Mason:Inked Reapers MC(98)

Brea cycled through the small town which had always been her home with  the wind blowing through her short dark hair. The familiar streets  looked shabbier than they had when she was a child. It was as if when  her parents died the sheen had come off the entire world and she was  forced to see things for what they really were.



Finally, Brea reached Brixton Road, a street lined with small wooden  bungalows, some in better condition than others. She remembered on  bright mornings how her father would turn on the sprinklers and let Brea  and Sylar dash beneath the spurts of water until they cooled down. Now  the lawn outside their house was overgrown and thick with weeds. Sylar  was always promising to get out and mow it, but he never did. Their  lawnmower had been pawned long ago, back when times were leaner.



Dismounting her bike, Brea pushed it up towards the car porch and then  stopped. Sylar's bright red motorcycle was parked next to the side of  the house, heat still radiating from the engine and causing the air to  bend.



"Dammit," Brea cursed under her breath. She was too late. She'd failed  to beat her brother home. She considered hiding her shopping in a nearby  bush. The bag was in her hand and she was about to stoop down and  conceal it when the mesh door of the house clattered open revealing  Sylar behind it. Brea instantly straightened and remained frozen before  him, like a deer caught in headlights.



"Where the hell have you been?" he snarled angrily at her. Brea could  feel eyes upon her as neighbors pulled back their curtains in the hope  of witnessing a heated exchange. She refused to give them such a show.  Pushing back her shoulders she confidently approached the house and  pushed past Sylar.                       
       
           



       



Inside, the house was dark and cool thanks to the ceiling fan which was  forever rotating above the small lounge. They'd once had a proper air  conditioning system but that, like the lawn mower, had been pawned long  ago.



"I said where have you been?" Sylar reached for her shoulder and spun her around to face him.



Like his sister, he had dark hair and bright blue eyes which were vivid  even in the darkness of the house. But he stood a good foot taller than  Brea and he looked down upon her now with anger distorting his chiseled,  handsome features. Brea was about to respond when she noticed the dark  bruise clouding around his left eye.



"Hey, what happened?" she pointed towards it and Sylar flinched. "You get in an accident at work?"



"Yeah," he replied gruffly, turning away so that she could no longer see the bruise. "A box fell on me."



"Want me to take a look at it?"



"No!"



"Seriously, Sylar," Brea strode away from him and slung her shopping bag down onto the sofa.



"You're always getting hurt at work. Last week it was that cut on your  hand, before that you broke a rib. I swear you should just take out a  lawsuit against your employer. No job should be this hazardous."



"Just drop it," Sylar ordered briskly. "Where were you?"



He was back on his mission of interrogation.



"I went shopping," Brea sighed. It was hardly as if she'd committed some  terrible crime which was how Sylar was trying to make her feel.



"Shopping?" he echoed incredulously.



"Yes, shopping," Brea gestured angrily at the bag containing her art  supplies. "I needed a few things so I cycled into town. I don't see why  you're getting so worked up about it."



"You're supposed to stay at home," Sylar declared through clenched teeth. "How many times, Brea? You stay here!"



"Like a prisoner?" Brea shrieked, clutching her bag tightly against her  chest. Suddenly she wanted to be as far away from Sylar as possible  which meant either retreating to the yard or her small bedroom. She  chose the yard.



She started stomping through the open plan living room and kitchen  towards the sliding doors, which led out into the modest backyard. Here  the lawn was more tamed than the front yard thanks to Brea's  backbreaking efforts with some garden shears she found in the garage.  She lacked the stamina to do both lawns.



"Brea!" Sylar boomed her name with such force that some of the glasses in a nearby cabinet shook.



"Sylar," she sighed as her shoulders slumped and she turned back, one hand resting on the handle for the sliding doors.



"I love you. I love everything you've done for me. But I'm eighteen, it's about time I started having some sort of life."



"Don't I care for you?" Sylar demanded angrily. "Don't I buy you food, keep a roof over your head?"



"Yes," Brea admitted. "But I'm not a pet dog. I need more than food and  shelter. You should let me go out and find a job, that way we're both  taking care of the house you're not shouldering the burden alone."



"I'm managing just fine!"



"Are you?" Brea cried heatedly. "Because you're always beaten up and in the foulest of moods."



"You're being ungrateful!" Sylar barked. "Do you have any idea the lengths I go to in order to keep us safe?"



"Safe?" Brea repeated the word, frowning. "Safe from what?"



Sylar sighed in frustration and kicked at the sofa.



"Safe from what?" Brea repeated. In recent years, Sylar seemed to be  scared of his own shadow. Each time the doorbell chimed or the phone  rang he jumped ten feet in the air and went as white as a ghost. The  front door was covered in a dozen different bolts and locks, same for  the back. Sylar became obsessed with securing the home as though he  feared that there was going to be an imminent zombie apocalypse which  only he knew about.



"Just … " Sylar ran his hands through his dark hair. He smelled of petrol  and cigar smoke. Brea was becoming increasingly determined to follow him  to work one night and see what kind of a factory he was actually  working at.



"Just trust me," he eventually conceded. "I've always looked out for us, haven't I?"



"Yeah."



"Then just trust me."



"Trust goes both ways you know," Brea told him as she yanked open the  sliding doors. The dense heat of the day came tumbling in around her,  challenging the overhead fan which continued to spin in its never-ending  orbit.                       
       
           



       



She stepped outside and breathed in the hot, clean air. Behind her, she  heard a door slam as Sylar finally abandoned the argument to go and lick  his wounds. Brea failed to understand how he could worry about her so  much. Sure they lived in a slightly dangerous part of town, but nowhere  was without the risk of petty crime. She was basically an adult now and  she couldn't go on with Sylar insisting on treating her like a child.



Brea lay her head against the thick trunk of the willow tree in the yard  and reached into her bag for her new sketch pad and paints. She took a  deep breath and let her mind clear. And then she started to draw. She  drew ornate skulls adorned with flowers and jewels, she drew magical  fairies who danced across the garden on luminous wings. She filled pages  and pages with her drawings and she only stopped when a shadow spread  across the page. Squinting up against the sun she saw Sylar standing  above her, holding a fresh glass of iced tea. Condensation clung to the  glass as the ice cubes swirled noisily within the amber liquid.



"I thought you might want this," he handed it to her. "Especially if you're going to insist on spending the day outside."



"Thanks," Brea smiled up at him in gratitude.



"I'm heading to bed for a bit," Sylar told her. Dark circles had blended  with his blooming bruise to make his eyes appear hooded and sinister.



"Promise me you'll behave while I rest?"



"I promise," Brea told him sweetly. "And I'll even stick a pizza in the oven for when you wake up."



"Thanks, sis," Sylar sauntered back towards the house, his shoulders  slumped. Brea watched him with a heavy heart. She knew that she couldn't  let him keeping supporting them both. Whether he liked it or not, it  was high time she got a job of her own and started paying her way.





Chapter 2:



While her brother slept Brea poured over the local newspaper, determined  to find herself a reasonable job. Sadly, there wasn't much work  available for her skillset. Most of the jobs posted required some sort  of relevant experience which Brea didn't have. Pretty much the only  thing she really excelled at was her art. Beyond that, she could cook  and clean but no one was hiring a surrogate sister or mother.