Instinct

6. Don't Let Go

The morning was brisk, Brennan could tell even before he approached the front door. Through the sagging walls and cracking plaster, he could feel the chill seeping into the air around him; despite the old central heating giving it its all, chugging away weakly. The floorboards creaked under him, complaining under his modest weight as he slipped his jacket off the coat rack and onto his not-yet-completely-awake body.

The weak light of a dawn approaching wasn't a rare sight for Brennan, or anyone else under that roof. Somehow the noises still made him tread lighter, trying to let everyone else sleep for as long as they could even though he knew that all ears would be tuned to any movement with the focus of a military team.

It came with the territory, he supposed.

Out of his worn pockets he produced a small, banged up cell phone. The cracked screen blared blue light, and illuminated evidence of the early morning. It was still only five.

"Benny?"

With none of the grace of a werewolf, it was still only his sister that could possibly sneak up on him. He supposed he had grown so used to her presence that she was like another limb to him.

"Yeah," he whispered.

Over his shoulder, as he tugged on a pair of gloves, he spotted her at the foot of the creaking steps. Her face was shadowed in the dark, her dark hair hanging loosely around her.

"What're you doing up so early on a Sunday?"

He smiled at the lethargic yawn stifled in her voice, caught in her throat. Where he had a blind spot when it came to his only family, it seemed that she was hyperaware of his every waking moment. But that was a reaction, he knew, of times long past, despite his relative youth.

He shrugged, pulling on a hat on over his ears. "Got a call."

"For work?"

Now she was awake, easily disregarding the ease he'd injected into his voice.

"No," he replied patiently.

She waited, her eyes flickering up and down him like she could see the answers on his skin if she looked hard enough. It wouldn't be a far cry from the truth; she'd always been able to see right through him.

"Care to share?" she asked, a probing softness to her voice.

"Not much to say," he relented. "Just going to do a pickup."

She was silent and he refused to look her way. It was impossible, however, to miss the sigh that seemed to come up from the floorboards themselves. And even though she hadn't said anything, Brennan felt sudden indignation and anger rise up in him.

"What do you want me to do, Lydia?"

He turned to face her, finally halting in fiddling with clothing and finding excuses not to look at her. What greeted him was exactly what he expected: arms crossed over her chest, brows furrowed, and stubborn set to the jaw. It was all Lydia, and though he loved her for it, it was so not the time.

"Benny-" she started.

"Don't," he sighed. "I can't not help, okay? What am I supposed to do?"

"Brennan," she repeated, a tone to her voice that shut him down, no matter how hard he tried to derail that particular habit. "Look, I get it. I don't care that we don't have the space or money, because we make it work anyway, yeah?"

He nodded.

"I just don't like it."

Brennan was left to wonder about that. There were so many things that could be summed up in that statement, and thinking about them would leave him unable to sleep at night.