Beyond Bloodline - Unbreakable Bonds

thirty

Nigel felt antsy. And irritated. Saxon couldn't seem to get here fast enough and someone was smoking in a part of the station despite the big red warning on a wall. Soon, he was spiraling, nails digging into his palms as he tried to regain some semblance of calm and just pass the rest of the wait in peace.

That trial was doomed to failure.

"Nigel."

"Nigel, I'm scared!"

"Nigel!"

His chest felt tight, his lungs thick with smoke that left him hardly able to take a breath. When Saxon finally arrived, helping him process the bail and leading him out of there, he'd felt like he'd just survived a mid-sized disaster once he escaped that cramped office. He got in, fastening his seatbelt and staring out the side of his window despite the long stare from his side.

Maybe he shouldn't have called his twin? But who could have rushed down so quickly? Aunt Winona? Riele? His Aunt Ava who he wasn't so close to and had just rediscovered her own existence? He didn't want to disturb anyone. They had their own lives.

But his twin was his own life.

"Fine," he sighed. "Ask away."

Saxon started the car and slowly pulled out of the station, smoothly merging into the road. "What exactly happened?" he asked curiously.

"I was blind," he said, blinking in melancholy as houses whizzed past him along the main road. He'd been treasuring an ingrate as a friend all along who didn't think his own well-being as important as some misplaced need for kinship.

"Should we go someplace else?" Saxon suddenly asked, brushing past the topic on sensing his unwillingness to divulge any more than that.

"Did something happen at home?" he asked, tired.

"Dad got back earlier."

Nigel stiffened and brought his gaze back into the car and locked on his twin's expression. "It's fine," he said after a while. "Let's just go back home." Anyway, it was just one person more than the usual who didn't care for him in that household. He could still stand that at least. After all, his father had been nothing more than indifferent towards him.

"There's also something else," Saxon continued, a tinge of awkwardness stealing into his face and voice.

"Can you spit everything out at once?" he asked shortly. Who was this idiot trying to give a heart attack?

"My hands were full when you called," he explained. "My phone was on speaker."

Nigel failed to immediately make the connection between that and why it was the cause of his sombre expression.

"I was with mom and dad," he said.

Nigel felt his face drain of all color and leaned his head against the side of the window, feeling his chest tightening again.

"I'm sorry, Nic."

He didn't respond.

He didn't really know what to say to that.

This was all Aries' fault.

—

"Mom," he greeted. 'Dad."

Silence.

"You can go on to bed, Saxon," his mother dismissed, slipping out of the hold her husband had securely around her to replace her glass of wine on the centerpiece. "We'd like to talk to your brother alone."

Saxon took a worried glance at him but upon meeting his blank expression, just bit his lip and turned to the stairs.

"Prison?" Nadine snorted. "I'd like to believe I raised you better than that."