Page 2 of Deviant Need

Nobody moves. Even my brothers just stare, frozen in shock.

Then Daniil takes off running, and I scramble to my feet and run after him before my brothers snap out of it.

Our feet slap against the marble, and their yelling fades behind us, getting quieter until all I can hear is our breathing and footsteps and my heart pounding in my ears. Daniil’s quick, but my legs are longer since he’s a year younger than me, only five years old. He doesn’t talk, hasn’t said a single word since the day Papa brought him home.

“Mikhail!” Papa’s voice explodes through the hallway, and my entire body goes tense.

We both stop dead. I turn around, and he’s already storming toward us with the belt gripped tight in his hand. My stomach drops. I didn’t mean to cause trouble this time.

He’s always mad at me, always hurting me, even when I try really hard to be good. I always get the belt and get locked in my room with no dinner until my stomach hurts so much I cry.

Yesterday I was so good. I didn’t talk at all during dinner, not even once, and I sat with my hands folded just how Mama taught me. I thought maybe he wouldn’t be angry if I was perfect, but he still hit me anyway. Last month I made him a picture of the two of us holding hands and smiling, and I found it in the trash that same day. I wanted him to keep it somewhere so he’d see it and remember I love him. I worked really hard on it and used all my favorite colors.

Maybe I’m bad and I don’t know how to be good. Maybe that’s why my brothers don’t like me anymore. They can tell something’s wrong with me, and that’s why nobody wants me around. My heart beats so fast it hurts, and I start backing up before I turn around and run.

“What did you do this time? Why can’t you ever behave yourself!”

He’s fast, too fast, and I can hear his footsteps pounding behind me, getting closer. At the last possible second, I throw myself down into a ball on the floor, arms going over my head to protect myself.

He doesn’t have time to stop.

His foot catches me in the stomach and knocks the air out of my lungs. Then he’s flying over me, slamming into the wall with a brutal thump that rattles the pictures hanging nearby. Something heavy falls off the shelf above him and crashes down onto his legs. A string of Russian curse words floods out of him, echoing down the hallway.

Daniil’s hand locks onto my shirt and drags me up, and we’re running before he can get up, our feet pounding against the floor.

Behind us, Papa is shouting at us to stop, his voice getting fainter as we put distance between us and the wreckage we just left behind.

We crash through the front door and fly down the steps, across the driveway. The sun’s bright and cold air hits my face as we run. We tear across the grass, through the trees behind the house, into the forest. We don’t stop running until my lungs burn and I taste metal in my mouth.

“Wait.” I drop face-first into the dirt, gasping hard, my lungs feeling too small.

Daniil stops and doubles over, panting with his hands on his knees. His face burns red, and his black hair stands up everywhere, messy from the wind.

Light breaks through the branches above and lands in his hazel eyes, making all the tiny brown spots shine against the green. They look like moss in the forest when the sun finds it through the leaves, glowing soft and warm and alive. Dark marks rest under his eyes like bruises because he still doesn’t sleep well. Sometimes he wakes up crying in the middle of the night, and nobody cares except me. I hear him through the wall and go to his room to comfort him. I always end up sleeping in his bed.

“Thanks.” I wipe my face on my sleeve, tasting dirt. “That was so cool. You knocked him right over. Did you see Yulian’s face?”

He drops down beside me, pulls his knees to his chest, and nods. His breathing comes fast, and his hands tremble.

I don’t care that he doesn’t talk. We have fun no matter what, and the silence feels good with him. Peaceful. Quiet in a way that doesn’t scare me, nothing like the quiet when Papa’s mad and we’re all waiting for him to hurt us.

He starts biting at his nails, and I roll my eyes, pulling his hands down. “Stop. Mama says it’s gross. She’ll make you wear those stupid gloves again.”

He drops his hands and stares at the ground, letting out a huff.

“Where were you? I looked everywhere. Under your bed, in the closets, even in the pantry behind the flour bags.”

He frowns and turns away so I can’t see his face.

“Were you talking to that lady?”

Mama makes him do speech therapy every day with this weird old woman who comes to the house. She has big teeth and smells wrong, like old flowers left in water too long, and I don’t like being near her. Daniil always looks sad after their sessions and hides somewhere I can’t find him for hours. I think she’s hurting him when no one else is around, and nobody notices but me.

He shakes his head fast.

“You hid from her?”

He nods.