KIN by Kealan Patrick Burke

hope being swallowed by the cold in his father's eyes.
    "Where is she?" Papa said, and slowly withdrew his handmade blade from the lining of his preacher's coat.
    Wellman was trembling, and as they watched, he slowly dropped to his haunches and set on the ground what Luke now realized was not a book at all but a picture. He straightened and tossed the bottle into the darkness.
    "Bring that here," Papa said, nodding pointedly at the picture. Luke moved forward but Wellman shot an arm out, his palm mere inches from the boy's chest. Luke looked from the splayed fingers to the doctor's eyes, and what he saw there was not fear, or anger, but pleading. It was a look he knew well.
    "Don't," Wellman said quietly. "Leave it alone."
    From inside the house came the sound of something heavy falling then smashing against the floor, but Wellman's eyes stayed fixed on Luke.
    "I said bring it here ," Papa commanded, and Luke bent to retrieve the picture. He had just managed to get his fingers around the edge of the frame, the gravel biting into his knuckles, and was starting to rise, when the old man's bony knee loomed large in his vision. He lurched to the side just in time to avoid having his nose broken but caught the blow in the cheek before he rolled and got to his feet, face throbbing.
    The old man was breathing heavily, shoulders forward, head low, as if he was waiting for retaliation. Behind his spectacles, his eyes burned with cold fire.
    Papa laughed.
    Luke, one hand massaging his cheek, didn't find anything humorous in what had just occurred. Their prey fought, punched, kicked, scratched, and bit all the time. It was nothing new. But the prey was always young, and strong, sometimes stronger than all of the brothers combined, so when they fought back it became a welcome challenge, an accepted part of the process. Sometimes they laughed about it later. But this was a sad old man who looked like he could be snapped like a twig. The twins wouldn't have trouble subduing him, and yet he'd taken advantage of Luke's distracted mind, just as the girl had used her sexuality against poor dimwitted Matt. But Papa had not laughed at that. No, because it had cost Matt his life, and he had loved Matt. He'd laughed at the sight of the doctor driving his knee into Luke's face because he didn't care. Because he was going to take Luke's life himself . Anything that happened between now and the moment he took his blade to his son's throat meant nothing in the larger scheme of things. If the girl were found, they'd take care of her. If she eluded them, they'd pack up and move. But either way, Luke wasn't leaving Elkwood. At least, not with all his parts intact.
    "You're not takin' Abby," Wellman said in a low growl. "You don't have no right."
    Luke drew his glare away from Papa to reappraise the old man. Old, weak , he thought, and crazy as a goddamn loon . Why else would he be talking about a dumb old picture as if it was his wife they'd tried to steal from him? Far as Luke knew, Wellman's wife was cold in the grave, but it didn't seem as if the old doctor had been let in on the secret. Either that or he'd somehow managed to forget it. Crazy's a shithouse rat , he thought. No wonder Papa found it funny . But justified or not, Luke felt the resentment colonizing him, and he took a step back from the doctor. To Papa it might have seemed as if the boy was doing nothing more than turning the show over to him, but for Luke it was an act of defiance, denying his father the opportunity to laugh at another thwarted effort to retrieve the doctor's beloved picture. The humiliation ended here. Over the years Luke had said goodbye to whatever dignity he had come into the world swaddled in, but if nothing else he still had a sense of pride, the latter instilled in him by the same man responsible for the erosion of the former.
    Off to the right of the house was Wellman's old, green Volkswagen Beetle. Luke made for it, watched by the doctor, who made no move to stop