Chapter 1 - Stay Away From My Brother
My name is Evan Miller.
I was seventeen years old when I ran into my baby brother’s nursery and saw a pillow pressed over his face.
Leo was ten months old.
Small.
Visually impaired.
Still learning the world mostly through voices, touch, smell, and predictable movement.
He was lying inside his wooden crib in a light-gray onesie.
Crying so hard that the sound coming through the pillow had turned muffled and desperate.
Valerie stood over him.
My stepmother.
Thirty-nine years old.
Beautiful.
Polished.
Usually controlled enough that strangers thought she could never lose her temper.
Both of her hands were pressing down.
“Valerie!”
She turned.
I did not stop to think.
The wooden table lamp was beside me.
I grabbed it.
Swung once.
It struck the side of her head.
She released the pillow.
Stumbled backward.
Hit the vanity.
Bottles and cosmetics scattered.
Part of the mirror cracked.
Valerie dropped to the floor.
I threw the lamp away.
Reached the crib.
Ripped the pillow off Leo.
He screamed.
That sound saved me.
Breathing.
Crying.
Alive.
I lifted him.
His tiny fingers immediately grabbed my blue T-shirt.
His face buried against my chest.
“Stay away from my brother!”
For half a second, I thought it was over.
Then Valerie pushed herself upright.
One hand went to the side of her head.
There was a cut near her hairline.
She looked at me.
Then toward the wall beside the bed.
My baseball bat was leaning there.
I had brought it upstairs after playing with friends and forgotten to return it to the garage.
Valerie grabbed it.
“Put it down.”
She raised it.
Leo heard the movement and cried harder.
Then she swung.
The first blow hit my shoulder.
I turned so my back covered Leo.
Another struck my ribs.
Pain shot through my side.
I almost dropped to one knee.
I tightened both arms around Leo.
Valerie swung again.
“A blind little freak like him doesn’t deserve to live.”
I remember that sentence more clearly than the pain.
Not because it was loud.
Because it was deliberate.
Another blow landed.
I gritted my teeth.
Then the nursery door opened.
Grandpa Mark stepped inside.
Sixty years old.
Black suit.
Broad frame.
Expression completely calm.
He looked at the bat.
Me.
Leo.
Valerie.
Then moved.
One hard kick knocked Valerie away from us.
She hit the wall.
Drywall cracked.
The bat fell.
Valerie collapsed.
“Grandpa!”
He stepped between us.
Valerie pushed herself partly upright.
“You’re all ganging up on me!”
Grandpa looked down.
Then stepped hard onto the front of her shoe.
“You treated my grandson worse than a dog.”
She raised one hand toward his face.
He caught her wrist.
Held it tightly.
May you like
His expression did not change.
“Now it’s your turn to pay.”
