Follow up to "Grain of Salt," a Cal Leandros short published by Rob Thurman in her anthology "Silver and Salt."

I was lying on the couch, history book open on my lap, words swimming around on the page. I knew Niko would notice that I wasn't actually reading sooner or later, but he was busy stalking around the house, looking under the table and tv stand for who knows what. Probably just being anal about checking that we don't have mice again. I figured his OCD bought me at least another half hour of procrastinating, and maybe that was just enough time for a nap…

"Cal. Leandros."

My head shot straight up. That tone was not one worried about my homework, or about the crumbs or dust bunnies Nik had inevitably found along the baseboards of the room. That was a Cal-I-am-going-to-kill-you-slowly-so-help-me-Buddha tone, which, honestly, was not one I heard all that often. Maybe Nik just had low blood sugar or something and was seeing me snooze through my homework one time too many? I couldn't think of anything I had done that would warrant that tone so I had no choice but to play as dumb as I was. "What? I'm reading! Colonizers killed and raped and stole everything from everyone, god bless America."

One real look at Nik's face revealed how close to the edge he really was. His normally perfect composure was just barely hanging on. His jaw was set and his eyes were somehow in between being wide in fear and narrow in anger. This wasn't about homework. I sat up straight and realized what he must have found.

I'd forgotten to clean up the salt.

"You have exactly sixty seconds to tell me that this is not what I think it is." Despite how freaked out he must be, Nik still didn't raise his voice and was still giving me the benefit of the doubt, which was really overly generous considering how well he knew me.

I stood and slowly took a few steps toward him, hands raised in feigned innocence. "Look Nik, I…" I bit my lip. I still really did not want to tell him. I didn't want to make him worry about the ghost of a child molester following me home, or about me having killed that child molester after finding out what he'd done to a little girl named Melanie. No, I didn't want to go there at all. If I did, I would have to actually talk about how guilty I felt and how depressing it is that even humans can be monsters. I really should have remembered to clean up the fucking salt.

I tried to think of an excuse but no words came out of my mouth. Nothing would be believable, not so soon after I had asked him directly (if not hypothetically) how one would try to kill a ghost. He'd said ghosts and vampires and werewolves aren't real, but he'd also told me the lore about salt being a good bet. I could make something up about having had nightmares about ghosts and being scared and having put the salt there as a precaution…but Nik wasn't stupid. He wasn't saying anything either, and I realized that he was actually counting out a full sixty seconds in his head, perhaps in a zen exercise to calm down more than to give me my fair chance. I knew he could read every emotion flitting over my face, and I looked away, not wanting him to see the shame I felt about Melanie.

Sixty seconds were up. "Cal, tell me what happened." His tone was a little more measured now, but it didn't matter how he asked—I couldn't say it.

Or, not all of it anyway. I tried for a partial truth. "There was a ghost. I didn't, I didn't want to worry you Nik. I knew I could take care of it. I threw salt on him, just like you said, and the bastard burned up. That's it. No harm done."

"Look at me."

I couldn't. I didn't want him to see the guilt that was there. Not about frying Casper—that monster was hopefully burning for all eternity now—but about not being able to do it before he got to Mels. Niko, of course, can't leave well enough alone and he closed the distance between us and took my chin in his hand. "Look at me," he repeated, forcing my eyes to meet his. There was frustration there, but also that familiar deep gray well of empathy and concern that I never deserved but always received. "You can tell me what really happened." No, I couldn't. He sighed at my silence and didn't release his hold on my chin or my gaze. "Cal, you can either tell me before or after I take you over my knee for being so unbelievably reckless in not calling me for help and not telling me what you were planning before you did it. Your choice. Why was there a ghost here? How did you encounter it? How long have you known about it?"

The words I couldn't say: There was a ghost here because I let it in the front door. I encountered it almost every day since I killed the man it used to be. I've known about him ever since I saw him talk to an innocent little girl. I tried to warn her but it wasn't enough. I didn't do enough. She died. Without realizing it, I'd started fucking crying. A little. Maybe it was because Niko would not stop looking at me like that, or because he wouldn't let go of my chin and there was nowhere to let the feelings that were coming up go to hide. So they started falling down my fucking face.

Nik is not good at seeing me cry and he immediately pulled me into a hug, anger aside. He held me tightly for about thirty seconds before pulling away, hands firmly planted on my shoulders. "You have never once cried to try to get out of punishment and I know that you're not afraid of me. Even if you should be." Mm, yes, my ass was afraid of him but that fear wasn't kicking in enough for my brain to really register it. "Tell me what's wrong."

Niko would have known how to save that little girl. He would have taken care of it before anyone got hurt. If I'd just been less of an idiot and told him what I'd seen, none of this would have happened. Except then he would have worried. And he didn't need anything new to worry about. Though the look on his face now seemed pretty worried so maybe I screwed up on that front too. I shrugged, already missing the security of leaning against him.

Instead of pulling me toward him though, he lowered his voice, quiet and sincere: "Cal, whatever you did, I forgive you."

I scowled, blinking away the stupid tears, not accepting them or his words. "You don't even know what happened."

"Yet. But you are going to tell me, and I am certain that the parts you feel guilty about now were not actually your fault, and the parts you should be feeling guilty about are the ones I'm about to make sure do not happen again." His tone was ominous and left no room for negotiation.

I groaned and made a weak effort to move away from him, in vain of course since his hands on my shoulders were unrelenting. "It's going to be worse once I tell you."

Niko cocked an eyebrow ever so slightly. "Little brother, you're about to get the worst spanking of your life, regardless of what you tell me."

My stomach twinged at that. Nik spanked me very rarely but he was stubborn as all hell and once he said he was going to do something, he was definitely following through. I scrubbed at my face, already salty—and I hadn't even told him anything yet. Reluctantly, I accepted my fate of having to tell him what had happened and in getting my ass handed to me, but I whined anyway. "Cyyyrano…"

Niko shook his head. "Enough. Go sit down and start talking." He pivoted me by the shoulders to turn me around and gave me a sharp swat to propel me forward. This was not going to be a fun interaction.

I shuffled to the couch and sat down, simultaneously relieved and nervous when he took a seat next to me but didn't make any moves to pull me over his lap. Yet.

"I'm done waiting Cal. You'll feel better once you've said it out loud. Or, parts of you will anyway."

Oh, jokes. Nice, Niko. I shot him a glare but trusted him enough to at least hope he was right about talking making it easier. I took a deep breath and let the words fall out. "There was a little girl in the park. I saw a creepy-ass bastard give her a toy pony and say shit to her. Then he left. I went and talked to her and told her that he was a bad man and that she needed to tell her family about him. I thought she would listen to me." I looked away from my brother, not wanting to risk seeing disappointment in his face. "A week later, I saw on the news that they'd found her in a dumpster. I found the man again." I bit my lip and chanced a glance back at Nik. He had his composure mask on. I swallowed hard and continued. "I know you said we don't kill people Nik, but I had to. I had to. And I don't regret it. But he didn't stay dead. He started following me again and I figured out he was a ghost and when he came here I threw salt on him and he burned up and disappeared. And I don't regret that either. He deserved it."

Niko inhaled very slowly, and then exhaled very slowly. "You found the man again. He started following you again. He came here." Another deep breath. "How long was he following you?"

"Well—"

He cut me off, "Don't you dare lie to me."

I pulled at a string that was coming loose in the couch. "A couple of weeks."

"And he started following you because he noticed you or because you sought him out?"

"I…had to," I mumbled.

"And when he came to the house, you just opened the door for him, didn't you."

That wasn't an actual question because Niko somehow already intuited the answer. I nodded anyway, reluctantly. Almost immediately, an iron grip clenched my wrist, and another grabbed onto the waistband of my sweats and suddenly I was hoisted over my brother's knee. Nik went from zero to spanking in seconds. Usually all punishment like this was accompanied by his constant lecturing and my constant whining, but Niko wasn't saying anything, and I was afraid to too. Niko kept walloping me, each smack loud and resounding in our silence. Up and down…he went to town all over my frigging ass. And just below it. And again. And again. It had only been like two minutes and this was already worse than every other time Nik had ever spanked me. The other times had been for pretty stupid things, and I'd always felt pretty stupid and embarrassed about it and I'd maybe cried some and apologized and then was on my best behavior for like a week afterward. But this felt different. Even though I'd started up the waterworks before Nik had even begun, I wasn't crying now. And Nik wasn't saying anything. That worried me more than anything, though it didn't take too much logic to realize he was being forced to come to immediate terms with the existence of monsters besides the Grendels, and of the danger that probably posed to his little brother's ass…which, apparently, was a responsibility he preferred to keep all to himself. Saving it by spanking it, that was my brother's unrelenting tough love logic.

All this silence though just made one thought louder and louder in my head. I'd been ignoring it for weeks, but apparently a little brotherly attention was all I needed to focus on this particular emotional qualm. Each swat drove the guilt home and finally I squeezed my brother's leg. Hard. "Nik," I mustered through clenched teeth.

I think he was caught off guard because he stopped the steady, hard rhythm he'd had going. He didn't say anything, but I took that as a response in and of itself.

I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut. "Melanie…died," was all I could say. "She died."

There as a pause, and then, fiercely: "That was not your fault."

And, like a fucking morose charm, a lump in my throat reappeared and I let go. As I started crying for real, Niko yanked my sweatpants down to my knees and started lecturing as he resumed spanking me. I half-heard a lot of "Do not ever even think about withholding information about someone posing a threat to you again" and "You might think you're capable of anything but you are my little brother and I get to say what risks you're allowed to take," but mostly what he was saying was: Please stop fucking up because I love you. I don't think you're a monster even though you killed someone. I'm freaked out ghosts are real too.

He kept going a lot longer than I thought was really necessary, and my ass and upper thighs felt like they were being pounded by a stinging hoard of wasps and sledgehammers. The guilt was lessening though. There were some more "Any time you ever encounter a monster, human or otherwise, you will come find me before you so much as think about doing anything further" (Let me take care of you.) and "If you ever do anything like this again I will quit all of my jobs and walk you back and forth from school like a child every day and then I will never be able to buy you grape Crush again" (I can't lose you.), and finally I realized he was starting to ask questions and expected answers from me. He tugged my sweats back up and rested his hand on my poor, sore butt. "What will you do the next time you see something dangerous?"

I squirmed under his warning touch. "Tell you about it."

"Why?"

I took a while to answer that one, but Niko was patient while I wiped at the tears that wouldn't stop coming. "Because you're my brother," was the only thing I could think of to say that would satisfy him. Oh and, "I'm sorry, Nik."

"I know, little brother. You can do so much and you're capable of achieving so many things, but you get to have help along the way. It's not time for you to worry about what might worry me. That's not how this works. Okay?"

I nodded and slunk backward on the couch, twisting and pushing myself up slightly so my ass was out of the immediate danger zone and just my head was resting on Niko's lap as I lay on my side. I wasn't ready to look at him yet but also didn't want to be alone. He allowed this and moved his hand to stroke my hair. I felt tired and vulnerable but less like a monster and more like a little brother.

Niko's voice was less steady than usual when he said, "This was scary for me, Cal."

Oof. That kind of admission was not usual from my cooler-than-steel brother, and it was as hard for me to hear as I'm sure it was for him to say. "I'm sorry," I said again.

He sighed. "I need you to trust me, little brother."

"I do!" How the hell could he think otherwise? "You're the only one I trust, Cyrano."

He tugged on my ear. "The fact that you spent weeks skirting a murderer does not indicate that. No matter how worried you think I might get, you need to talk to me about what's going on. No more veiled questions about monsters." He waited a beat to let this sink in and then made a subtle subject shift. "So…ghosts are real."

I nodded into his leg. "Apparently."

"Did it look the same? Or was there a visible difference in form?"

Ah, yes, never missing an opportunity to gather information and assess a new situation. Lest my ass get a repeat beating for not being able to take notes whilst busting ghosts, I tried to remember as many details as I could. "He didn't look like a cartoon, that's for sure. He pretty much looked normal to me but I don't know if anyone else could see him. He was really good at blending in when he was alive too though."

"Hmm." He ran thoughtful fingers through my hair again as if trying to smooth away my worries. Then, "Do you want to talk about Melanie?" he asked softly. I shook my head slowly, too spent to talk it through right now. He let it go and continued on pseudo-cheerfully, "Well I'm sure there are many trips to the library in your future. You'll be able to let me know which legends hold true and if there are other ways of deterring ghosts." Yeah, that was not a suggestion on his part. "In fact, I'm really looking forward to reading your reports on the subject every day when I pick you up there after I get off work."

Sighing, I rolled back onto my stomach and buried my face in Niko's jeans. "For how long?"

"Until I feel confident that I can trust you to take a little more care with your own safety." A warm hand on my back softened his steely tone. "Got it?"

"Yeah, me and my ass have heard you loud and clear, Cyrano."

He patted me on the back, though it felt more sardonic than sympathetic. "Good. Now. While I trust that you have no doubt that I would have found out about this even if you hadn't left a mess, I do hope that today has been a lesson not only in safety and honesty, but also in the importance of cleanliness."

I groaned at that. "Yeah yeah yeah," I said dismissively, but I swung my legs to the floor and stood awkwardly. There was no way I was sitting any time soon, even for steadying leverage. "I'll clean up the salt."

"And the dishes," he added, standing as well. I nodded in acknowledgement and met his eyes for the first time since telling him what had happened. I was relieved to find an absence of anger and blame in the gray eyes that matched mine. He seemed to be looking for something in my face as well, but I was still feeling a little too embarrassed from the spanking to indulge him in any more emotional sharing right now. I half-heartedly punched his shoulder and pushed past him to heard toward the kitchen.

I felt lighter, but much more tired than I had an hour ago. I wanted to retreat and process all this for a while in the comfort of my bed, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. My ass protested in stinging alacrity as I swept the salt into the dustpan—Nik had not gone easy on me, that was for sure. Not that I'd deserved him to, but damn it hurt. He started pulling vegetables out of the grocery bags he'd brought home, apparently having stopped at the store after work. I dropped my empty Chinese boxes from earlier into the trash along with the salty ghost remains, and loaded up the dishwasher with the few things I'd slung in the sink throughout the day.

Chores finished, Nik allowed me to slink away while he chopped green things. Finally out of his sight, I tried my best to rub the stinging out of my abused posterior, but to no avail. I headed to the bathroom and carefully slid the back of my sweats and boxers down to assess the damage. "Jesus, Nik!" I exclaimed as I saw the bright magenta color he'd managed to bring out on my skin.

The apartment was small, and he was around the corner within seconds of my yelp. "What's wrong?" he asked before seeing what I was doing. A small smirk came over his face as he surveyed. "Oh, don't be dramatic. You won't have a mark on you by morning."

Scowling, I pulled my pants up, shielding my poor ass from his unsympathetic view. "Want a bet? Twenty bucks says I'm bruised for days."

Niko snorted through his long nose. "A week's double dishes duty says you're completely fine by tomorrow. Sure you want to make that bet?"

He would never bet chores on anything less than a sure thing. I took the out. "Uh…on second thought…"

He let out a low chuckle, and reached out to muss my hair, then reconsidered. "'On second thought'…" he mimicked, and pulled me into a tight hug. "You're going to be just fine," he said, his words heavy with meaning. I soaked in the comfort for a few more moments, then squirmed away like any self-respecting thirteen-year-old. He let me go with a sigh and a smile. "Want to watch a movie with dinner? You can pick."

I hesitated a beat and then ventured, "Ghostbusters?"