The Weight of the Family

30 (REVISED)

KEREN

Stuck in his room, Keren quivered whenever Father's Associates moved through the house to his office, suits pressed and immaculate, but unseen blood splattered their boots. Jaws crunched bone as he sprawled across his bed with a ship catalogue in his hands. One of the few things he found solace in.

As long as it didn't get ruined for him too.

The clock echoed his own heartbeat. Keren pressed his chin deeper into the pillow and longed for Ethan's boldness to speak out. A shockwave of fear sliced his spine when the door creaked open, expecting interrogation or questions from Father. Tension stiffened his bones, and he hid his face in the comforter and waited for the end.

"Keren?"

Ethan! Keren choked on relief and sped out of his comforter. When he went out with Father, I— Thought slammed out of his mind, he hauled himself out of his bed, where his abandoned classwork sat on his desk. In one last ditch effort for outside connection, Keren opened his wristpad, but Father kept it locked from outside channels. It left very few contacts, among them Jesti and Chalen.

I don't know what I expected. Keren dropped his hand to his side. ...I didn't have any friends.

"Keren, I want to talk to you."

Keren took in Ethan. Purple edevic lines pulsed through small connectors within the fabric of the stealth suit. "Why are you wearing that?"

Ethan stepped over the threshold into his room without further care in the world. Irritation drove his teeth into his tongue, though it washed away when Ethan sent his palm into his forehead with a playful scoff. "I want you to come with me to our house gym," he said with an empty smile, the same one etched on his face from the fateful encounter and Keren's killer curiosity. He swallowed on his stupid mistake, but frowned when Ethan picked up one of the model scouts they both built together. Happier days; when Mom was alive.

In the shadows, bathed in dying light, Ethan turned into her, with wide, horrified eyes as he dug his fingers into his shoulders and pleaded for him to forget it all even though Father hit him for his disobedience.

How can I forget?

Ethan put the ship down and returned to him. "I'm going to teach you a couple things, and Father is going to hound you if you hole yourself up in your room."

"Why does he care what I do as long as I don't talk?"

It took too long for Ethan to reply. "Don't think about it like that," he whispered. "I just want to spend time with you, and I have a secret to show you."

"Oh, now you want to spend time with me," Keren mumbled and folded his arms. Secrets were what their family was made of. Skeletons hung in their closets, and he suspected if he opened Father's he'd find literal ones along with the metaphorical ones.

Stars, what would I find in Ethan's then?

Keren tasted hopelessness when Ethan refused to leave his room. "Okay, what's the secret?" He bit at his tongue at the reminder of questions, and the target they painted on someone's back. One wrong question through the wrong ear led to the jaws of a Gorgot. "...I'm not going to get an option, am I?"

"He's not going to give you an option," Ethan corrected. "But I won't leave you to these wolves. Not without a fight."

Weariness slammed down on his shoulders. "Why don't we run?"

Ethan's smile died. "Because... we just can't." He huffed. "So, are you going to come? I'll teach you everything that will help you survive... I might even teach you how to use this edevic opticamo suit."