“Hey.”
Shaney startled. Todd stood behind him, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. The long-sleeved shirt he wore covered Caleb’s body art.
“Hey.” Shaney scooted over and motioned for Todd to sit next to him.
“What ya doin’?”
Shaney sighed and scraped his nail into the wood of the dock. “Just taking a break, regrouping, calming my fears, pulling up my big boy pants, taking Maximus’ advice of getting my head in the game. You know, all of that warrior crap.”
Todd didn’t respond as he looked out over the pond. Finally, he spoke. “You’re different, Shaney.”
Shaney wasn’t sure how to respond to that so he waited for Todd to elaborate.
Todd sighed. “You aren’t stuck in your head so much anymore, and you’re finally sticking up for yourself. You aren’t letting people walk all over you anymore.”
Shaney gave a nervous chuckle. “I don’t really have a choice.”
“But you do. You’ve always had a choice, and that’s what I’ve always told you. Inside of you, there has always been a warrior, a lion’s heart, who could defeat anyone. Now you have to up your game, but you’ll do it, because you’re Shaney Mills. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘defeat’ or ‘can’t.’ You’ve always just done it, fuck the outcome.”
Shaney bowed his head. Todd had always been able to find the words to push him forward, to give him strength. “Only because I have someone believing in me.”
Todd gave him a lopsided smile. “That’s what big brothers are for.”
Shaney drew in a deep shaky breath. “If anything... If everything goes tits up...” Shaney ran a shaky hand over his arm as a chill saturated his skin. “I need you to promise me something.”
Todd was already shaking his head. “Tomorrow, we’ll walk out of that cabin with Hudson and Silas will no longer be a threat. You can have your happily ever after and—”
“Todd,” Shaney snapped as a rush of fear and foreboding filled him. “I need this promise, or I can’t do what I need to do. If anything happens to me, you have to take care of my mom. And look out for Hudson. Please.”
A tear escaped Shaney’s eye and rolled down his face.
“She’s my mom, too,” Todd whispered. “I promise. And Hudson, too.”
No ‘buts’ and Shaney was grateful. He needed to be confident but realistic. Then he could focus.
A light breeze carried leaves from the colorful trees, and several landed on the still water of the pond, creating a mosaic of color. He loved fall, loved nature, and, no wonder because apparently he could connect with the energy—probably had been able to his entire life.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I wished I was more like you. You’ve always been larger than life to me, Shaney. I’m still here because of you.”
Shaney was about to ask what the hell that meant, when Todd sniffed. “And I need you to keep me from falling for the wrong guys.”
Shaney surveyed Todd’s profile. The calm exterior was contradicted by the constant bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed back on that well of emotion within.
“What happened with Mr. Anderson?” His brother. Should Shaney be calling the Antichrist his brother? What did that make Shaney?
Shaney laid his hand on Todd’s thigh. A visible shudder ran through him as if Shaney’s touch weakened his self-control.
Continuing his thousand-yard stare, Todd shifted uncomfortably. “After that day in the hospital, I was pissed. He was such an ass to you. He was always putting you down, so the next day I went to his house to give him a piece of my mind.”
Shaney’s eyes widened. “That’s where you went when my mom came over? You really went to his house?”
Todd bobbed his head. “Yeah, well it was Saturday and he wasn’t at work. I never told you this, but that first time I met him at your probation appointment, I fucking popped wood. Something about him—I don’t even know what—just kind of crawled inside. Anyway, he answered the door in a pair of boxers.”
Shaney buried his face in his hands. “Tell me you didn’t attack him.” Really, the entire thing was grossing Shaney out.
“No. Started yelling at him and pushing him back into the house, and then he was yelling and pushing me back and we ended up wrestling. One minute we’re trying to pin one another and the next...” A red flush crept up Todd’s neck. “You know.”
“I don’t want to know what someone I consider my brother is doing with someone who apparently is my biological brother.” Well, he assumed biological, since Dan was Silas’s son and Shaney had been constructed from the original Shaney’s DNA. A cloned version of someone who had died. His just head might explode.