Masked SheWolf (MSW book 1)

Chapter 3 - Michael

"How's that going by the way?" I casually ask. "Did she take you back? Are you done groveling and begging yet?"

Connor shrugs with a mischievous grin on his face. "I didn't need to; I convinced her it was a prank, courtesy of my baby brother."

We don't say anything for a couple of seconds. I think that's the longest we've ever been quiet during the morning car ride. Then something unpleasant settles in the pit of my stomach and I feel it growing to the surface, even though I don't know what's going on yet.

"What did you do?" I demand, making each word sound like a separate sentence.

"I introduced her to your girlfriend," he teased.

Now I know what the feeling in the pit of my stomach is; anger. There's some embarrassment in there, too, at the concept of me having a girlfriend, but mostly anger. I don't say anything though, because I know that whatever I come up with is going to be countered by his indifference. That's the most effective way he knows to get on my nerves. Instead, I wait for the opportune moment and let my brothers bash him out in the meantime.

"Dude, that is just wrong," Danny is the first to defend me, even though I just broke his nose. What can I say? Twins always got each other's backs. "You can't choose for Mickey to have a girlfriend when you want him to."

"And yet, I did," he replies, completely carelessly.

"What if Andrea came and asked him about this imaginary girlfriend?" Nate adds in a rare moment of normal intelligence

Connor shrugs, although he looks a bit uncomfortable now. "Not my problem."

"Didn't you think about how this would affect Dylan's secret?" Mason protests, and he sounds almost mad. "That was a really stupid thing to do. Dad will bite your head off when he finds out."

This is apparently something Connor didn't think about. "You can't tell Dad."

"Why not?" I interject, and I put as much venom in my voice as I can muster. "It's the four of us against you."

For a moment, he takes his eyes off the road to look at me, and I can see genuine regret flash in his eyes. "Look, Dylan, I'm sorry, okay? You're right, just please don't tell Dad, I'll do anything," he bursts out.

And there is the opportune moment I was waiting for. "Anything?"

"Yes," he doesn't hesitate to repeat.

"Alright, then listen up, all of you," I start. "Aside from the obvious fact of having to fix this with Andrea, my target is Connor, but you are not allowed to retaliate."

I guess I should explain how War Day works. It's pretty simple; there's a target that all the others play pranks on every Sunday. He has all week to retaliate and chose the next target. Since I was yesterday's victim, I am the one who chooses whose turn is next. We used to sometimes pick the same person as the target repetitively, so we came up with a general rule that we can't be picked more than once a month.

So now, because of what he did to Burns and because of how he got out of my counter-attack, I want Connor to be next week's victim. Nobody can object; it's my choice.

"That's only fair," Mase agrees.

"Yeah, Con, I mean you basically retaliated against his counter-attack, and that's not allowed," Nate reminds him.

"Alright, I get it," Connor stops them. "It was a low move. I won't retaliate when you guys gang up on me."

This is what I love about our brotherly bond; we fight all the time, we humiliate each other practically every day, but we always respect each other's boundaries. Most importantly though, we have each other's backs, even if it doesn't always seem like it. Once, in the ninth grade, this guy thought I was hitting on his girl and cornered me after school for a fight.