My little brother. Always having my back. Never wanting to push me. I was his hero. For the first time, as I thought about that, I felt that maybe his faith in me was not misplaced.

“I’m ready. I owe this to you guys. And to myself. Pour yourself a drink if you need one and then meet me on the deck.”

I walked out the French doors in the kitchen to the gorgeous redwood deck. Instead of sitting down at the table, I took one of the chaise longues beside the hot tub. I at least wanted to be comfortable if I was going to do this. For a moment, I was sitting in the hunter-green recliner in Dr. Carmichael’s office. Gripping the wooden arms of the chaise longue wouldn’t feel as good against my hands as that supple leather.

Jonah and Ryan came out—Joe with what looked like a gin and tonic, Ryan with a can of soda.

“Sorry,” he said, when I eyed the can. “I’m just not ready for alcohol at eleven.”

I nodded. After all, he wasn’t the one about to divulge his guts.

“I asked you guys to come before Marj gets here because I can’t tell her everything. Not the worst of it. But I need you guys to know a few things. I may not tell you everything, but you deserve to know what happened. And you deserve to know what happened to Luke.”

Jonah widened his eyes. “You know what happened to Luke?”

“Yeah.”

Luke Walker had gone missing a couple of weeks before I had. He was my age, skinny little kid with buckteeth, a basic nerd. He wasn’t a close friend of mine, but for some reason I had decided to save him from the bullies who were always after him. And then one day Luke disappeared. My first thought was that the bullies had taken him, but they hadn’t. Jonah’s best friend was Bryce Simpson, Luke’s cousin, and the three of us and Ryan decided to try to figure out what had happened to Luke.

I cleared my throat. “The day I was taken, I saw Luke.”

“Was he alive?” Ryan asked.

I let out a breath. “No, he was already dead.” I paused a moment, getting my bearings. “That old shack where two of the guys were, they had Luke in there. I don’t know what they had been planning to do with him so close to his home or whether my presence changed their plans. He was already dead but…”

“But what?” Jonah asked.

I closed my eyes, but the image swirled like a kaleidoscope inside my head. “They hacked him up with an ax. They… They made me watch, threatened to kill me if I screamed or threw up.”

I opened my eyes. Both my brothers’ faces had turned pale as ghosts. Neither said a word. What was there to say?

“They put what was left of his body into a giant trash bag. I don’t know what they ultimately did with it. They shoved it in the back of a pickup, tied my hands and legs, and shoved me in the backseat. I think I was in and out of consciousness as we drove. I don’t know how long we were driving.”

My brothers still stayed silent.

“It’s hard to remember the details. I think it was dark outside by the time we got to wherever we were going. Seemed like we had been driving for hours.”

“Tal,” Jonah said, his voice cracking, “if you’d been driving for hours, how did you make it back home when you escaped?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. So much of it is a blur. We’ll get to my escape in a while. But for now, I need to tell you what I told Dr. Carmichael.”

My brothers nodded.

“They pulled me out from the back of the truck and unbound my feet. They pushed me into an old house and down the stairs into a basement. I had wet my pants, but it didn’t matter because they took my pants and underwear away from me anyway. All I had was my shirt and a ratty old gray blanket they gave me.” I stopped, squeezing my eyes shut again.

“It’s okay, Tal,” Ryan said, his voice lower than usual. He was trying so hard to be strong for me. My little brother.

But it wasn’t okay. Nothing about my life since then had been okay. If it was ever to be okay again, I had to get through this.

“There was another one at the house, also wearing a black ski mask. Remember, Ry, there were only two guys at the old shack off the Walker place.”

Ryan nodded.

“Anyway, once I got out of the basement, I found out why I was there. They each…” I gulped. “They each…raped me.”

My brothers’ faces were unreadable. They didn’t look surprised at my admission. But why would they be? Why else would three psychopathic degenerates keep a young boy prisoner for months? Surely they’d known, or at least guessed. I’d been taken to a pediatrician and poked and prodded after my return, so my parents must have known, even though I never spoke of it.

“Once they were done, I threw up. I couldn’t help it. They left me, and I lay down on my blanket. What might’ve been a couple of hours later, one of them brought me a glass of water and a sandwich, along with an old paint bucket I was told to piss and shit in. I ate the sandwich and drank the water. Sometimes they tormented me with water, holding a really nice clean glass of crisp ice water just out of my reach. I still have nightmares about that sometimes. I still have nightmares about all of it.”

Jonah cleared his throat. “That’s perfectly understandable.”

Of course it was. I looked to my older brother. “Now that you know the gory details, do you still wish it had been you instead of me?”

The question was unfair, I knew. But Joe had always wished he had been there to protect me. I wanted my brothers to be happy that this hadn’t happened to them. I wouldn’t wish that horror on either of them. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, except the three psychos who’d done it to me. On them, I wished all that and everything else hell had to offer.

And I was well acquainted with what hell had to offer.

“I don’t really know how to answer that,” Joe said.

“Just say you’re glad that didn’t happen to you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

I heaved a sigh. My older brother wrestled with his own demons. I knew that. I wished I could help him, but I couldn’t do a damn thing for anyone until I helped myself.

“How did you escape?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t really remember. Every once in a while they would leave the door open and dare me to run away. Every time I tried, of course, they caught me and punished me for it, so I stopped trying. One day, the door was open, and they hadn’t come. I don’t know if they had just forgotten to lock me back in or what. But I ran up the stairs wearing only my tattered T-shirt. I had no pants.”