“I was,” I croak, and I instinctively put my hand on my own chest just to be sure I can still feel my heart beating.
Just like Alessio’s voice before, I’m vaguely aware of Xaviaro coming back into the room and both of them asking what the hell is going on, but we’re in a bubble right now and they can wait.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Benny? I fucking buried you.” He pats my shoulders and chest, still checking for signs that this isn’t real. “I’m dreaming, right? This is one of those fucking dreams where I’m going to wake up gasping and sobbing.”
He dreams about me too? I still don’t know who the fuck he is, but it’s comforting knowing I’m not the only one who can’t stop the dreams.
“Is that my name? Benny?” It feels strange on my tongue; familiar but unfamiliar. It sounds more like someone I used to know than who I used to be.
He gives me a strange, confused look, and Alessio’s voice finally manages to break through.
“He doesn’t remember anything.”
I nod. “I did die, seven years ago, and I haven’t been able to remember much of anything from before. I didn’t know my name or who I was.”
“This is your brother?” Xaviaro asks.
I tear my eyes away from Sparrow’s face to look at the hitman standing right behind him, his stoic expression hardened into suspicion. Brothers? We’re brothers? That feels right. More right than the name, even. I tug my gloves off and shove them into my pocket, then bring my hands up to his face like he did to me, running my fingers over the planes of his face to make sure he’s real.
A tattoo on the side of his neck draws my interest, but I can’t quite see it. He must notice the direction of my gaze because he tilts his head so I can get a better look. It’s a small sparrow. Another little jolt goes through me, and a tiny fragment of knowledge shakes loose in my brain.
“Sparrows were my favorite bird?” It comes out sounding like a question, and I guess it is. I’m not sure of much of anything right now.
A warm smile that’s a few degrees closer to what I remember stretches across his lips, and he nods.
“Are you absolutely sure this is him?” Xaviaro asks, his voice filled with the same suspicion that’s written all over his face.
Sparrow nods again, and then the smile slips.
“Who the hell did we bury?”
“Another nameless victim of the Reapers?” Alessio guesses, and my stomach clenches with sympathy for the dozens of young men just like me who were left to die all alone in that same ditch.
A tear rolls down Sparrow’s cheek, and he quickly wipes it away.
“Yeah, that makes sense. His face was so swollen and distorted, but he had the same hair color and body type. And you didn’t have any tattoos the last time I saw you,” he says with a tight laugh that borders on a sob, reaching out to run his fingertips over the tattoo peeking out slightly from the neckline of my T-shirt. I brace myself for the crawling feeling under my skin from his touch, but it doesn’t come. My body knows he’s safe, even if my brain is still trying to catch up to exactly what’s happening. “Maybe I just needed it to be you so I could stop lying awake at night wondering when I would get that call to identify your body.”
My throat tightens and guilt churns in my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Shut the fuck up.” Sparrow lets out a laugh that turns into a sob again as he pulls me back into a crushing hug. “You’re really here? This isn’t a dream or a hallucination or a fucking mental break, right?”
“I’m really here.” I squeeze him back.
He stops hugging me and grabs my face again, looking into my eyes in a searching kind of way.
“And you’ve kicked all that shit? I’m not going to have to go right back to worrying that you’re going to overdose?”
“I’m sober,” I assure him. “I’ve picked up a different dangerous habit though. I’m hoping you can help me with it once and for all.”
“The Reapers?” he says knowingly.
I nod. “The Reapers.”
ALESSIO
I still can’t quite wrap my head around what’s happened here. It took an hour for things to settle down enough that we couldget down to business, but it’s obvious we’re all still reeling from it. Spettro is Benny, the brother Sparrow thought he lost. His death caused Sparrow to fake his own, to come to Wildcliff on a quest for revenge against the Sleepless Reapers, and ultimately to meet Xaviaro. I can’t imagine how he must be feeling, or how my Spettro is feeling for that matter.