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“…Are you going to kill him?” Evan questions meekly, posture hunched like a cold baby in a womb.
His back is pressed to Cassidy’s, they stare in opposite directions as they sit on cold tile floor together. Evan stares past checkers of chipped black and white tile, refusing to look behind him.
Cassidy is staring right ahead above her, looking into the lens of a security camera.
Evan thinks for a moment she is ignoring him. He thinks that because he’s used to it.
When he begged his brother to stop, he would ignore him. When he tugged at his father’s ankle, he was brushed away. When he cried, it was like his tears were as invisible as he. He was used to not being seen, not being heard.
He hugs his knees and resigns, but Cassidy opens her mouth to finally respond.
“Would you try to stop me?” Cassidy answers his question with a question. She doesn’t look back at him when she asks it, eyes glazed over in dissociation. Blood clouds her vision as it has started dripping down her forehead.
Evan’s response is as predictable as it is pitiful. He starts crying.
Cassidy’s lip curls into a wince, she feels the tears well up in their eyes and lifts her hands to wipe the blood.
“That’s enough.” She speaks with vigor but it isn’t hostile. Not towards Evan. “Look what he’s doing to us. We’re bleeding.” She turns around to see Evan look at her in perplexity.
He lifts a hand to shakily touch the wetness on his forehead, and pulls his palm away to see dark blood on his finger tips. He whines, fearfully trying to wipe it away with his arms like a frantic toddler wiping snot. Cassidy watched the pathetic sight and felt her teeth clench.
“He’s opening old wounds.“ She holds her palm out to Evan, blood still staining her skin. “A wound inflicted by him in the first place.” As if to give him evidence she does not wipe the blood but lets it drip till it forms a bead at her chin.
Evan has smeared blood and tears across his face, sniffling and licking snot from his lips he looks at her with a docile expression. His lip trembles.
“…Nothing will change if we don’t do what has to be done. We will never rest as long as he lives to rip out our stitches.” Her open palm turns to an extended hand, she gazes at him expectantly now. She looks at him as if she knows he will take it.
Evan, with a trembling breath, reaches to grab her hand. He looks like he has made a choice.
He doesn’t know if he made it himself, or if Cassidy made it for him. He didn’t think it mattered, whether the anger in his gut was really his own. It didn’t matter. The feeling was there, and it was real.
And he couldn’t ignore it.
He couldn’t let it go unheard, unseen,
For once he would make sure
He wasn’t ignored.
“…Michael…”
There’s a whisper, a hallucination, a vision, a ghost, a broken camera, a broken skull, a giggle, a scream, a sob
There’s something that Michael hears and more so remembers, something that resonates sharply in his chest like a stab.
“…It’s me.”
And it’s in his face, something he can’t look away from. Something inside his head, inside the films of his eyes and behind his retinas. He squeezes them shut, he covers his ears. He can’t look away. It’s too loud. Too bright.
It’s right there.
It’s me.
And I won’t be ignored now.