I’m awake the second his hand lands on my shoulder, and even though I know it’s him, my hand snaps out of its own volition and snatches the front of his cheap white T-shirt.

“What?” I say, that one word, both question, and threat. Because, even though, I know who it is, I have a hard time keeping my aggression in check.

I always have, for as long as I can remember.

Unfazed, Jase stands over me, hand still planted on my shoulder, his mouth set in a grim line. Beyond him, I can hear sniffles and sobs, muted by the press of a pillow, coming from somewhere inside the dorm.

“Fish’s cryin’, Tob.” He says it quietly, his words barely more than breath. He looks worried. As if to prove it, he shoots a look over his shoulder, giving the dimly-lit dormitory a quick assessment.

Jase has always been tender. Too tender for a place like this. He does a good job of hiding it under his asshole smirk and who gives a fuck shrug. He’s an expert at playing tough which is good because he’s also beautiful—almost too beautiful to be real—with the kind of blond, angelic look that spells disaster in a place like this. Makes you a target. He’s been here going on five years now, off and on, and the only thing keeping him safe in this hellhole is his tough guy swagger and the fact that he’s my brother.

Not my real brother. As far as I know, I don’t have any of those but in a place like Brighton, you take what you can get. Besides, as far I’m concerned a real brother wouldn’t be any better than the ones this place has given me.

Jase and Gray are the only people I care about. Everyone else can get fucked. Especially the pissing-in-his-pants little crybaby fish, balling his head off right now.

He must see it on my face, the fact that I’m going to shove his hand away so I can roll over and go back to sleep because his fingers shape themselves around my shoulder, refusing to be shaken off. “You remember what being a fish was like, don’t you?”

No, I don’t. Because when I got here, I was barely seven years old and practically catatonic from watching cancer eat my mom, from the inside out, until she was nothing but a withered husk in a charity ward hospital bed.

There’s reproach in his tone like my inaction disappoints him somehow. In the dark, more sounds join the muffled crying.

Murmurers and whispers.

Plans being made.

“… I say we just take him into the shower room. Give him a proper welcome. Ain’t no one gonna do nothin’. Staff don’t come in to check for another twenty minutes. That’s plenty of time…”

Victor and his minions.

“Tob.” The impossible blue of Jase’s eyes flare at me in the dark. Urging me to do something. Stop what’s about to happen before it’s too late. Because I’m the only one who can.

“Fine,” I hiss, shoving his hand off my shoulder so I can sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the stiff, institutional mattress under me. “You’re giving me your chocolate milk at lunch tomorrow, fucker.” When I say it, Jase just grins at me. He knows I don’t mean it. I won’t take his food, and I’d break the hand of anyone else who tried. “Get Gray,” I say, pushing past him. “Meet me in the shower room.”

We split off at the end of my bed. Jase goes left, toward the front of the dorm while I hang a right, moving deeper into the room. Seeing me coming up the center aisle, the whispers and plans dry up with the kind of instant choke that makes me smile. There’s no one in this shithole who wants to mess with me. Not even the big, nasty bastards making plans to catch themselves a fish.

I can feel them glaring at me from their huddle in the dark. I want to stop. Lunge into the black and grab one of them—doesn’t matter which one—and get to work, until my knuckles are bloody and their bones are broken. Until the screaming starts and overhead lights flood the dorm and staff are hauling me off to timeout.

Can’t risk it, though. Last time I caught TO, I was gone for three days. When I got back, Jase was in the hospital wing and didn’t make eye contact for over a month. He still won’t talk about what happened while I was gone. The way he woke me up to save the fish, his eyes wide and wounded, gives me a pretty good idea.

No, I can’t risk it. Jase and Gray need me. So, I don’t stop, I don’t even look. I just keep going until I get to the T at the end of the aisle. Sobs are coming from the right, near the shower room.

Lazy-ass staff. They know better than to put a fish so close to one of the only two rooms in this place that offers privacy. Yeah, they know better. They just don’t care.

Stopping at the foot of the crybaby’s bed I take a deep breath. Letting it out slow, I debate on if it’d be better to just to wait for Gray. He’s better at this stuff. He flashes you his pearly whites and I don’t care who you are, you instantly feel better.

Like he senses me standing here, the fish starts crying louder until the kids on either side of him start grumbling at him to shut the hell up.

“Hey, Fish,” I say, my voice a harsh whisper that cuts through the blubbering. “You gotta to stop crying.”

Doesn’t work. He just bawls louder.

I can feel Victor and his crew eyeballing me from behind. Watching. Waiting to see what I’m gonna do.

Shit.

Lunging toward the head of the bed, I jerk the pillow off the crybaby’s face. “Shut-up,” I hiss loudly, snatching him by his arm. I’ve got to get him out of here and somewhere quiet so I can calm him down without an audience.

Hauling him out of bed, I can feel how frail he is. My hand circles his bicep, finger and thumb meeting without issue. It’s like I’m dragging a skeleton around.

Despite his obvious weakness and the fact that he’s not going to fight me off—not on his best day and me scraping rock-bottom—he takes a swing that catches me in the ear and stings like a bitch.

I hear sniggers coming out of the dark.

Because I have a reputation to uphold—and it’s that reputation that keeps my brothers safe—I give the kid a rough shake. Shoving him into the wall next to the shower room door, I hold him there while I test it. It’s supposed to be locked but it swings right open.

I’ll say it again—lazy-ass staff.

I toss him inside and follow, pulling the door closed behind us both. Ground lights come in through the room’s high-set windows, giving me my first good look at him. He’s tall—taller than I thought—but just as skinny as his first impression implied. A shock of inky black hair, standing up, crazy all over his head. Face washed pale by the moon, his eyes like two pin holes, shining bright in the white of his features. Frail chest heaving with unspent sobs. Hands knotted into fists, prepared to fight. Even when he knows he’ll lose.

“Listen up, Fish,” I say, keeping my tone conversational. “You—”

“Name’s… not… fish… asshole,” he says, shoving his words at me in between heaves.

I laugh. I can’t help it.

“Alright,” I say, nodding my head. “What’s your name then?”

Fish just stands there and stares, fists raised like he’s waiting for me to stop talking and square up. When he doesn’t answer, I try again. “You don’t want me to call you Fish, you’re gonna have to tell me your name.”

More standing. More staring.

Behind me, the door pushes open. I don’t have to turn around to know it’s Jase and Gray. They’re the only people in this place who don’t make me itch, having them at my back.

“Lock the door,” I say and I’m instantly rewarded by the sound of the lock clicking home. Can’t risk turning on the overheads because of the windows. There’s a pair of security guards that patrol the grounds, one of which who likes to stand under said windows and chain smoke cigarettes instead of doing his job.

Assuming the worst, Fish lifts his fists higher. What he lacks in strength and technique, he makes up for in enthusiasm and not much else. I can feel Jase eyeballing me, urging me to try again.

“I’m Tobias,” I tell him, nodding to my left. “One on the end is Gray.” I watch Gray raise his hand in greeting in my peripheral. “Ugly fucker in the middle is Jase.”

“Tob here’s just jealous ‘cause I’m so pretty.” I can hear the grin in Jase’s voice.

The four of us stand there in the half-light, my brothers and I staring at this kid, waiting for him to either give in or start swinging. “Look, we're trying to help you, Fish. Just tell us your—”

“Logan.” All of a sudden, the kid drops his fists, the balls of them banging into his stick-thin thighs. “My name is Logan.”

“Where are your parents?” It’s not a question I usually ask because usually I don’t care. Most kids in this place have them, somewhere. They’re either locked up or in rehab. Some are from good families but here on a court-order because they’ve been labeled as incorrigible by some judge or in Victor’s case, downright psychotic. There are only a few like me. Kids who don’t have anyone at all.

“Dead.”

Gray shifts on his bare feet. Jase’s shoulders sag just a little.

Dead.

Yeah.

We all know what that’s like. I don’t ask how. It doesn’t matter. Dead is dead. Dead means gone and no matter what the therapists say, talking about things like how and why doesn’t help.

“Family?” This comes from Gray. The way he says it, he sounds almost hopeful.

Logan shakes his head. “I don’t have anyone.”

I can feel my brothers watching me. Staring at me. Urging me to say it. Make things even a little bit right for this kid. Because dead is dead. Dead means gone and we all know what it’s like to be alone.

“Sure, you do,” I say, extending my hand into the space between us. “You’ve got us now. We’re the Kings of Brighton.”

Logan hesitates for less than a breath before he reaches for my hand and takes it.