Hero

 Hero

“You see,” he said, walking around me like a vulture circling its meal. “A hero is only as good as his opponent pushes him to be. So the darker my actions, the better you became.”

That’s not true! I wanted to scream the sentence, to write it in the clouds, carve it into the moon. It couldn’t be true. The hero is made over the years, from fighting to stay the hero in a world that kept getting darker, that kept rejecting me. He had nothing to do with it.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. The gag between my teeth kept me from anything more than an angry grunt of protest as I shook my head.

“Oh, you don’t believe me?” he asked, noticing the motion. “You should. I've seen a lot more than you. Take out the gag." One of his men obeyed immediately, cutting the gag away.

"You give yourself too much credit," I told him, stretching out my jaw. "Because I obviously wouldn't have become a hero if you didn't exist."

"It's true." He was staring out one of the enormous windows, back to me. His voice was cold and hard. "Tell me honestly that you didn't want to prove yourself, that if I was a different person, you still would have become what you are."

I couldn't reply. It was true, he knew it was.

"Are you ashamed of me, Sammy? Trying to prove you aren't like me, or Dad?"

That touched a nerve, one I'd thought had scarred over. "Do you know what it's like, growing up with the names of two serial killers following me, like ghosts I could never get rid of? How I felt about leaving everything and going into hiding after you escaped? You destroyed my life."

"And so you had to prove that you were better than me."

"Of course I had to!" If there had been any strength left in me, I would've attacked him without a thought, even though we were family. Even though the guards would kill me for it.

"Why? Why didn't you just break?"

That got my attention. Our eyes met in the thick glass of the mirror, and he was the first to look away.

"Why didn't you break?" he repeated, softer. "What makes you better than me?"

Again, I had no response. That wasn't a question that could be answered.

"Why?!" He shouted, spinning around. His hand lashed out, knocking me off my knees.

Spitting blood, I whispered, "I don't know, Michael."

"The worse I was, the better you became." He crouched down, gripping my chin in strong fingers that used to catch everything I'd throw at him. "I tried everything I could to make you like me, but you just got better. Kinder, stronger. What makes you different?"

"I-I don't know. Honestly. Please, Michael. Don't hurt me."

He let me go, standing and dusting himself off. "If you truly knew what I am, you wouldn't beg for mercy. All it will do is make things worse for you."

"I'm sorry. Please. You're better than this."

"Nice to see you never let go of hope, Sammy. That will be fun to watch as it destroys you from the inside."

"Michael, please. I'm your brother."

"Family means nothing. Not to us, anyway. Besides, don't try to pretend you haven't spent your whole life wishing you had some other bunch of losers for blood."

"Most families don't have two psychopaths in them."

"Defiance? From you? I thought you were Mommy's golden boy. Always obedient, always quiet. The kind of son she wanted."

"Don't you mock our mom that way."

"YOUR mom. She never loved me. Anyone could see that. All I got was Dad's cruelty." He turned away and lifted his shirt, just a little. There was a twisted scar that ran across his lower back, a wound I couldn't even imagine. "But enough pandering. Take our golden boy away, and we'll see if we can't break him."

The guards dragged me from the room while my brother ignored my screams.