We turn into the next hallway, which is almost completely dark, and the hulk reaches around us to flip a light switch. The bulb goes on, then instantly pops and explodes. I yelp as thin slivers of glass rain down on us. The hulk mutters a curse, jumping out of the way. Lucien steps backward, and a shadow falls across his face. It’s the light coming in from the corridor we just left. I look at him in that half-light, and something dark unfurls inside me. An old thing. A fear. A rage. And I find I can’t look away.

He grins that wicked, demonic grin I remember from when I was little, and he'd pretend to want to play with me only to hurt me. It’s the same face he wore then.

He twists my arm, and that darkness expands into every cell of my body, and all at once, it’s like that heavy, once-impenetrable lid is opened. My knees buckle under the weight of images, thoughts, feelings and screams as it all comes back to me.

Lucien dragging me into that house. Down those stairs.

Lucien locking my wrists in those chains.

Lucien standing back when the two men walk into that room, lighting a cigarette, another thing my father hated that he did, and dropping bills on the floor. Fifteen-hundred dollars.

And finally, Lucien walking away, leaving me with those men, that grinning demon’s face the last thing I saw before I saw their faces. Felt their hands.

Sweat drenches me. I look at him, my half brother, a man who hates me, who has always hated me so much more than I ever even knew. And I remember.

“It was you,” I say in a whisper.

The hulk shoves us forward, and we move, my eyes locked on the side of Lucien’s face as he half drags me. Does he hear me? Does he understand that I know? I know what he did.

“In,” the hulk says, pushing the heavy metal door open.

“It was you,” I say, louder this time. I dig my heels in when he tries to pull me through the door. “You.” He looks at me, eyes flat again, dead again, and I’m not sure if he doesn’t understand or if this is him understanding. This is him feeling no remorse. Nothing at all. “You gave me to them. You did that.”

Lucien cocks his head to the side, lifting one corner of his mouth.

My rage burns hot, and I reach for the pistol in the holster at the hulk’s hip. He’s faster than me, though, and stronger and almost breaks my hand. He shoves me away so hard I hit the wall, my head bouncing off it, and I go down. Stars dance before my eyes, and I’m stunned.

I know what happened to me now. I understand the nightmares.

And I know it was him.