said Gabriel. “This ends here. With us. No more sacrifices. No more bloody trades for power. I don’t care what it gives us—it isn’t worth it.”
“Agreed,” Isaac said, his words carried away on a sudden gust of wind. A weight tugged at his wrist: Gabriel’s medallion. He hooked his fingers around it and unwound it from his wrist, the cracked red disc shining in the sun. “Hey. You should probably take this back.”
“I don’t think I deserve it.”
“You’re a founder.” Isaac held it out: a gauntlet. “You earned it.”
“All right. If you insist.” But Isaac could see how much it meant to him as he gently tied it around his wrist.
All this time, he’d been wrong. He’d tried to stare at his fear head-on and found that there was no monster waiting for him, just someone who was as frightened as he was. The only person who could truly grasp the magnitude of betrayal he’d faced that night.
If he’d been brave enough, if Gabriel had been ready, they could have done this years ago. Isaac ached for all that wasted time where they had suffered separately, both unable to cope and struggling to heal. But against all odds, they had figured it out.
It wasn’t too late. Not for him and not for Gabriel, either.