Cousin Brothers

I'd made the mistake of asking his name, and he had stared at me for a full thirty seconds before saying, "I like the way blood looks on white fabric."

It had been the single most unsettling introduction of my life.

He had never been cruel, never malicious—but he had always been off.

An anomaly in the Romero bloodline.

He didn't have our golden eyes. He didn't have our instinct for political manoeuvring.

He didn't have our need for power or our thirst for control.

Instead, he had a sharp, calculating mind that worked in strange, unpredictable ways. 

He had always been brutally honest, never understanding the point of lies or deception, and had a habit of saying things that made everyone around him uncomfortable. 

It wasn't that he didn't feel emotions. He simply expressed them differently. 

He had been the odd one. The strange child no one knew what to do with.