BROTHER

Chapter 2

He's acting odd, that was Thea's sole justification for following him. He was acting odd. At first, she'd simply chalked his strange behavior up to a period of adjustment for him. She'd reasoned that it must be so strange to be surrounded by people one knows and yet they seem like acquaintances at best. Very awkward indeed. It made sense then he would be so quiet in small groups, where the best way to blend in is to fade out. It was all very understandable...until he started acting odd on top of it.

It was about a month after he was returned to them that he started going out late and coming home in the early hours of the morning. Her initial assumption was that he had simply returned to the ways of the rich club kid. She couldn't really fault him for that because that was her scene too. However, after a few nights out herself, Thea'd failed to come across him at any of the popular hangouts. The final nail in the partier theory came when they happened to cross paths after a night out. His hands had borne none of the telltale stamps from any club; the backs of her own left hand was marked with three unique stamps. He also didn't smell of any type of liquor, which was a clubbing trademark for him back in the day. She had distinct, rather unpleasant, memories of him stumbling into the mansion in the wee hours and her going to investigate the noise only to have him pat her head and tell her to go back to bed.

Bumping into him in the kitchen that night might have dashed the party-boy theory, but also provided notable clues. Granted she didn't notice them until she thought back on it after a few hours sleep, four aspirin and a hot shower, but still. His shirt was messed up and not in an I've-been-out-doing-something kind of way. No, the way the garment was wrinkled told her that he'd had s*x, or at the very least, got extremely close to s*x. Then there was the smell of overpowering synthetic lilies. Not the mix of scents that might transfer while dancing or doing something group related; no, he'd spent his evening up close and personal with a single woman.

But who? That was the question and Thea wanted to know. After a while, it became necessary to know. This mysterious woman called him away at all hours and he just went without a thought. She kept her eyes open and her ears alert when he was around hoping for any clue at all. But Miguel was smart and he didn't slip up, which was utterly frustrating for her and thus why she'd been forced to such devious actions like following him.

Thea slunk down in the seat of the Towne Car she'd borrowed from their family garage and watched as he pulled open the door to the warehouse and went inside. Once it shut behind him, she sat up straight in the car and looked around. Well, this is weird. Who summons a booty-call in the warehouse district? Could it actually be drugs? Thea looked up at the building's front as she climbed out of the car, unsurprised to find Queen Consolidated painted there. It didn't clear anything up, but it made an odd sort of sense.

She froze as her hand came to rest upon the handle. What am I doing? Following Miguel like a creeper? What the hell am I doing? She shook her head and dropped her hand. It is ridiculous, really. He deserves his privacy. Yet, she couldn't convince her feet to move away. He deserves his privacy, true, but Thea needed to know. Who is more deserving of his attention then me?She blinked.Then us, she corrected with a slight flinch, reaching for the handle again with renewed determination. She had to know!

The door didn't squeak as she pulled on it. A quick look around through the slight opening between the heavy door and its jam confirmed that Miguel was nowhere in the room. She stepped cautiously inside, aware that if Miguel caught her, she'd have no reasonable explanation for her being there. It's not like she could say, hey, yeah I followed you, because that was just creepy.

Her eyes swept over the large yet empty room surprised to find that there was clearly work being done to it. He wasn't kidding, Thea thought, as she walked carefully around the wood planks and tools littering the floor, this is gonna be a club? She was skeptical that her brother was actually going to finish the project. She walked up to one of the numerous tables in the middle of the room, thumbing the blueprints as she idly flipped through them. The labels at the bottom of the pages told her what the diagrams were for: main floor, bar, second floor walkway, office, storage room. She didn't know how to read the blueprints exactly, but she could make out enough to understand the basics.

With no obvious signs of Miguel on the main floor, Thea climbed the stairs to the partial second floor walkway. She kept her back to the wall as she moved because there was no railing and falling off would be...unpleasant. She reached out and took ahold of the door handle to the only room off of the walkway. It was locked. Damn. She sighed as she leaned back against the wall next to the door. After a few silent seconds, Thea ran her hand through her hair and smiled slowly. Perfect day to pin my hair back, she thought triumphantly as she pulled the hairpin out of her lengthy bangs. She climbed to her feet again and quickly stuck the metal pins into the lock and expertly turned them. Yay for criminal expertise! The lock clicked and she pushed the door open, feeling a muted rush of victory. Slowly, Thea peered in: just an empty room. She sighed unhappily as she stepped inside the darkness, taking out her iPhone and using the flashlight function on it to light up the area. The narrow white beam of light swept over the small room landing upon the foldable table. Another blueprint? Thea moved over to it, setting her iPhone down on the textured top so that the light was pointed up, as she leaned over the page. The label read 'Basement.' Why is this one not with the others? She looked more closely at the white lines, trying to puzzle out what was so different about this plan, but she couldn't see the reason behind its separation.

With an exasperated sigh, Thea rested her weight on her wrists behind her back as her head tipped towards the ceiling. What's going on? Why is Miguel here now? Where is he? Her mind was racing with questions that she couldn't find answers for. She rubbed a hand over her tired eyes before she brought her gaze back down. Blindly she reached for her cellphone and, when she shined the light upon the wall, her green eyes could pick out details of the clippings on the corkboard.

There were ten pictures of weird pieces of…are they furniture of some kind? She didn't know and so her attention turned to the post-it notes, words written in Miguel's handwriting, attached to several of the images. The yellow note which read "Dining Table" was stuck to a picture of what appeared to be just that at first glance. As she leaned closer to look at the image, she could see something dangling off the edges of the wooden surface. She plucked the clipping off the corkboard and raised it to her eyes; shock twisted her face as she realized what it was she was looking at: handcuffs. Why? Why are there handcuffs attached to that table? Her hand shook as her green eyes swept over the image again, taking note of a secondary set of cuffs on the side of the table closest to the camera. She stared at the picture in her hand for so long that her eyes began to burn. What am I looking at? That was the question running on an endless loop in her mind as she pinned the image and its corresponding post-it! note back to the corkboard. Quickly, she scanned the other depictions of unusual things. The giant metal X which she was pretty sure was not some sort of post-modern art. Its green note read, 'Display.' As her eyes moved to the next picture, all she could equate to it was a balance beam, but that wasn't quite right. There are far too many levels for that. The blue tag underneath simply said, 'Reminder.' What does he want to remember? The only big picture on the board that she recognized, as her flashlight moved over it, was a large bed; it had no attached note. It didn't really need one. From that, her attention turned to the smaller, less obvious pictures. They were lined up in a straight row above the others. Thanks to her childhood equestrian dreams, Thea could name some of the whips, but not all. There was also a paddle and, perhaps most out of place, a hairbrush.

"What the hell's that for?" She whispered to herself just as there was a loud clanking bang from the floor below. Startled, Thea dropped her phone for fear of being caught in what was supposed to be a locked room. She cringed as she bent down to pick it up, aware the screen was broken without having to look. On quiet feet, the seventeen-year-old moved towards the door, opening it slowly to peer out, curious to see what had made that noise.

Almost as soon as she cracked the door away from its doorframe, voices began to drift up from the main floor below. "-hope you find what you're looking for, Sir." It's a voice that she didn't recognize, but she could tell it was a female. So, it was a girl Ollie was meeting. That thought pulled her lips down into a frown.

"You, as well," She knew for certain that was her brother's voice and, despite her better judgement, Thea found herself creeping out of the room and onto the walkway. It was risky; either of them could look up and see her, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to see, wanted to know, who this woman was that had so entranced her brother. His back was to her and Thea was glad for that, but as a result, the woman was facing her. She was pretty, though that was expected, all blue-eyed and blonde. Thea couldn't help but roll her eyes at the sight of the woman. Could she be any more of a fake Barbie clone?

As she watched, making sure to keep quiet and low, Miguel's hand reached out and took the woman's shoulder gently. "I'm sure you'll find the right Master soon." Thea's ears barely picked up the sound of Miguel's voice, but she froze as everything came together. Her brother, her Ollie, was building a s*x dungeon under his club! Or, given the extensive detail she'd seen in the blueprints for the basement, Miguel was building a club to hide his s*x dungeon!

Her mind was blank as she watched the couple below walk out of the club. She blinked, staring idly ahead. That's why he's always taking off at the drop of a hat? What was she supposed to do with that information? She sat back, her spine resting against the wall, as she waited for him to return. She could try running for the door now, escaping the club while Miguel was distracted by the Barbie wannabe, but it was too risky.

It didn't take long; Miguel was soon entering the soon-to-be club once more and for a few heartbeats, Thea worried that his blue eyes would turn up and spot her, but he did not. He simply walked back into the basement. She waited a full minute, holding tight to her shattered phone, before she bolted down the staircase and out the door, not bothering to care if it slammed behind her. Thea ran to her car quickly, slipped inside and started it. She drove as calmly as possible for two and half blocks before she pulled her car over, her heart beating frantically in her chest as she did up her seat belt. Now what? Thea wondered as she once again started driving. Now I know…but what do I do with it?

Homework is not a suitable distraction. Thea decided that after she found herself staring at the same calculus problem for forty minutes. It wasn't that she couldn't focus either; she had stashed pills in her first aid kit to help with that if the need ever arose. No, her problem was that she couldn't stop focusing on what she'd pieced together earlier in the night. She tried calling or Skyping with her friends. She'd tried snacking on junk food while watching one of her guilty pleasure movies. She'd even tried shower singing which, as any girl can attest, is a very good mind-distracting tactic. Nothing had worked! Homework had been her last resort and now...

Thea pushed the book away in disgust. What is homework good for if it isn't a suitable time suck? Irritated, the youngest Queen snatched her laptop from its precarious perch on the edge of her desk and moved to take a seat on her bed. When all else fails, try social media. After all, even the typical drama of prep school is a better thing to think about then...

She shook her head and opened f******k in a new tab. Why is this even bothering me? She clicked on her notifications in the menu bar. It's not like I didn't know Miguel was being intimate with women. She'd been aware of that since she was eight. Sneaking into his room unannounced because she was spooked by the lightning storm and finding another girl on her half of his bed had ruined any illusions she might have had about that. She scrolled down her notification list, irritated to find that almost every one of them was simply people updating their profile pictures. So Miguel is a Dominant. So what? He's allowed to need more then vanilla...and it's not like I was unaware of the lifestyle in general. She'd been in a relationship back when she was fifteen with a guy who'd wanted her to be his "doll" in the bedroom. She had honestly tried to have an open mind, but as soon as she saw the life-sized doll clothes she had run from that relationship; it just wasn't right for her. So it was not as if she'd just discovered the kinky side of s*x.

Why then can't I stop thinking about it? Why can't I shake this off? It's the convergence, she realized. The two things alone, the Lifestyle and Miguel needing s*x, she could handle. It was the fact that he was in the Lifestyle that plagued her mind. With a resigned sigh and a quick tap at her touchpad, Thea pulled up an incognito window. It's always best to start at the beginning… Fingers that had long since mastered the keyboard typed in her first search, 'what is b**m?'

Hours later, with eyes stinging from the effects of the bright screen and brain buzzing with knowledge, Thea closed the incognito window on her laptop, watching as the numerous tabs disappeared. She didn't bothered to even glance at the regular window as she closed it too. Doing research, she thought as she placed the computer on the floor, is exhausting. Must cross researcher off my future career list in the morning. She burrowed into her light comforter as she laid her head down upon the fluffy pillow. Sleep claimed her quickly after that.

Thea grinned as she leaned over the banister a little to look down upon the party happening below. The people were dancing in unison in true ball fashion and Thea couldn't wait! She gathered up her pale blue, sequined strapless dress and started down the staircase to the first floor. As soon as she stopped at the bottom, a man in a traditional tuxedo wearing an all-white masquerade mask came to her and put his arm through hers. "You look beautiful, Speedy." Ollie.

"Thank you." She said softly as he led her into the repurposed living room. The siblings blended quickly into the lines of nameless, faceless, dancing people, moving with ease. As the first song came to an end, Miguel put a hand on her lower back and led her away. "Where are we going?" She asked as the dancing picked up behind them like they were never there in the first place.

There was a smile in his voice as he said, "It's time for you to know." It was then she noticed the heavy metal door in front of them that she knew didn't belong there. Where had it come from?

"Know what?"

He lifted his mask away, abandoning it on the floor without a thought, and he pulled open the door, "What it's like to be mine."

Thea blinked her eyes open as the first light of the new day began to stream into her bedroom. "Well, that can't be good."