Brothers/Sisters

“See,” she says, swaying slightly. Ask tries to steady her. “I was...uh, was, uh...sadder than I was drunk…”

Jason’s eyes are wide. “Oh, lord,” he says, eyeing the body. “Did you. Did—you—kill—him?” His tone goes up an octave on the word kill.

“I didn’t hit ‘em that hard.” Carina belches. So she’s a little drunk. Obviously. “But, uh, yeah. I think I peed a little, though.” She shakes her hand and winces. Even in the dark, it looks misshapen. “I—are you supposed to keep your thumb in or out?”

“He’s still breathing,” I say. We heave a collective sigh of relief.

“So...now what?” Jason asks. “I mean, do we just leave him?”

“We’ve got his gun,” Ask points out. Carina leans against him, still examining her thumb.

“Well, at least one of us needs medical attention,” I say.

“But…” Jason nudges the unconscious man with a boot. “Who was that?”

I shake my head. I don’t know. Ask doesn’t offer up any answers. The headlamp is still on, and more flashlights bob in the distance as curious campers—likely with their own bear repellents—amble through the trees to investigate the source of the initial gunshot.

“The gun,” I say, looking at Ask. “We heard a gunshot. But you’re fine.”

Instead of responding right away, Ask takes the unconscious man by the shoulders and props him up against a tree. Only then does he say, gesturing to the tree and the man, “I didn’t want him to choke on his own blood. I think he’ll be fine here. The campgrounds tend to scare the big predators away, right? And—the pistol?”

I nod. Jason has walked off to retrieve his Glock. Ask still has his almost-kidnapper’s gun in his hand.

“He had the safety off,” Ask says. “He didn’t expect me to fight back.”

“Why?”

Carina watches the exchange, bleary-eyed, but she doesn’t say anything. Not yet, at least. I know how she’s feeling; the urge to just curl up and go to sleep fights against my instinct to run, to drive back to Red Lodge without even packing up. Amidst this chaos, though: curiosity. A thousand questions swim through my head, but I can’t articulate them. Not yet, at least.

“I—” He’s on the verge of a truth, but he stops himself. “He had reasons, but they were wrong. He pressed the gun to my head, just like what you saw, and I went to hit him in the throat when—”

“Why are you lying?” I interrupt, thinking back to the near-miss car accident in Cody.

Jason stalks back to us, wiping off the Glock. Carina rubs at her eyes with the buts of her palms, then gasps as her thumb touches her face.

And Ask doesn’t reply at all this time. He just leans forward, places the gun on the stranger’s chest, and gives it a gentle pat, as if willing it not to move. He pulls his hand back, only to reach forward again to turn off the headlamp and flip the gun’s safety back on.

A single flashlight swings closer from the edge of the trees. If we leave him, he’ll probably be found before morning.

And maybe it’s among the shittier things that I’ve done, but the three of us decide to just leave him, leaned up against the tree, blood dripping from his nose. To be fair, he’s got a gun within reaching distance, and broken noses don’t tend to cause people to bleed out. They do, however, hurt.

I would know.



Headlights glare into a clump of pines. A deer, eyes wide, leaps into the undergrowth in a flash of brown and white. The car idles by the side of the road, a few miles from Bridge Bay. Jason’s at the wheel, with Carina sitting shotgun and Ask and I in the back. Jason still shakes, but he’s the most well-rested of any of us; besides, it’s his car.

The clock on the dash tells us it’s 3 A.M.

“What the heck was that?” Jason asks after he’s pulled over.

“Always so clean,” Carina says, then snorts and gives him a sideways glance. “Well, almost always.” Although it’s dark in the car, I can see a hint of red work its way into Jason’s cheeks, and I can’t help but feel like I’ve learned something about him that I really didn’t care to know.

But he shakes his head and eyes Ask in the rearview mirror. “Well?”

Ask holds his gaze and says, flatly, “I do not know that man.”

“That’s not what we’re asking,” I say.

“I—”

“Do you think he’ll come after us?” Carina asks. Seatbelt off, she leans against Jason’s shoulder, eyes half closed. “I wanna kick his ass.”

Jason strokes her hair. “You already did, babe.” Carina just grunts. Jason the Eagle Scout used a disposable splint from an old First Aid kit to temporarily fix her thumb, but there’s no doubt that she’s still in pain. He looks back up at Ask.

“I do n—I don’t know,” Ask says.

Carina, still leaning on Jason, turns her head to look at Ask out of the corner of her eye. “Why’re you so stubborn all the time, kid?”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Age-wise, you’re an infant,” I retort. Ask gives me a withering look, that I’m not a Roomba, asshole glare.

“I’m just—I’m just really confused,” Jason says. Carina grunts an mhm in agreement.

“Kid. That’s another thing. Garrett said you’re sixteen, your ID said you’re nineteen, you say that you’re like six—”

“—nine—”

“—months old, and you look, like, fourteen.”

“Passerini genetics.”

“I’m not done,” Jason says. His voice is strained, and his eyes have gone unfocused. “I almost shot a guy, okay? That’s...that’s scary. I don’t think I could’ve done it.” He looks from me to Ask and back to me. “Are you in on this? Did you know something like this would happen?”

Carina straightens, leaning away from Jason. “Babe, that’s not fair. But…” She pushes away even further and twists until she can clearly see the back seat. “I think you two might owe us an explanation. ‘Cause you’re clearly not cousins.”

I don’t know what to say, so my brain settles on a panic response: “Ask is a Roomba.”

From beside me, Ask gives me that look again.

Blank looks from the front. I thought I’ve experienced awkward silences before, but this goes above and beyond crowded elevator silence, and may be on par with the stranger on a bus who sits right next to you, even though there are plenty of empty seats. That kind of silence.

Ask, still glowering, breaks the silence with the expected response: “I’m not a Roomba, asshole.”

“...sorry.”

“Now I’m even more confused,” Jason says. “Are we being recorded or something?”

“Recorded?” Carina asks, rubbing at her eyes and yawning.

“Yeah, like one of those reality TV shows…”

“You watch way too much reality TV.”

Jason sighs and turns off the headlights, then turns on a light between the driver and shotgun seats. “Okay,” He says. “What are you two talking about.”
“You won’t believe it,” I warn. “I didn’t. I still don’t know if I do.”

“And I threw my hand at him,” Ask adds. He reaches toward said hand.

“You don’t want him to do that, I promise.”

Jason swivels around in his seat. “Look, if you’re just going to joke—”

Just watch me say I told you so, I want to say. But I leave out a preface and skip to it: “Ask is a robot.”
I roll my eyes as Ask starts, “Not a fucking—”

“Language,” Jason says. Then, after his brain has finished processed what I said, he gives me an incredulous, “What?”

“Bitchin’,” Carina murmurs, still half-drunk. Jason sighs, but doesn't say anything. “Ask, that’s badass.” She’s had more to drink to cope with the pain of a broken thumb; Jason takes the bottle away from her as she goes in for another swig. He rolls down the window and pours out the bottle, then wedges it between his seat and car door.

“So yeah,” I say. “We’re not cousins.”

Carina heaves a snort of laughter. Jason continues to stare. “Seriously. If you think this whole thing's a joke—”

“I’m not joking,” I say, getting cross. My ribs hurt, my neck hurts, and I’ve got a blossoming headache.

“Then—you’re s…,” he sputters, “...you’re trying to tell me that I’ve got Wall-E in the car?”

“Not at all,” I reply. “Wall-E was nice. More...R2-D2. Kind of a jerk.”

“I’m right here,” Ask says.

“I liked Artoo,” Carina mutters. “I thought he was nice…” Away from Jason, now, she leans against a little pillow, pressing her cheek to the window.

“Not if you translated those beeps, I’ll bet not.”

“Literally, I’m right here.” I hear that clicking noise again, and it only takes one click this time.

Jason just squints as Ask holds up a detached hand.

“So you’re an amputee?” he asks.

Ask leans back, sighs louder than necessary, and rolls his eyes. “I hate you all.” I expect him to throw the hand, but he just sets it in the seat between us.

Jason rubs his temples. “Joke’s up. You got me. I’m stupid, yay. Because I’m lost.”

“It’s not a joke,” I reply. “Don’t you remember how the guy in the woods talked about Ask?” Dancing around the word kill; refusing to say alive, replacing the word with functional.

Jason gets what I’m saying.

“Maybe the guy was just weird,” Carina says, her eyes closed. A second later, she’s back to lightly snoring. She’s going to be confused and hung over and hurting in the morning...or whenever she wakes up. Because it’s already morning.

“All right,” Jason says evenly, eyeing the severed hand. “If you’re telling the truth, then what’s that got to do with anything?”

That took a lot less convincing than I thought it would. Or maybe he’s not convinced; maybe he’s just playing along. The snoring stops; Carina’s eyes are open again, peering at the two of us in the back over the edges of her pillow, which has fluffed up around her face.

“Yeah, Alessandro,” I say. I purse my lips in a mock-thoughtful expression. “What does it have to do with this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I don’t want to.” He’s quiet again, like he was just an hour ago when he left me by the campfire. It seems like so much longer.

“Then don’t. It’s not that hard.”

I can barely hear him when he says, “Maybe it is.”

“Ask.” He won’t look at me. “Why did someone just try to kidnap you?”

“I don’t think he wanted me. Not really.”

“Garrett...please.” The word takes knocks me off my guard. “I...don’t even know. I think I might, but that’s just because I eavesdropped. And I don’t know where to start,” he adds weakly.

In my mind Jason and Carina melt into the car around us. I know it’s my own curiosity that drives me, but that curiosity is strong. I can’t help it. And after all, I’ve been drawn into this—whatever this is—without my knowledge and without my permission. And, frankly, I’m a little pissed.

I breathe. “Start with Alessandro Passerini. Who is he?”

“Was,” Ask corrects. “He’s dead, remember?”

There’s a noise that sounds like a gasp from the front, but I don’t know who it comes from.

“Alessandro Passerini was the son of Alessia Passerini.”

“Who is?”

He’s quiet again, and I’m starting to feel guilty. Not yet, I think. I have more.

“Who is Alessia Passerini?”

“The...project director f-for twenty years…,” Ask says. I’m about to ask what that means, but he figures that out before I even open my mouth: “....and also my mother.”

He doesn’t talk for the remainder of that night.

Jason shakes his head and turns out the light. This isn’t how any of us envisioned this trip going. As I try to settle in the back seat, my neck resting in a tie-dye travel pillow, I finally let the guilt settle over me; gently, though, like I’m being strangled by cobwebs. Just yesterday, I told myself that Ask’s distress was good acting, just part of a melodramatic teenage personality. An evasive tactic. But that wasn’t altogether fair. I start to wonder: would I have done that to anyone else? I shift, still aching everywhere. I can hear Carina snoring in front of me again; Jason is, surprisingly, a silent sleeper. I don’t know when it happened, but they’re braced against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, fitting together like puzzle pieces.

I don’t sleep, Ask told me; the two of us are just going to sit here and wait for the others to wake, then. I can feel dark circles making homes under my eyes and the need for sleep gnawing at me, I’m probably not sleeping tonight, either. The earlier lapse in conversation may have been awkward, but this—sitting here in the dark, all but alone—has weight. It’s almost painful.

My fault, the guilt says again.