The Weight of the Family

46 (REVISED)

KEREN

Metal paneling scratched his cheek as the men drove him to another location. Pain coiled around his shoulders as the mask continued to push the sweet scent through his nose. Fiery rage washed into weak blood as the streetlamps betrayed their movement from the slight gap. It cast their faces in shadow, their words rolled around in his temples, but Keren blinked out the rest of his tears.

I'm going to die. Keren closed himself from their appraising expressions. I'm going to die.

"We're close to south side," the driver said. "Boss wants us to head straight for the safehouse."

"Let's not dawdle then," the guard said across from him, then peeked out the tiny window. "We weren't tailed." He poked his foot into his side, and Keren steadied his breathing. "At least this one has lost all the fire from before." He narrowed his eyes, then leaned to the passenger beside the driver. "We couldn't hear what they were talking about in that safehouse. You can bet they're going to move locations, though."

Gorgots snarled in the shadows, set aflame. Keren clenched his fists, drawing the man's words through his mind. He lost all the fire. He was weak. There was no point squirming.

You're a failure, Father's voice chided him for his weakness. Ethan will die, and it'll be on your hands... Keren squinted. At least... at least I didn't get Ethan killed.

Ethan.

Ethan.

Ethan.

It sparked against his soul born in the bones. He rolled his wrists in the cuffs, an obstinate refusal to lay down and die. If there is no escape. If I can never be free... what else do I have to lose other than my life? Ethan got up, time and time again against all odds. All he ever needed was a moment, an opening, a chance. Flames burnt the wetness against his skin as he inched his hand into an awkward position, trying to reach the connection he had to his wall of an older brother. He gauged the rusty gap on the transport door, and braced his shoulders.

"We just need to get through the tunnel ahead—"

No.

Keren hauled himself up with the wall, shoving his thumb through the flare's activator, but it needed a bigger spark. A larger supernova. Shadows gasped when Keren lunged himself into his guard, using the back of the truck as the riptide in life. The flare cracked, and a green nebulae smoked the entire back of the transport as he used his bound arms against the guard's throat to shatter the rusty hinges on the door. Wind poured through the opening as the flare screeched in his hands.

"Fuck!" the guard snapped.

The flare slipped out of his hands, on the edge of the opening when the door snapped off a single hinge below. He aimed his heel against the flare as it rippled with malcontent, and shoved it through the gap. It bounced along the street, sending further sparks into the air and through the small window at the top of the transport truck. Wheels swiveled. Tighter. He lost his breath every vital second. Bile slammed into his stomach with the guards fist when he tossed him back to the ground.

"Celestials." His guard coughed through the flare's smoke and wiped his face, then sent another kick into his stomach. Coils of heat wrapped around his ribcage, and Keren bit down on his tongue.

"What the fuck did he do?" the driver demanded.

"Set off some sort of starsdamned flare," the guard complained with another cough, waving the smoke out of his face as they drove into the tunnel which separated the north side of Roxton from the south. Keren frowned when the guard said. "Stop the transport. We need to fan this place out and make sure no one caught sight of that flare. We can wait for the second pick-up. Bring him."