Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 30747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 123(@250wpm)___ 102(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 154(@200wpm)___ 123(@250wpm)___ 102(@300wpm)
After a minute of waiting, another guard walked in through a door on the other side of the glass, leading a man wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs - Dalton. He looked nothing like my sweet Andy; he was tall and thin, and had long hair that fell past his shoulders. The only similarity between them was the color of their eyes.
Andy picked up the phone and Dalton did the same, and I could clearly hear every word they both spoke.
“Hi, Dalton,” Andy greeted. “How are you doing?”
Instead of his own friendly greeting, Dalton snarled his lip and barked, “Andrew, what the fuck is on your fingers?”
Andy instantly curled his fingers to hide their tips. “Oh, it’s nail polish. I’m sorry, I forgot to take it off.” Anger bubbled in my gut; how dare his brother make him feel guilty?
Dalton’s eyes flicked to me and then back to his brother. “Who is that?”
“This is Tage. He’s my…” Andy paused for a moment before answering, “Boyfriend.” I understood why he didn’t want to delve into the ‘Daddy’ conversation with Dalton, but I still missed hearing the word from his lips.
Dalton leaned in closer to the glass and spoke into the phone, “Do you really think it’s a good idea to be displaying that shit in a place like this? Please tell me you’re smarter than that.”
Andy’s head hung and I’d heard enough. I pressed a finger to his chin to help him look up at me and gave him a kind smile. “Duckling, you look thirsty. I saw a soda machine down the hall; why don’t you go get something to drink?” I fished a couple of dollar bills from my pocket and handed them over.
“Okay, Da-” Andy stopped and cleared his throat. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded to the guard (who happened to be another vampire) who opened the door for Andy. He undoubtedly knew what was about to go down, so he didn’t mind bending the rules of letting visitors go in and out.
I slid over to Andy’s empty seat and placed the phone to my ear so that Dalton could hear me speak. But before I had the chance, he began to run his mouth. “Did you just fucking call him ‘duckling’? That’s the last thing he needs. He needs to man the fuck up and-”
“Enough!” I yelled, slamming my fist into the bulletproof glass in front of me so hard that it cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The guard on Dalton’s side reached for his gun and stepped forward, but stopped when the vampire guard held up his hand. Vampires were respected and humans deferred to their judgment in situations like this.
Knowing that Andy would return soon, I took a deep breath to calm myself down. Dalton blinked away his shocked expression to try and look tough once more.
“I know that the two of you were put in a bad situation when your mom left,” I began as calmly as possible.
“You don’t know anything,” he grumbled, but I shrugged off his rudeness.
“You were responsible for Andy while you were still young yourself. I understand that you probably feel robbed of a childhood and perhaps even saddled with things you didn’t ask for.” Finally, he stayed silent as I spoke. “But that sweet man is your brother. Your only family. For whatever godforsaken reason, he looks up to you. He cares about you. He still wants to visit you even though you treat him like shit.” I couldn’t stifle my curiosity and asked, “Why do you treat him the way you do?” He deserved so much better.
Dalton huffed a humorless laugh. “Everyone bailed on us. My piece of shit dad was nowhere to be found, only popping in to bang my mom once and a while, which is where Andrew came in. Mom was too coked up to even know her own name most of the time, and then she bailed too. During all of this, Andrew still thought the world should be glitter and rainbows. He has to know the truth; people suck. Life sucks. You have to be tough to make it through. If someone were to see him with fucking pink nails and a Barbie doll, they’d kick his ass. What kind of brother would I be if I let that happen? He needs thicker skin.”
In an instant, I realized so many things about Dalton. For one, he carried so much pain and resentment from his younger years. He’d been dealt a crappy hand, and never took time to heal from it. He was cast into responsibility he wasn’t ready for, and didn’t know how to deal with Andy because his parents never knew how to handle him.
Though he went about it in a terrible way, Dalton may actually have been trying to help Andy by ‘toughening him up’. He didn’t want to see his brother get hurt, but he was hurting him in the process.