Possession [H.S] ✓

Chapter Thirty-One

Layla.

"Ouch. That wasn't a very nice thing to say to your big brother, Layla."

The words hung between us, so thick and almost forgien like that it was hard to stomach them. His tone was gruff, and it showed his clear annoyance, and faint hurt, at what I had said to him about the wooden stake.

"What, what are you talking about?" I gushed out in confusion, and shook my head.

Instead of answering me, he simply shut off the engine and climbed out of the vehicle without another word. It took me a moment to realize that we were stopped in front of a small, secluded house. Somehow, it reminded me of Catherina's home, and that had been large to me, but after living with Harry for how ever many days had altered my mind set about what was large and what was small.

I quickly followed his suit after taking off my seat belt, and grabbed the bag that had been packed for me. After I shut the door behind me, I hurried up the small steps after him. He had left the door wide open for me, and I suddenly felt afraid as I stood in the door way. I peered inside, searching for Justin, and finally spotting him on the couch inside of the small, yet vast, living room. His back was to me, but I knew he was expecting me to walk in.

I bit my lip, and slowly stepped over the threshold, then shut the door, flicking the lock in place before walking over to him. I took a deep breath as I positioned myself in front of him. I felt so out of place, wearing nothing but a large tee shirt and shorts, and my hair being messy from sleeping in the car after I just had a shower. However, I was able to steady myself long enough to say the words that were boiling through my mind.

"You are not my brother, I don't have a brother," I said, and shook my head.

Justin cracked a faint smile, and looked at me before leaning back against the couch. "I would like to call you naive, Layla, but it's not like you were fed any information to doubt what you had been told about our family, if you can even call it a family. Our parents weren't the best people, and they got what was coming to them."

I wrinkled my nose in faint disgust at the way he spoke of my parents. "You sick son of bitch, don't talk about my parents like that! They couldn't help dying from that damn disease that knocked out nearly half of my old Isle," I said through my teeth.

He laughed quietly. "Layla, there wasn't any disease. We weren't even born there, we were born in the United States in one of the rural towns that survived the war."

"There isn't a United States, none of it survived the war. I know what I was taught," I lowly said, remembering everything about my studies.

He scoffed and stood up from the couch. "One of the Lords didn't want anyone to know about the United States, they wanted it to vanish and remain undisturbed because it held no value to anyone. It's full of disease, and people that would rather have their children die than to have they themselves die." The way he spoke about the people reminded me of how he spoke of my parents, but he had to be lying. It wasn't possible that everyone had been taught a lie.

"You are not my brother, Justin. And even if you were, I would surely know about you, someone would have told me at some point," I responded through my teeth, my patience was running thin and was causing me to grind them in annoyance.

"You weren't suppose to know about me, Layla," He said, and sighed. "You weren't suppose to know," He repeated in a whispered.

I shook my head. "Then why are you telling me now? Or rather, the better question is why didn't the solider that found me, tell Catherina or her husband that I had a brother that wouldn't be growing up with me," I asked him, not really expecting an answer. He was lying to me, so nothing he would say could matter to me.