Avery’s up hard against the wall. Vin has a fistful of his shirt and is pressing against his collarbone. Her eyes are bottomless and frigid. She’s got height on Avery, she’s got steel he’ll never have.
‘—don’t disagree with me,’ Vin is saying. ‘There’s a place I want to crack and the best way around the security system is the window. That kid can fit.’
‘I said n-no.’ Avery’s voice shakes.
Vin rams him against the wall again, harder this time and Avery’s head snaps backwards and hits the plaster.
His voice takes on a desperate edge. ‘Vin, please. I-I-I don’t want him to get hurt—’
‘After all I do for you.’
‘Stop it!’ Sam’s muscles coil, tense, stretch. He springs into the kitchen and shoves Vin off.
Vin’s breath escapes in a stunned gasp and she releases Avery and stumbles backwards into the sink. Cutlery slips and clatters to the floor. Her frost eyes snap to Sam, but Sam’s moving, fast as running water.
He leaps and his fist shoots forward, knuckles slamming into the soft cartilage of Vin’s nose.
She screams.
Blood sprays hot over Sam’s fingers.
Avery gives a startled yell and grabs Sam’s waist. ‘Sammy, don’t—’
But fire blazes in Sam’s lungs. Intoxicating adrenaline sprawls up his throat and rushes into his muscles, that feeling he gets every time he loses it. Every time he explodes.
Vin snatches a tea towel and presses it to her face. Blood soaks her shirt. She roars something but Sam’s ears are full of power and his fist is still clenched, and all he can think of is going at Vin again
and again
and
again—
Avery wraps his arms around Sam’s chest and clings so tightly Sam can’t catch a breath. ‘Don’t don’t.’ His voice cracks. ‘D-don’t hit people. You don’t – c-can’t … Sammy, don’t.’
Vin throws the tea towel on the ground, but blood still streams from her nose and her look is black murder. Sam drops his curled fist to his side, his breath coming fast. He can’t feel anything. He’s spun out of invincible clouds.
‘Let go of me, Avery, just – let go.’ Sam’s voice rises. ‘Avery, stop it.’
Avery drops to his knees on the floor, arms curled over his head, rocking and rocking.
Vin raises bloody fingers towards the door. ‘Get out.’
Sam’s anger is cooling, leaving his hands shaking. ‘Fine.’ His voice feels far away. ‘Come on, Avery.’ He wipes blood on to his jeans and reaches for his brother. Tries to grab his wrist.
Avery jerks back.
Vin’s voice explodes. ‘GET OUT.’
Avery unfolds from the floor and for a second Sam thinks they’ll both run for the door and keep going until Vin is a faded, bitter memory. But instead Avery slips past Sam and bolts for the stairs, fingers flicking in front of his eyes and head tucked to avoid invisible blows. Sam tries to tell him to stop, come back, but the words stick.
A door slams upstairs.
Sam has to go after him, calm him down and make it better, say sorry for yelling at him – for scaring him. How could he scare his brother? But then Vin’s suddenly got a fistful of Sam’s shirt and drags him towards the front door. He trips on the threshold.
‘The quiet ones are always the psychos,’ Vin growls, her face and shirt a bloody waterfall. Then she hurls him out and slams the door. Locks click. Avery’s crushed expression and broken eyes play again and again in Sam’s memories.
Sam waits
just a minute
to see if Avery will come out.
He waits an hour.
Then he walks while slivers of hope fall out of his pockets and splinter on the ground.
The lock comes apart under Sam’s thin, light fingers.
He uses paperclips and pretends he doesn’t miss the real lock picks that Avery gave him a few years ago, wrapped in an old chip packet and tied with a bow while he hopped on the spot in giddy excitement. ‘Happy birthday, Sammy, go steal me the moon.’
Now the only thing he wants to steal is Avery.
Except right now, Avery doesn’t want to be around him. Sam scared his brother. He scared his brother. He has to stop doing this, losing it. Hitting people.
Sam breaks into a house and his footsteps echo on empty tiles. The For Sale sign was a pretty solid indicator that he’d have no trouble here. The thick coating of dust on the light switches says it’s been vacant a while.
There’s nothing to take except handfuls of cobwebs.
He wanders into a small bedroom and curls up in the corner.
Close your eyes and pretend this is a bed.
Pretend you don’t smell stale air and mouse bait. Pretend those are waffles on the stove, covered in maple syrup.
Pretend Avery’s in the garage, taking apart the engine on his first car. He never stops talking about how badass it’ll be when he finishes.
Sam tries to fit Aunt Karen into a cosy armchair, but she has a cigarette between furious lips instead. Was she ever happy with them?
He puts in the De Lainey father.
And then a handful of De Lainey kids.
And somehow the house fills up with piles of Lego and yogurt tubs and Moxie putting caramel sauce in a coffee cup. Her eyes meet his, chocolate curls spilling across her cheeks.
His words come cracked as a broken plate. ‘I’m sorry.’
The fantasy turns to puffs of dust and curls of ghosts and he’s lying in an empty room, crying hot salty tears into the carpet.
‘Hi, Moxie. I’m sorry I was lurking like a sick creeper in your house. The truth is none of you actually know me and I just invited myself in because I’m pathetic.’
Sam holds a spool of yellow thread out to the hydrangea bush.
The bush waves encouragingly at him.
Sam clears his throat. ‘This is an apology present. I didn’t steal it. Well, I mean, I stole the money for it, so technically I guess I stole it. I don’t know what your favourite colour is, but yellow reminds me of happiness, which reminds me of your house.’
The bush appears to have lost interest in his spiel, or else the wind died.
‘So what I really want to say is …’ Sam rubs his cheek, picking off remnants of road rash scabs. ‘I’m sorry?’
The bush does not accept his apology.