That's when things came off the rails.
“What are we doing up here?” shouted Marcus, his voice filling the house. “What the hell are you doing here? Where the fuck have you been?”
“Watch your tone with me,” snapped back Kyara, still trying to control the situation.
“The hell I will,” yelled Marcus. “You disappear for nine months with no word, just gone, and you tell me to watch my tone. Bullshit, Kyara. Bullshit. You owe us an explanation.”
“I don't owe you anything,” responded Kyara, hands on her hips.
Trip's large hand reached out, gently tapping his brother. Even as Marcus shook off the hand, Trip spoke.
“We worried you were dead, Kyara. We didn't know where you'd gone.”
That stopped her short, all her righteous indignation fleeing at the thought of them, silently worrying over her.
“I left a note,” she said, her voice far less certain now.
“I have an opportunity to go start a new life. Please let me be. Love, Kyara,” quoted Trip from memory.
“And you couldn't follow those directions?” responded Kyara, trying to regain her momentum.
“Directions? That's barely a note,” started Marcus again, his patience clearly gone. “You just up and disappeared, no explanation, no warning, and you just want us to sit by and take it? What is that supposed to ...”
Again, Trip interrupted.
“Perhaps,” Trip said, his deep, powerful voice overriding his brother's harsher tones, “now that we're here, you might be willing to explain why you left.”
Silence followed his statement. The air grew heavy, both brothers waiting for her to talk.
Kyara broke first.
“I had to. I had to get away.”
Her brothers continued to look at her.
“Because of Dad?” Marcus asked eventually.
“Yes. No. Kind of,” said Kyara, sinking down into a chair across from her brothers. “I ...”
Kyara took a deep breat
h, and started again.
“You know how I spent so long talking to the police after it happened?”
Both brothers nodded.
“I ... I thought I knew whose car it was.”
Both brothers froze.
“And you didn't tell us?” asked Marcus, sounding equally hurt and outraged.
“I tried to tell the cops, but they said it wasn't enough evidence. Not enough to get a warrant. I couldn't be sure, and there were no plates, just something I thought I saw. And then they came to me, the gang, and told me I better keep my mouth shut, or, or they'd kill you, too.”
Marcus tried to speak again, but Kyara kept going.
“And I knew you, what you'd do it you thought they were threatening me. I knew you'd just get yourself killed, and then I'd be responsible for getting you killed, too. So I made a plan and left. I came all the way up here and I didn't tell you where I was so they wouldn't think that you knew, either. To protect you.”