Exile

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Wren could feel the damage as she cupped her brother’s face in her hands. There was a softness, a yielding in the cheekbone beneath her fingers. His nose was split and had poured blood over his mouth and chin. He was blinking slowly. She did not think he could even see her. One of his eyes was bloodshot; the other almost obscured by the swollen and torn lid. She was kneeling on his spilled teeth. They dug into her skin. She barely noticed.

He was not dead, but he had been beaten a good half of the way there. Her beloved younger brother. He had always thought he should try to look after her, even though she was the older – sixteen to his fourteen – and the stronger. Sometimes she let him think she needed his help because it made him feel good. Their parents knew what she was doing, and knew just how little of his protection she really needed. They said nothing.

Now Wren held him, broken, in her arms and understood that nothing was ever going to be quite the same. Today was the day she was finally going to spread her wings and fly, because how could she not? They had left her brother bleeding, barely alive, in a ditch at the side of a field. She had to answer that.

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