Bonded

I never meant to hurt anyone.
That’s how these things always start, isn’t it? With an apology? As if the words could rewind everything—like the reels in those dictation machines they used to have. I can still hear the click of the buttons. They were always smoother than you’d expect. The psychiatrist’s machine was like that. He let me play with it when I was very small. I think that was the first thing he ever gave me, a toy made of voices.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
They were always a strange pair, the siblings. You could tell from the moment you saw them that they were bound together by something... unhealthy. Not affection, not really. It was something older than that. Some families carry their own private languages — glances, pauses, the way a hand hovers just above a shoulder but never quite touches. They had that. They had it so deep it had settled in their bones.
I only knew the brother at first. Gabriel. He was polite to me. Gentle, even. The sort of boy who'd hold open a door or carry your bags without being asked. I thought it was just good manners, but then I noticed how he watched people — how he'd glance at their throats as if measuring the pressure it would take to silence them. The kindness was calculated. A script. The only people he ever seemed to show real tenderness to were me and his psychiatrist: Dr. Klein.
I should have been flattered, I suppose.
His cruelty was a quiet thing. A low thrum beneath every word. He never shouted. He didn’t need to. He could peel someone apart with a handful of murmured sentences, leaving them blinking and unsure why they felt smaller. I saw him make a waiter cry once — just asked if he'd forgotten how to do his job in the gentlest voice imaginable. It was only afterward that I realized he’d stolen the man’s wallet right out of his apron pocket while apologizing for the trouble.
Miriam was different. If Gabriel’s violence was precise, hers was the absence of violence altogether. She drifted through rooms like a ghost, eyes always downcast, shoulders drawn in like she was trying to fold herself smaller. If Gabriel was built for cutting, Miriam was built for swallowing. I think she'd spent her whole life apologizing without ever knowing what for.
At the dinner, Dr. Klein sat at the head of the table like he owned the place. Gabriel and Miriam flanked him on either side. I sat opposite, feeling like a guest at my own funeral. The brother served him first. Wine, bread, the best cuts of meat. I caught him glancing at the psychiatrist between each gesture, waiting for some subtle nod or flick of the wrist that never came.
Later, when I found out what he’d done to him — what he was still doing — I wondered if that was what the nods had been for. Little confirmations that he was still under his thumb.
I only started to suspect when I was alone with Dr. Klein in the study. He leaned back in his chair, swirling the last of his wine, and asked me what Gabriel had said about him. His voice was soft. Measured. The kind of voice you find yourself answering without quite meaning to.
I asked him why Gabriel respected him so much.
He smiled — wide, wet, and wrong.
He didn’t touch me, not really. It was the way he stood close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the way his eyes lingered too long. He had this way of talking — slow, lilting, like he was unspooling something from inside you without needing to ask permission. I felt him in my head, rifling through drawers I didn’t even know were there.
I know I killed him. I remember the crack of his skull against the hearth, the heat of the blood spreading under my palms. It was easier than I thought it would be. I wonder if that’s why Gabriel never tried.
I thought the siblings would hate me for it. I thought they'd scream or call the police. But Miriam... she just started clearing the plates.
She sent everyone home. Everyone but her brother.
Gabriel didn’t speak. He sat on the floor by the body, knees tucked to his chest, rocking like a child. His face was blank — utterly empty, like the man whose strings had been cut. I stood over him, I was furious. I don't know where it came from — that rage. I'd never felt anything like it before. I remember screaming at him, asking why he could hate everyone in the world except the one man who deserved it. Why I wasn’t allowed to be cruel too.
He didn't answer. He just blinked at me, slow and hollow, waiting.
Miriam was the one who answered. She crouched beside him, murmuring things under her breath — soft little nothings I could barely make out. When I listened closer, I realized she was repeating the psychiatrist’s own phrases. All those little scripts they feed you in therapy: It’s not your fault. You can’t control the way you feel. Breathe in, count to four.
I couldn't stand it.
They’ve spent their whole lives swallowing whatever the doctors spoon-fed them. Pills, lies, rules. I told them what they were. Puppets. Meat wrapped around other people’s words. Miriam looked like I'd slapped her. Then she apologized. And she kept apologizing, over and over, until the brother joined in. He clung to her like a child, murmuring sorry into her shoulder. Neither of them looked at the body cooling beside the fireplace.
They kept asking me what they should do, what I wanted, like they couldn't decide for themselves anymore.
That’s when I realized.
They weren’t afraid of me. They were waiting.
He had hollowed them out so completely that they were ready to take any voice that filled the silence.
And now it’s mine.