His Little Brother

The girl was still rubbing her wrists as she slowly approached the stairs, her attention fixed on the rooms beyond the stairwell. Though she’d only had them on for a few hours, the handcuffs would have been cinched cruelly tight, since Geoff had been the one to click them closed. Crydin noticed her roll her shoulder and remembered the awkward angle Geoff had shoved her against the pipe in the wall. All that unnecessary cruelty, Crydin mused, and Geoff forgot to lock the door she’d been kept in. He could use this incident to prove to him how useless malice was when it was applied in the wrong places.

Crydin leaned back and cricked his neck, keeping his eyes on the monitor. The girl - Crydin thought her name was Elizabeth, or Catherine, one of those old English names that never seemed to die - was moving cautiously, but not so slow to be impractical. She hadn’t noticed the security cameras, but that was because Crydin had put them in place, not Geoff and certainly not Owein. He’d selected their locations carefully, to keep them hidden from view by all but the most careful observer. If his brother had set up the cameras, they would have been placed in the most practical positions and that would have been done. If Geoff had set up the cameras, they would have had blinking red lights and scattered all over the makeshift cell, making sure to remind the girl she was always being watched by the evil eye.

Crydin’s chair creaked, and in his peripheral vision he saw Owein turn in his direction. His brother was more hyperaware than usual, and had been ever since the two of them had gotten in Geoff’s car that afternoon - hell, since Crydin had proposed the whole thing to him. Crydin had been wanting to spend more time with his little brother, but the feeling didn’t seem to be mutual.

Owein rolled over in his cheap office chair and stared at the monitor over Crydin’s shoulder. Knowing what was coming, Crydin reclined back, giving his brother a better view of the screen.

His chubby finger popped up and his croaking crow’s voice creaked out. “You - you see that?” The astonishment was palpable in his tone, as much at Crydin’s lack of reaction as at the event itself. “She’s loose!”

Crydin released a slow nod, his eyes half-lidded casually. “Indeed she is.” He picked at his nails. “It’s impressive how little time that took, I have to admit. She must have a hair clip on her that we missed.”

Owein’s wide eyes flipped back and forth between the monitor and Crydin. “You’re not doing anything?” he asked, and Crydin heard the accusation.

He offered his little brother an amused smirk. “What for?” he asked back.

Owein glared, but Crydin let the smile fall away to show him he was asking seriously. “Why would I do anything, Owein? This is Geoff’s job. It’s his fault for being so clumsy.”

Owein’s hands came down to grip the arms of the chair and he half-rose, as though about to shake Crydin for answers. “What - aren’t - what about the ransom?” he demanded, stuttering through the various questions that tried to manifest all at once. “If she escapes, we can’t ask for any money!”

As he spoke the thought, Owein sprang to his feet and whipped around to his side of the desk. “We have to put her back!”

His mad rush was halted by an iron grip on his arm. Owein looked down to see Crydin’s fingers clamping him to his seat.

“Relax,” Crydin drawled. “And sit back down.”

Owein looked from his brother to the arm and back. His expression was fierce, but the anger was futile and he knew it. He jerked his arm away from Crydin, who let go easily, before sitting back in the chair.

“Thank you,” Crydin nodded, and pressed his fingers together. It was times like these he felt more like a professor than a brother, and he was preparing for a proper lecture. If he didn’t teach his little brother the way the world worked, who would? “Now, Owein. If we may return to my original question?”

Owein seemed to struggle for a disdainful reply before settling on a flat, “Yes?”

“Why should - no, why shouldn’t I do anything to prevent her escape?” Was it Kasey? Charlotte? Samantha? Something repetitive and plain. It bothered Crydin that he had forgotten.

“You tell me,” Owein crossed his arms and tried to glower, but to Crydin he just looked petulant.

Sighing inwardly, Crydin picked up a pen and pointed to the monitor. The girl had heard something upstairs and was frozen on the railing, but Crydin knew Geoff was playing on the X-Box and must have started cussing. “What happens if she escapes, Owein?” he asked.

“We lose out on the ransom money,” Owein shot back.

Crydin shook his head, genuinely disappointed. “Owein, Owein, Owein. You’re as obvious as a charging bull, but I’m trying to help you spot the pattern of the broken china. Think about Geoff. This was his plan, wasn’t it?”

He paused, and waited for Owein to continue the line of thought. When Owein looked mystified, Crydin said, “If she escapes, it’s his fault for making it easy on her. He’s the reason we’re out of the ransom money. Therefore, he owes us. And if he owes us, we own him.”

He tapped the monitor as though it was a chalkboard. “Money is only good for a few things, little brother. Money gives you things. But favors give you people, and people are far more valuable in the long run.”

He turned back to Owein to see if he was properly absorbing the lesson. The disgusted expression told Crydin that he was, but didn’t seem convinced by its veracity. “What if she kills him on the way out, then?” Owein spat at him. “Where’s your oh-so-cold logic on that front?”

Crydin shrugged. “We still stand to gain from the situation. On the subject of favors, I owe Geoff several of them. I figure his death would clear that debt cleanly, wouldn’t you?”

A flutter of shock came into Owein’s features before it smoothed away. Why was Owein trying to hide his sensibilities from his older brother? He knew Crydin caught every gesture, every flick of his eyes to the monitor where the girl was inching up the last stair. He knew Crydin had spotted his knuckles white against the arms of the office chair, the flex in his jaw muscle. He knew how good Crydin was, so what did he think was the point of hiding these weaknesses?

“You sound like such a privileged asshole, Ken,” Owein spat, and went white. The amusement fled Crydin’s face, and his eyes leveled with his little brothers’.

“Owein,” Crydin said, his voice flat. “I told you, for this job, you have to call me Crydin. No mistakes.”

“Sorry,” Owein breathed.

Crydin studied Owein under half-lidded eyes. His breath was coming short, the anger and contempt replaced so quickly by fear. Crydin observed that reaction, displeased.

He waved and Owein seemed to relax, minutely. “No more mistakes,” he said, a rare show of mercy. Owein nodded, recognizing it. “You’ll remember when you come up with your own alias.”

“When?” Owein muttered.

Crydin raised his eyebrows.

Owein gulped, but faced down his older brother. “You say that money doesn’t matter,” he said, indignant now rather than angry. “But that’s because you live with Dad now. You don’t know how Mom and I are struggling. She’s working three jobs, I’m working two! Three shifts of which, might I add, I’m skipping in order to be here.”

Owein gained momentum as he talked, the redness in his face returning quickly. Crydin made a note of that, nodding. “I commend your work ethic,” he said, his tone not dry enough to mock.

“I need that money,” Owein barrelled on, ignoring him. “We need that money, Mom and I.”

Crydin showed him a face of sympathy. “Why didn’t you ask me for money? Or Father?”

Owein actually stood up in that furious moment. “After all you just said, talking about favors and owning people?!” His voice rose nearly to a shout. “There’s no way I’m getting wrapped up in your crazy schemes! I’m not going to be your pawn!”

Crydin couldn’t hold the laughter in. He laughed, cackled, then burst out great breaths of air in his mirth. He had more in him, but subsided when he saw Owein frightened, again.

“Oh, Owein,” he said, his voice chillingly calm for the fit he just had. “How much you have yet to learn.”

He leaned forward. “The world is an oyster,” he said, holding unblinking eye contact with his little, little brother. “Surrounded on all sides, guarded, by sea urchins. Your problem, you see, the problem of so many others - including our poor, bereaved Mother - is that you are so blindingly willing to take instruction from the urchins on how to score yourself a pearl.” He slowly wiggled his fingers as though wrapping them around an imagined pearl. “You’ll listen to just anyone, won’t you? Even your older brother. Even your Father, and if anyone is full of poison, you know…” He let the thought dangle. “You earn money by allowing yourself to be bought.” He let the pearl drop into the unseen abyss. “You earn favors by buying people.” His hands clasped around an invisible chain instead. “And you can be so… creative on what you spend your people on.”

He smiled at Owein, a genuine one, but it seemed to hold him statue-still, as tense as taut rope. “Investments, big investments that lead to payoffs down the line.” He leaned a little closer. “And while money can buy things, people can buy you whatever you want. The one thing you want more than anything else.”

For the rest of Crydin’s days, he would remember the expression on Owein’s face - indescribable, inimitable, unrepeatable. Never would his little brother be this weak again, he vowed. Malleable, yes - but not weak.

The moment was stolen away when a noise brought Owein’s attention back to the monitor. He gasped and leaped out of his chair. “She has a wrench!” he cried. “She’s killing him!” He rushed to his side of the desk, tossing objects into his pockets, pausing before the door just long enough to snarl in Crydin’s face. “You may have - o-other priorities, but I’m not giving up on that ransom!” The remark was punctuated by the slam of the door.

Crydin remained where he was, stock still, his eyes lidded in thought. Slowly, he sat back up in his chair. His neck cricked. After a long moment, he tilted his head the other way to stretch it back again. His eyes flicked to the monitor, and he released the slightest sigh through his nose. The girl’s name came to him then - Emily, it was. That was right, Emily.

“We have a long way to go, don’t we?” he whispered, unheard, to his brother. “So much you have yet to learn.”