I was looking at a smaller, thinner, younger, way more fucked-up version of myself. Trick stood in the wide circle of the headlights, his hands in his pockets, a dour smile on his thin lips.

“You have a brother?” Misty asked. She sounded as tired as she looked. I thought maybe this last surprise might do her in for the night. Harmless as Trick was, he was also a pain in the ass, and I was sure that him being at the safe house wasn’t a good sign. But Misty didn’t know that. I wanted to keep her from knowing that for as long as I could.

“Something like that,” I admitted. I put a hand on the door handle and fixed her in my eyes. “Stay here, will ya?”

“Whatever,” she groaned, and visibly collapsed back into the seat. She stroked Purrloin with one hand, the other coming up to cover her eyes. “God, Rev, this night needs to be over…”

“I know,” I grunted. “Just let me talk to him and we can get you inside and into bed.”

She took the chance to look at me through the veil of her fingers and I almost felt like smiling. Because I knew where her mind had gone. It would be a long time before she could think of the word bed without picturing me lying beside her in one. I had made sure of that.

I can be a right awful motherfucker sometimes, and I’m the first one to admit it.

But I could never reach the levels of awful my brother wallowed in, that was for damn sure.

The car door slamming seemed to scare Trick, even though he could see that it was just me with a chick. Nothing for him to worry about – not really, anyway. I might not harbor an overwhelming amount of brotherly love, but I’d never hurt the little shit.

Not unless he really deserved it.

“William,” he croaked. The closer I got to him, the surer I was that he’d come out to the safe house to detox. I could tell from his junkie’s pallor, his cracked lips, the crazed paranoia in his eyes. He was shaking, too. The fact that he was up and standing straight meant he was probably over the worst of it.

“Sam,” I said, close enough to smell the sour sting of his sweat. “What the fuck’re you doing here?”

“It’s my place too,” he snapped. “Dad left it to both of us.”

“Yeah, alright, but what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? Who’s the chick? Wait…when… did you break out?”

Finally, he remembered the reason I hadn’t seen him in four years. Took him long enough. This was turning into a regular welcome home party.

“They let me out,” I grunted. “And she’s with me. How long you been on the horse again, Trick? You look like shit.”

He scowled. He’d been going by Trick as long as I’d been going by Rev. Growing up, he proved to have fast hands. His first foray into the streets involved a deck of cards. Always had a trick up his sleeve. You get the picture.

“Ah, fuck, man,” he said. “You come all the way out here to judge my ass? I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’. Never fuckin’ good enough for you…”

“Jesus, Sam,” I groaned. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I was just saying, you look like you’re on the wrong side of needing a fix. You come up here to detox?”

“Maybe,” he said, sweat now spilling down his face, the effort of standing and talking to me taking its toll. He kept glancing all over; at me, at the car, at Misty, at the road. Like he was waiting for someone. Was it just his fucked-up junkie brain, or was he actually looking for something?

“It’s fine if you are,” I said. “We’ll have a grand old time. But if you’re meeting someone…”

“Why? Why? Did you see someone? Did someone follow you? Who’d you see? Who’d you see? Were they on the road? Did you pass someone? Are you with them? Fuck!”

He went from suspicious to frantic in less than a second. His eyes rolled crazy in his head. He looked like he was about to have a seizure, and the only thing I could think to do was grab him, hold him in front of me, and shake until he stopped asking stupid questions.

“Tell me now, Trick,” I said, forcing his eyes to meet mine. “Did you come here to get straight, or did you come here to hide?”

“He sent you, didn’t he? He sent your ass up here. I ain’t got shit for him! I ain’t got shit! How’m I supposed to pay him with nothing to sell! I need…”

Fuck.

“Who, Trick? Who do you owe money to?” I took a step forward, ignoring the wild rolling of my brother’s eyes. This was no good. We had enough of our own shit, without needing any of his shit.

“Like you don’t fucking know,” he snarled. He backed away a step. I knew how this would end, but I kept going. Kept walking towards him. Backing him up into a corner. What happens when you back an animal into a corner? Give you three guesses.

“I don’t know,” I said. “No one fucking sent me. But you’re hiding up here. How much do you owe, and who do you owe it to? I don’t have the time or the patience for this shit, Trick…”

He stopped, lips all but foaming. Blind anger sparked in his eyes. A second later, we were both on the ground. My freshly-sewn arm howled its protest as my brother rolled me over, but I ignored it and wrapped my leg around his, pushing until I was on top. He was thin and weak and I should have felt bad fighting him. ‘Should’ being the operative word. I grabbed his shirt and lifted, then slammed his back into the ground. We were both hollering fit to raise the dead, and Trick got his hands around my neck. Why’d it always end like this? Seeing my brother never once ended in a handshake and a beer. We always wound up getting dirt on our clothes and blood on our cheeks.

I was too distracted trying to keep my position on top of Trick to hear the door slam, but we both stalled mid-struggle when Misty rose her voice. Didn’t hear what she said, but we stopped all the same. Trick gazed up at her and blinked.

“Who the fuck’re you?” he asked. I gave him one last slam before releasing his shirt and untangling myself from his legs.

“Dammit, Rev,” Misty said, ignoring my brother’s question. “How many friends do you have in this world?”

“Ain’t my fault they keep popping up,” I scowled. “And he started it.”

“I’m not your den mother,” Misty sighed. “I’m not here to break up all your schoolyard tussles.”

Finally, she looked down at Trick, who had gotten himself up on his elbows and was shuddering below us, feeling the pain of withdrawals harder now that he’d used up all his adrenaline.

“You don’t look very good,” Misty observed. “Rev, get him up. You think there’s any coffee or tea in the house? That door’s open, right? Come on, then. Let’s get the hell inside. I’ve got to get the cat and the food…”

She left us to our own devices, and of course we fucking did what she said. Why’re women so good at that? Making a man see the right way to do something, when all he can see is the wrong way? Trick’s hand was thin, his pulse fast, as I pulled him up to his feet. And he cast a glowering look over his shoulder as I pushed him up the stairs. But he didn’t do more than grumble on our way into the kitchen.

The house smelled familiar, looked just the way it did last time I was there. Going on eight years. All Dad’s shit. All the shit his thousand girlfriends left behind, all the ways they tried to make his life a little nicer. The art - yard-sale stuff, mostly, kittens in baskets and flowers on bikes and shit. Vases and knickknacks, covered in dust. Trick had been sleeping on the sofa in the front room. It looked heavy with his sweat. Detritus surrounded it in an surprisingly perfect half-circle.

There’d be time enough for looking at everything later. We needed time, and there wasn’t anything to do at the house except look at the stuff in it. The kitchen was mostly bare, a few cupboards open to show where Trick had gone foraging for food. The sink was leaking, but when I turned the handle the drip stopped. Trick collapsed at the table, groaning his head into his hands.

“We gotta talk,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess we do,” he said, not looking up. Misty appeared in the doorway, holding the bags of food. Purrloin wasn’t with her, probably occupying some dark corner of the house, waiting until hunger or curiosity or sheer pride inspired her to come out.

“Tea?” Misty said, and now Trick did look up. We both looked at her. What the hell did she think, that tea was going to solve all our issues? Unless it was seasoned with a few shots of whiskey, I wasn’t interested in any fucking tea. But Trick pointed to a closed cabinet, and she went about preparing it.

And wouldn’t you fucking know it, ten minutes later we were all sitting around that table with steaming mugs in front of us. Misty had found me some whiskey after all, and spiked my drink liberally.

“So,” she said. “Are we ready to have a civilized discussion? Yes? Good. Who wants to go first?”

Trick and I blinked at each other, both keeping our mouths shut. She scoffed.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll go first. Rev and I have an agreement. There are some bad dudes after me, and he’s helping me figure out why they’re after me, and how to get them to stop coming after me. We’re here because those dudes have started making good on their threats. That sum it up well enough for you?”

Trick’s eyes were mostly dead, but he regarded Misty with a steady concentration. Then he nodded.

“Now, if this is going to be a place where all of us are safe, I think it behooves us to be up-front about why we’re here,” Misty went on. “Trick, I don’t think you came here just to detox, did you?”

His eyes darkened, and he glanced at me. But then he nodded. Slowly.

“Someone’s coming after you, too, aren’t they?”

Again, he nodded, looking like she was torturing him to tell the truth. But all she was doing was talking. All she was doing was asking. Something about Misty got people wanting to tell her the things she wanted to know. I think it was the only reason Gino told us what little he could tell us. You looked in her eyes, and found that lying was just harder than telling the truth. Even for those of us for whom lying is as easy as breathing.

“Do you want us to help you?”

Now, it was my turn to turn on her.

“What? This isn’t any of our business, Misty. I’m not risking my ass fighting two damn battles at the same time…”

“Rev,” she said, turning those damn eyes on me. “Don’t you think it would make our lives easier, and this safe house safer, if we helped your brother out?”

“No, I don’t,” I snarled. “I think he better make himself fucking scarce. He had his time here. Now, it’s our turn. I don’t owe you shit, Sam. You were always a little shit-stirrer. And I’m not letting another one of your royal fuck-ups threaten my ass. Get on your bike and get gone.”

“Rev!”

“What the fuck do you think this is, Misty? Oprah? Dr. Phil? This doesn’t end with hugs and handshakes. This ends when he gets the fuck out of Dodge. That’s it, alright? Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a wound to clean.”

I turned the chair over getting up too fast, and grabbed the bottle of whiskey before leaving them both in the kitchen. Fucking Misty, trying to be a fucking mediator or some shit. I was done cleaning up after Trick. She didn’t know a damn thing about him. She didn’t know a damn thing about me. I stomped upstairs to the room that had always been mine, and slammed the door so hard everything shook. Finally, I was alone. Finally. Time to think. Time to breathe. Time to lay down and forget all the shit that had gone down in the past six hours.

I took one good swig of whiskey, and it did me in. I’d been shot and chased down and teased and sewn up and wrestled and put in my place by a doe-eyed little woman I couldn’t begin to figure out. Sleep was a force I couldn’t fight, and didn’t rightly care to. The bottle fell from my fingers and liquor trickled over the floorboards, staining the wood a darker brown. The last thing I thought before I was dead to the world was that she’d tasted even better this time around.