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Christopher McAllister and I were born to destroy each other. At least, I always swore that was the reason why we'd never been good at doing anything else. Once, lifetimes ago, he told me that there was no such thing as true love and happily ever after for people like us. He was wrong then, but I didn't think he was wrong now, so many years later. People like us; people who did the dirty, reprehensible, awful deeds that had to be done in order for everyone else to be happy and safe. People like us saw too much to really ever be happy living. Our reward was death, sick as it was.

In any case, he and I worked well together for a time, until we really came into our own. I saw it early on, that we'd be bad for each other. I just didn't realize how bad until it was already too late. It had taken a great act of love for me to force him out of my life years before. I should have known that by then he'd already become too addicted to stay away.

I saw him the second I hit the stage and involuntarily felt my heart skip and then speed up dramatically. Keeping my eyes on him, I forced myself to laugh into the mic and shove my hair over my shoulder while I introduced us.

"Hey, guys." I said it with a quick wink and another laugh, waiting for sound to die out before smirking at them. I loved the stage, really it was the only place I could breathe well, the only place that I could feel free to be me, in a twisted way, because I could disappear into an act, be what I wasn't. No different from theater, really. No one ever believed that the person you were on stage was the person you really were. Still, I didn't take my eyes off of Christopher for too long, no matter how comfortable I felt.

"Most of you have heard us before, but some of you are new and some of you are just stupid." I paused for the laughter to die out again. Most of the people in this crowd were the same sycophants we went to school with. They didn't actually get my humor and they didn't actually think that was funny, they just wanted me to remember they'd laughed so I wouldn't tear them a new one at school on Monday. It was a pointless hope. I wouldn't tear them a new one if they didn't do anything remarkably stupid. If they did, their laughing at my little speech wasn't going to save them from my tongue.

"So we'll go over this again. This is fight-club. If you don't get the reference, listen closely: the first rule is that you don't talk about this. ever. Also...go rent a ******** movie." Seriously. Who didn't know fight club? I rolled my eyes when there was more laughter. I hand't been kidding. I would have told them to read a ******** book if any of them would have believed that I actually read. Or if I believed that even half of them were capable of it.

"Anyway, we're going to sing some songs for you, and since you're not going to talk about us our names don't matter. what we play doesn't matter since it'll change up through the set, with the exception of our drummer, who is musically retarded and can only seem to beat on things."

Leighanne threw a drumstick at me and I winced and rubbed the spot she'd hit on the back of my head before laughing and shrugging it off. Quickly, I turned and stuck my tongue out at her, playfully, before cuing us into an intro that was upbeat, fast and surprisingly catchy. It'd taken us weeks to get it just right, but now that we had I was ridiculously proud of it. Our sound was unique, but that wasn't why people flocked to our underground performances. The cynical part of me always believed it was because on a sheltered boarding school campus for all the children of the elite, everyone wanted to believe they were part of some kind of awesome secret. It didn't hurt that we had tiny little Adrienne, who was just charm personified; who was beautiful and natural and kind, but could out belt the proudest of divas. She had a clear, strong voice that could move you to tears, literally, but came in the form of a petite blond cheerleader who might have weighed 98 pounds; soaking wet.

And then there was me. We shared time as lead vocals, passing back and forth between sets and songs and even lyrics. And somehow it worked. Adrienne was charm and innocence personified while I was unapologetically sex. I was addictive and we all knew it. We both did blues, and we both did it well, but we'd added a pop/rock element that was as hard to pick out as it was addictive. Somehow, we made ourselves mesh seamlessly, in a way that didn't make any sense at all logically. It shouldn't have made sense. But then, neither should our friendship.

The show was fast, it was hard, and I never forgot for one second that Christopher was standing in the crowd staring at me. It was rough having him there, staring at me, after two years of silence from him. I would take that over having to keep both eyes on my depressed best friend any day though. Thankfully, the show was enough to distract her temporarily from the pain of a broken heart. I smiled when it was my turn to solo, when my song came up and I covered Seth Horan, briefly shoving aside the matter of Christopher and his appearance after two years of nothing.

As soon as we were done though, I put my guitar down and jumped off stage and onto the grass, shoving my hands in my pockets and strolling over to where I'd last seen him. He was gone, which didn't really surprise me, and Brennan was there instead, staring at me a little blankly, which also didn't surprise me.

"I thought I saw.." he frowned.

"Chris."

I sighed, shrugging and then shoving aside the little bit of disappointment I felt at his disappearance. Just because I didn't want him there didn't mean I didn't want to see him again. It was complicated, but then, little in our lives wasn't, so I picked up my guitar and slung it across my back before collecting Adrienne and concentrating on something that wasn't complicated. Sleep was calling my name, and Adrienne's eyes were the color that meant I wouldn't have to stay up to make sure she didn't attempt suicide, so we turned in the direction of campus again.

Sneaking back onto campus had gotten a lot easier since our freshman year of high school. It might have been the fact that the dorms we lived in were in the back of the property and our suite faced the woods behind them. Then again, it was more likely that we just didn't care as much anymore. Sneaking in and out had lost the thrill that it had held back then. Now, if we got caught, Adrienne just batted those big blue eyes of hers and we were off the hook.

Either way, by the time we made it back to the suite, Brennan had Adrienne on his back, piggy-style and we were joking and laughing tiredly as I shoved my way into the door of our suite. Instantly, my laughter and feet both stopped, blocking the others from our room.

"Kay?" Adrienne mumbled tiredly.

I couldn't form a response. I couldn't even really breathe. All I could do was stare and force myself to fight the ridiculous tears. There was no reason for me to cry at the sight of Christopher--tall, dark and brawny--being in my living room, lounging in my favorite chair and drinking my whiskey out of a crystal juice glass. <********, Kay, like, what's your ******** problem?" Shari bit out behind me.

It jolted me enough that I tore my eyes from his and just shrugged, moving fluidly so that Brennan could see his half brother and no one else could. Shari didn't normally talk to me if she didn't have to. It was the best sort of pact that we could come up with to avoid hurting her sister. Not that it was an easy agreement to keep to, with her dating Brennan and me being her sister's best friend, but it worked most of the time.

"Shari, do us all a favor and go try desperately to get Andrew Delphinius to ******** you. The grownups have to play now and frankly, you're not wanted." I smirked, grimacing at Brennan when he darted a glare in my direction.

I never agreed to play nice if I didn't have to and we all knew that Shari'd been hot for Drew since she'd first seen him. We all also knew that Drew wouldn't touch her if she were on fire and needed to be patted out. She was his sister's best friend and if that didn't automatically count her out, she was bitchy, narcissistic and merciless. She was self-serving and offered herself too easily and on top of it all didn't even pretend to like him as a person. If that didn't seal it, she was Adrienne's sister. There was just no way he'd ever go there. What made it painful for her was that I had ******** him off and on since he and his ex had broken up the year before.

I wasn't above using things like that to make her go away, and I wasn't above getting joy out of her added misery and humiliation right then and there. She was hurting my best friend, my family, and that I just didn't allow without a little bit of revenge. Still, I grimaced an apology to Brennan for saying it all in front of him. He shrugged back and I knew we were cool. Things were simple like that between us now. He didn't care that I hurt his girlfriend because he understood me better than anyone. Shari sniffed disdainfully at me and muttered the word b***h in my direction before stomping off to her room. I snorted; like I cared.

Leighanne was always good at knowing when she was wanted, so she disappeared with Shari, leaving with barely a smirk in my direction. Whatever; I rolled my eyes at her for her show of privacy. It was really just that: A show. We all knew she'd know what was happening before the night was out. Still, we pretended that some things could be secret from her and stepped into the common room, closing and locking the door behind us.

Brennan let Adrienne slide to the floor behind him and just stared at his brother while I poured myself a good strong drink. I had a feeling I'd need it after hearing why Chris was back here after two years of hearing nothing from him. He always brought trouble, and the kind of trouble he brought didn't always just go away when he left. Sometimes, it was the kind of trouble that lead to dying and sometimes it just lead to wishing you could die. Right now, I wasn't sure which I wanted it to be. Maybe, if I were as optimistic as Adrienne, I could hope that it wasn't trouble that I smelled following him.

Unfortunately for any optimism I had left in me, the beast inside was sitting up and purring in pleasure at his presence. That meant there'd be chaos and conflict and maybe even bloodshed. It always meant that. I sighed and took a sip of the Jack I'd poured myself.

"Chris..." Brennan finally sighed, attempting to break the silence.

"No, little brother. This isn't our business. It's just business." he answered quietly, offering the drink to Adrienne before kneeling in front of her. "Adrienne. I just got back yesterday." he said it slowly, blinking from me to Brennan and then back to Adrienne before licking his lips. My stomach clenched horribly, so I handed her the scotch glass I was misusing and poured myself a different drink. "Zoe's... uh, Zoe's dead. Murdered in the apartment you were staying in." he finally said, while I was mixing.

Adrienne dropped the scotch glass, not even wincing when it shattered and the liquor spilled all over her nice oriental rug. I shrugged and threw back my drink, shot style, before speaking.

"We'll talk tomorrow, Chris." I bit out quietly, watching my friend and judging her ability to process and handle this information. "She's too drunk to handle this right now. Come back in the morning and let Brennan play knight in shining armor and watch over us all tonight." I sighed, quickly thinking.

I hated this part of having him around. It always required quick thinking, planning, re-planning, calculating sides and worths and secrets. I sighed again, leveling everything out inside myself and weighing what I knew of what was happening against what he had said and what he hadn't said. I knew he had to be hurting. Zoe was dead, his twin had been murdered in a foreign country and since nothing was on the news, we had to figure that authorities weren't doing jack s**t about it.

That said, he was looking for justice. The fact that he'd come here meant that he was either looking for help in this or offering his help in something else, in exchange for information. He knew I cared about Adrienne, and he also knew that I could get information on any one and any thing whenever I needed it. Then again, he also knew me from back. He knew how I'd been and the things I'd done just for kicks. Just because I'd been an angry little girl and I could get away with it. He probably wanted help.

I frowned, thinking about the way he'd knelt before Adrienne though, paused, reconsidered. She'd been in Greece not too long ago. I knew she'd stayed with Zoe, and I knew that Christopher knew who she'd been hiding from while she did. I wondered if maybe the problem she'd been running from hadn't quite been handled yet; played the what if game in my head and narrowed my eyes on Chris's form even before he stood up. My thoughts had only taken my milliseconds, really, and even while he was protesting, I was considering.

"She's not drunk, Kay, I can see that." he snorted. "She had what, half a jello shot? I was watching the party." he raised an eyebrow. "We need to talk tonight." he added with a more serious frown.

"I know." I sighed. "It's Devon, isn't it?"

"that was quick."

"Had it figured before you said anything about her not being drunk." I sighed and slumped into the couch, deciding I may as well be comfortable while we talked.

"I just don't know, Kay. not for sure."

I looked at Adrienne, who nodded slowly.

"You said he was--" Christopher started.

"I thought I did. I didn't..." she sighed. "I didn't look back. Just reacted on instinct, didn't look at the person behind me until after I'd already..." she shrugged. "then I think I blacked out. I didn't remember anything else until the other night. We didn't get rid of Devon. The man you buried was his hired gun." she said, flatly.

"You're sure?" Chris asked, eyes level on hers.

"Positive. Devon as her killer...it's really...it makes sense." she said quietly. "He always had a thing for pretty girls who appear to be tragically alone. And she knew where I was. He couldn't find me, so I bet his logic was to torture the information out of her."

"Then you're his next stop." Brennan said, quietly, no trace of humor left in his generally smiling face.

Even I felt bad at this point. After all, I winced, Adrienne had just very bluntly said what Christopher couldn't. Their sister had been tortured before being murdered.

"I always was." she shrugged, looking like she frankly didn't care. Like the threat of physical pain, or even worse, death, didn't bother her so much.

I hated that look. I hated that look more than I hated Reuben for cheating on her, or Lydia for being a pathetic manipulative druggy and using her pregnancy to force him to dump my best friend. I hated it more than I hated Shari's narcissism or Brennan's crush on me or Christopher's presence in our suite at that moment. I hated it more than I had ever hated my mother or father or Aunts and Uncles. Growling low in my throat and resisting the urge to punch a wall, I looked instead to Christopher.

"Where can we send her?" For the moment, at least, I was more concerned with her safety than his bastardy.

"No." Adrienne said, shaking her head. "I'm tired of running. I'm tired of hiding. I'm not a coward and I'm not going to hide from him. If he wants me out of the game for good, he'll come after me. And if he's as pissed off as I think he is, he'll ******** it up." she flicked her eyes over to Christopher briefly. "And then it'll either be a judge deciding his fate or a .357 SIG held by one of his guys. Either way, I'm not particularly picky."

"Adrienne, you can't be serious." Brennan protested.

Chris and I looked at her speculatively though, forming our own judgements and weighing our options and then looking at each other. Brennan was left out of our silent communication. We both knew his opinions just as surely as we knew that we would both be on board with using her to draw him out. The recklessness and danger called to us, thrilled something in our blood and made me sigh pleasantly, even though I hated the idea of Adrienne anywhere near danger. I knew it was the same with him and I knew that we could plan the entire thing just with a look. We'd done it before.

I bit my lip and forced myself to look down at my wrists, to trace the ouroboros there while the thrill calmed back down. I reminded myself that I was not going to use her or go back down that road again. Still, I frowned. It had been nice for that brief moment, to have things back the way they were, when it was me and Chris doing the planning and Brennan waiting on our silent decisions, not privy to our conversation but game for whatever we decided.

"You're never to be alone, then. Unless you're in the UR, you're going to have someone glued to your side day and night." Chris finally said, after waiting for me to look back at him and nod my agreement.

"Chris!"

Brennan shouted his protest at his brother unnecessarily loudly and I winced, taking another drink. He wasn't about to yell at me about this, which wasn't fair, but was true enough. He was mad at Chris for being back, for bringing trouble with him like always, just as I was. But Brennan was also mad at him for a lot of other reasons, not the least of which was that he was still able to communicate with me silently after two years of no contact. He was still able to keep his little brother out of the loop completely. I think it made him more mad though that it was me and Chris again and he was left out. It was complicated and messy and I didn't really want to think about it because he wouldn't be mad at me about it, even though I was as much to blame as Chris was.

If he weren't back to protect Adrienne, I would have been pissed at him for hurting Brennan by coming back at all. I would have cut him to pieces with my tongue, I would have gotten revenge in the worst way I could and then I would have sent him packing again. As it was though, I didn't see how I could make him go away, short of calling Brennan's father out on this one. Not in this situation. Besides, he deserved the chance for revenge. So did I, really.

"If she's not... I'm not going to force her into hiding. She's a big girl, Brennan. I've seen what she can do, when pushed. Dad'd want her for one of ours if he'd seen it." Chris said, quietly. <********... she's not meeting dad" Brennan muttered.

"I agree," Chris replied, smiling easily.

He was trying, really hard actually, to get Brennan to loosen up, to just forget it and treat him like they were brothers. I think he knew that it was useless, that Brennan wouldn't even look at him if he didn't have to. That he'd burned that bridge way back when he'd left us. But he was trying anyway, and I knew what trying was like when you couldn't even explain. The sympathy made me interject.

"Guys. Plans." I raised my eyebrows at them coolly, swirling my alcohol around in my glass and watching as Adrienne got up and slipped into her bedroom. "We need some. Some just in cases, for if he manages to get to her…"

I shrugged and took a sip while the boys grinned at me, both happy that I'd included them in what could, quite frankly, have been my show.

When we were done, the moment there was nothing left to say on the matter of Adrienne's safety, the sun was coming up again. Brennan shoved to his feet and took off as soon as possible, without even a word to me and barely more than a resentful stare in Christopher's direction. That was to be expected, though I didn't like it any, since it left me more or less alone with him. Sighing, I stood and stretched out my back for a moment, itching absently at my wrist and the tattoo there. His eyes followed the movement, but if he were surprised by the tattoo, he didn't say anything.

Neither of us did for a while. I made coffee, I forced myself to wander around the suite, putting things away very casually, to look in on Adrienne and make sure she was sleeping okay before closing her door. Finally, when I knew it was unavoidable, I poured a cup for myself and left the pot close by while I settled into an arm chair and stared him down. He didn't blink, just returned the look, holding my gaze steadily for as long as he could. I knew he would, just as I knew that he'd be the one to look away first.

As much as I wanted to avoid looking at him or interacting with him, I had nothing to feel sorry for. All I felt towards him now was a little bit of resentment and maybe, if I were honest, the smallest bit of desire.

"How is he, Kay?" he finally asked, taking the easiest question first. Testing the waters, probably. If I were nicer, I would take it easy on him.

"He's Brenn," I shrugged, staring at him. "You're his brother, you should know what that means."

It wasn't fair and I knew it. Christopher hadn't been a part of Brennan's life for more than two years now and it hadn't been his choice to sever contact. I'd delivered a low blow, but then, I didn't care if it hurt, either. I rarely did.

"Kay…" he sighed and shook his head.

"What? you think you can come back and I'm not gonna give you hell?" I snorted.

"Be fair, Kaylyn."

"I don't have to be. You're the one who left." I shook my head, mostly at myself.

That was unfair of me and I knew it. I'd been the one to demand that he leave. I had known that it would hurt, and more importantly, I had known that it would hurt Brennan. And he did it because I told him to. What killed me was that, even though all we could do was hurt each other, all I had to do was say the word and Christopher would bring down mountains for me.

"Because you told me to go! What was I supposed to do, Kay? My brother was barely speaking to me, and you'd just...disappeared into yourself. When we finally had you back, you took one look at me and Brenn and then broke my hand and told me you hated me and you never wanted to see me again."

I just stood up and walked away. It was true, what he said. I had done all of that. But then, two years ago, we had all been a little bit more extreme. I'd mellowed out since then, and so had Brennan without Chris's corruptive influence. I'd been a lot more wild back then, a lot angrier. And a lot of that anger had come from Chris and his troubles. That's what I had to keep reminding myself of, because if I didn't, I'd flat out tell him that he'd have our forgiveness if he stayed long enough. I'd tell him I wanted him to stay, that I had meant what I said at the time, but would never have stuck to it for long. Keeping up with him had been exhausting; thrilling and wonderful and completely, inexcusably, fun, but exhausting.

My Adrenaline was always pumping in those days and I hadn't needed to go out to clubs or find a party or one of my hookups and drink or ******** away the panicky, all-consuming self-destructive urges. The wild side of me. The side that craved danger and destruction and blood had been appeased just by being near Christopher. He'd been my drug. Just being around him had made me high, forget the situations he'd gotten us into and out of.

We always laughed afterwards, but the truth was we were lucky to have survived any of them. I mean, we always got out alive, we were always good; until suddenly we just weren't anymore. I'd never been able to pinpoint how it went wrong, but I'd never been ungrateful for his disappearance. Maybe the partying and the clubbing and the occasional ******** made me completely unworthy of Lindsay Sloane's love, but it didn't kill me either. So that was a step in the right direction, I reminded myself.

I paused in the doorway to look at him and just shook my head. I couldn't tell him I was grateful for his presence here. I couldn't tell him I'd missed him or that being around him was making me feel peace again. I knew that having him here was going to be hard, because I knew that I couldn't stay around him. He was bad for me and I knew that I had to keep him away, so I did what I always did when I was stuck.

"I wish you hadn't come, Chris. You always just bring trouble." It was whispered, but we both knew he'd heard and we both knew it wounded him more than he wanted to admit.

We really had been close once, and I wished right then and there that we could be again. Because I could see that he needed me and he needed Brennan. But we could never be close again because we were bad for each other, and I just kept reminding myself of that as I traced the scars on the insides of my wrists. Disguised by tattoos and most of the time covered by bracelets or jackets or sweaters, they were my best reminder of why getting involved with Chris again would be a bad idea.

Io will likely be the only one to get some of the things discussed in this chapter. That, only because this story works with some of the same characters, on the same timeline, as one of our finished collaborations (which is in desperate need of an edit/rewrite). Don't worry, Kaylyn's pretty good about explaining everything that needs immediate clarification. The rest will come. smile

Poor Drew. But seriously, Favorite bitchy Kaylyn quote ever. "Shari, do us all a favor and go try desperately to get Andrew Delphinius to ******** you."

smile

Yeah, I totally agree on the stage bit. I was trying to make that obvious without blatantly saying it. Cause that's just not Kay's style. The reference to Seth Horan and the drumstick being thrown were supposed to help also, when she was originally addressing the crowd, she said "what we play doesn't matter, since we'll be switching it up through the set."

Maybe it was just obvious to me, because I know what they're doing up there. And yes, when everything originally happened between Chris and Kay and Brennan, they would have been 15 and 16. With Chris being the oldest at 19/20. Kaylyn is actually very old in her mind, it doesn't really figure for her that they're a little too young for the s**t that they pull.

It's hard clarifying things like who's in the band with Kaylyn doing all of the talking. She tries to forget that Shari exists. A lot. I struggle with her over this. Further clarification of where they are and what the band's doing will come later. I'm trying a thing with alternating chapters between past and present that I'm not sure how it's going to work out. It might be a little too disorienting for anyone but me.

Thank you for the thoughts. You're absolutely right about how abruptly she switches gears, which hadn't occurred to me as I was writing. It's very her, too, though, to jump entire lines of thought without any indication of where or when that happened. I'll have to think about this. How to make that more clear from the start.

You are, of course, right about the characters. From a numbers perspective, we're talking 5 on screen characters and four who are only mentioned, I think. That's Kaylyn, a bit. She's inexplicably very popular. The other part of that is that I threw you into the exact moment our hero comes back. I've been debating changing that, on and off since the project started. Part of my problem is that Kay should have expected his return, but didn't. My other problem is that at any given point in time, Kaylyn is probably surrounded by four or five people. And they're highschoolers, so they talk a lot about their classmates.

Thoughts on breaking this up a bit? It's a very dense chapter, heavy on back story and heavy on character introductions. It's a perfect translation of her voice and person, though. I'm probably a little too attached to her voice and her as a person to make fair calls on where to break it. I thought, maybe, before their conversation in the suite, after telling Shari to go away. That eliminates two of the mentioned in passing kids, but I'm not sure that that really helps any in eliminating your character over load. Andrew Delphinius and Lindsay Sloane are not, actually going to appear in this much more than passing mentions, if at all. They're important to Kaylyn's personal story more than Christopher's and this is about Christopher.

Yeah, except your stabby art piece physically HURTS people. smile my writing, I hope, does no such thing.