Brothers By Design

Devin was quiet, easy to overlook. He’d be the perfect spy to start Kane’s new network. If he was friendly to Devin for a while he would have a willing slave. Perfect. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could manage it until the cast came off. Maybe keep it up a little while after. Until Devin was completely under his control. This little brother business wasn’t going to be too bad after all.

The playroom was immense. Kane found a racetrack over in a corner. Devin hovered in the doorway. Kane called him over, handing him the second controller without a glance. The cast hindered Devin’s movements, and he acted like he’d never done it before, but he seemed to enjoy himself. Maybe, Kane found himself thinking, having a little brother will be all right after all. Or at least not as bad as he’d thought.

Devin had the mentality of the abused, making him easy to control. It looked like he’d had all personality beaten out of him. Kane could do anything to Devin he wanted without him protesting. Now that Kane was in a new place, he needed a new set of eyes and ears to get information.

“Um…Kane?”

They finished racing. Devin appeared exhausted. He was swaying on his feet, his eyes sunken and bruised looking, skin pale. Kane wondered when Devin had last slept and bet it was prior to the holding facility. Devin was looking at the floor and continued to do so when asked what he wanted.

“Could you…help me…with…my shirt? I…I would like to…to go to bed?”

Kane shrugged. It was a dress shirt with buttons everywhere; it would be hard to do with one hand. Someone must’ve helped him dress that morning.

“Yeah, sure. No problem. We should go to the bedroom first, though.”

“O…okay. Th-thank you.”

In the bedroom Devin stood still while Kane fought with the tiny buttons, fighting to keep his growing irritation from showing. Why the hell would they put a kid with a broken arm in a dress shirt with all these stupid buttons? Why not a T-shirt? Easy on, easy off!

Kane opened the dress shirt to pull it off and found the breath knocked out of him. For a second he thought he was going to be sick; then fury flooded over him. He closed his eyes, teeth grinding, forcing his hands not to fist. It was no wonder somebody’d taken the time to put the dress shirt on Devin.

The cast on Devin’s hand went up past the elbow, half-way to the shoulder. Such a large, heavy cast explained the awkwardness of his movements and why he needed so much help. Where the cast ended was a line of burn marks all the way around the biceps disappearing into the underarm. Kane knew it was not a ring of cigarette burns but more like somebody had held a lighter to the kids arm and burned the flesh all the way around. The area was bruised as well, and he was pretty sure he saw a couple of half-healed puncture wounds in the mess.

Devin’s ribs protruded. Kane could count them, could count the knobs on the sternum. Actually, the ribs didn’t so much protrude as the skin between them sank in, worse than even the “Feed the Starving” posters plastered everywhere for a time after the last natural disaster. The thin chest was purple-black from bruises, crisscrossed with healing welts and cuts, and more puncture marks. The abdomen and good arm showed the same, with another band of burn marks and bruises on the biceps.

“Turn around.”

His voice was hoarse and weak. How could anybody…?

If anything, the back he uncovered was worse. Some injuries were so fresh they still seeped–the shirt fabric stuck in places. Fresh anger sparked in Kane; somebody had done that today. Devin, his supposed new little brother, had been hurt today. At the holding facility. Where he was supposed to be safe.

“Who did this?” he demanded in a low, furious tone. He’d suspected. Devin acted like he’d been abused, but…

Devin lowered his head and said nothing. Which, Kane knew, was normal for a child who had been repeatedly hurt by those around them. Devin wasn’t the first abused kid he’d met. The worst, yes, but not the first. The thing about those kids, though, was they listened if you let them know who was in charge. And they were obedient to that person. Kane had no problem letting Devin know who was in charge. Kane was in charge. And Kane wasn’t letting this happen anymore. But he had to know who did it.

“Devin. Turn around and look at me.”

Blue eyes once more met his in fearful, brief glances. Kane half-stepped closer. Inside Devin’s space, on the edge of threatening. A trick his father had taught him. One of thousands of tricks his father had taught him. He’d never considered using them to help someone before. He wasn’t even sure why he was determined to help Devin; it wasn’t like him. He rationalized it quickly, reminding himself that Devin would be a useful tool.

He’d taken advantage of a hurt kid once. He had done what everyone else did, bashed the kid around for no real reason. When his dad found out he’d almost been skinned. His dad had screamed at him that real men didn’t hurt others. Especially not the helpless. Real men, according to his dad, helped people. He’d ignored the part about helping people, but he’d never attacked someone smaller or weaker again.

“You tell me who hurt you. I can’t do anything about what they did, but I can know who it was. Keep you away from them. Tell me.” A pause. “Please.”

“Everybody.”

Kane frowned his confusion. Devin’s voice was still a near whisper, but surely he’d been mistaken. He couldn’t have heard right. There was no way.

“Every…?”

Devin nodded. “My parents, an’ grandparents, an’ aunts n’ uncles, an’ cousins, an’ sisters, an’ teachers, an’ the principal, an’ doctors, an’…an’ the social worker, an’ the other kids, an’ the monitors…an’ the judge…an’…an’…”

Kane finished with a horrified whisper, “Shyla.”

When Devin nodded again, Kane shut his eyes in despair. The kid hadn’t been lying or exaggerating. He’d meant “everybody.” What was going on? Wasn’t the Government of Child Welfare supposed to protect kids? Get them out of abusive situations? Why would they be putting an already abused kid into a new home with a mental, abusive woman?

To do this today, Shyla would have been at the holding facility. Before they went over to the courthouse for the stupid legal stuff. And if the judge and social worker had been in on it...he was either going to kill somebody or throw up. Or both.

“Kane?” Kane opened his eyes and met puzzled blue ones. “Do you want to…?”

“No.”

Devin jumped at the furious word. Kane ran his hand through his hair, scowled, and tried to control his voice. He didn’t want to scare the kid any more than necessary. Not when he was already terrified. And for good reason.

Kane was a lot of things, most of them not nice, but he wasn’t going to sit by and let this happen. Not to somebody he could take care of. If the GCW wouldn’t do anything, he would have to. His dad had raised him to never sit back and let things go. Take a stand and stick to it. For whatever reason, he’d decided to take care of this kid, who couldn’t be more than nine. Too young to be this hurt and scared.

“No, I don’t want to hurt you. You tell me when somebody tries to hurt you, you hear me? Nobody hurts you anymore! I’ll stop anybody who tries, but you have to tell me. I can’t stop them if I don’t know.”

He reached out to grab the other boy, but stopped millimeters from his tormented skin. Hazel eyes burned into blue. He struggled to keep his temper. He had to make sure Devin understood. This was his second chance and he wasn’t going to let anything or anyone ruin it.

How and why apparently everyone who came across Devin hurt him flashed through his mind. Usually it was family and bullies. This was...weird. Too weird. Like the rest of this whole stupid situation. Kane didn’t like it. It was too deliberate. He had to find out how and why and make it stop. Devin was his to take care of or use. Nobody else’s. His. The start to his new life. The eyes and ears, the beginning of his new information network.

This wasn’t right. Not on any level. His father had said the Governments were getting more controlling of people to protect them, not relaxing and allowing the people to be abused. This was backward.

“You tell me, you understand? Before if you can, but definitely after. I won’t let them do this anymore. No more. Understand?”

“No.” Devin sounded near tears. “But…I’ll…I’ll tell you. I promise, Kane.” He wiped at his eyes with his good hand. “I promise.”

“Good boy.” Kane ruffled his hair, pleased. Yeah, Devin was scared of him, but that couldn’t be helped. Devin tried to smile. Kane smiled back. “Sit down and I’ll help with your shoes and stuff.”

Devin perched again on the chair. Kane pulled off ill-fitting tennis shoes and socks to find more burns circling his ankles. When the other boy stood up Kane started to undo his pants, then hesitated.

“Nobody…uh…”

“I was…never…molested or raped,” Devin assured him, not bothered in the least to speak about the subject. “I…I was born to…to be hurt, not…used for sex.”

Kane nodded, let out a breath of relief. At least there was something the other boy had not been subject to. He unfastened and removed the jeans, and found evidence of even more abuse. He was amazed tat Devin was able to move.

“How the hell are you able to walk?” Devin shrugged. “You can tell me with no problem you were never raped or molested, but you can’t talk about what was done to you?” He shook his head. “Weird. All right, get into bed.”

Once Devin was settled, Kane flipped off the lights and got into his own bed. Yeah, his life had definitely taken a turn for the screwy. He had a little brother to protect and take care of. One who was going to need a lot of taking care of and tons of patience. Kane didn’t have a lot of patience. People pissed him off by being around. But Devin needed him. He’d never been needed by another person before.

This was his chance. Taking care of Devin would make up for his past, let him put the things he’d done behind him. Getting out of the neighborhood where he’d grown up meant, hopefully, a fresh start. Maybe not at the house, not when dealing with Shyla, but everywhere else. He was tired of being the bully, the troublemaker. It had kept him alive so far, that reputation, but it wasn’t the type of man his father had wanted him to be. Not the type of man he wanted to be.

He was twelve. Still a kid. But he was old enough to start acting like an adult instead of a child. Old enough to start changing himself into the man he intended to be. He had a major reputation working against him, but what was easy was rarely worth the effort. Another lesson his father had taught him. He wished the man was here to talk to about what he was going to do.

Well, he reminded himself, he isn’t. I’ll have to use what he taught me.

His dad had taught him, and others, lots of things. Ways to get around the law without getting caught. Ways to manipulate people and things. Usually, again, without getting caught. How to fight, physically and otherwise. Kane had been the one he’d taught the most, worked the hardest, and had demanded the most from. With help from his dad, he could do this. He could make himself a better person. He could take care of Devin even while using him.

A memory flashed through his brain. He and his dad were walking. His dad was teaching him. They always walked when his dad had something important to teach him. They were harder to monitor if they were on the move. The outside recorders had a hard time separating voices from the other noises.

Useful people are hard to find and harder to keep, his dad had said. You find one, you make damn sure you do whatever you have to in order to keep them. Preferably working for you because they want to, not because they feel like they have to.

He could do it. He’d done harder things. Treating somebody like he cared about them was almost a no-brainer. Almost.

First things first. He needed to talk to Shyla, make her aware she wasn’t going to use Devin as a punching bag. Without Devin being aware of it if possible. He was pretty sure the talk with Shyla would be unpleasant, and Devin was scared enough without witnessing the sure-to-be-nastiness. But he would have to do it. Soon. Too late today, so tomorrow. He’d track her down in the house. Do whatever he had to.