The Beast on Her Leash novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Microphone

Bram stood up slowly, and four hundred people watched him do it.

He walked to the lectern with the stiff, careful stride of a man crossing ice.

Lyle gave him the microphone with a big warm hand on his shoulder, and took a step back and to the side.

A thick folder lay open on the lectern.

On top was a page of typed words, with a pen set neatly beside it.

I knew whose speech it was.

Bram looked down at it, and the room waited.

Then he closed the folder and moved it to the corner of the stand.

"Good evening," he said.

His voice came out low and a little rough, and the speakers carried it to the back wall.

"My brother wrote me a speech. It's a good one. He's good at them."

A few people laughed uncertainly.

"I'm not going to read it."

Lyle's smile held.

"I'm going to tell you where I was on the night of October fourteenth, 2015."

The smile held a half second too long.

"I was fourteen. I was in the cab of a red wrecker with a white 9 on the door."

Lyle moved.

He was fast and graceful, and he put his arm around his brother's back.

"Buddy," he said, lightly, into the mic. "Maybe a glass of water."

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