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It was too cold.

The damn kid may be seven years old, but he was the smartest seven-year-old I’d ever met.

Honestly, I would equate his IQ to near-genius level.

No seven-year-old that I knew could get into my parents’ car and move it slightly over, then tell our parents that I drove it.

No seven-year-old I knew could pack a knife in my book bag, then go to school the next day and tell their teacher that I was planning on stabbing someone from school.

The only thing that I had going for me was that my prints hadn’t been on the knife.

I’d told the sheriff to check it.

He had and had let me go without a warning.

But only after I convinced him that my little brother was lying.

Needless to say, I now did a thorough check of my book bag before school.

I also parked my car so far down the road in a hidden barn that he didn’t know about.

No way was I allowing him to plant a gun in my car and telling the office that I was planning to shoot up the school.

“Open it,” Leo said with excitement.

I did, and nearly threw up when I saw the dead baby kitten inside.

The barn cat had babies just two days ago.

I’d buried this one in the yard when she’d been born stillborn.

“That’s nice, Leo.” I smiled.

Or tried to.

It didn’t reach my eyes.

It never did.

“Take it. It’s for you.”

I shook my head but didn’t put the box down.

I shrugged my backpack on over my shoulder and headed for the door. “Let’s go, or you’ll miss the bus.”

I would’ve had to take him, but my parents didn’t trust me anymore.

Not that I’d done anything wrong for them not to trust me.

They just listened to Leo and assumed that if I had control of him in any way, I might drop him off on the side of the road and leave him there.

Hell, sometimes, I definitely contemplated it.

I was still big enough that I could overpower him.

But, unlike my brother, I wasn’t someone who would hurt a child.

Psychopath or not.