Enemy Blood {Garrett Graham x twin sister} Part 18
Summary: Twelve years ago, Y/N Graham ran away and left her twin brother behind. Now she's back, wearing their dead mother's name on her jersey—and Garrett is about to learn that some wounds don't heal just because you stop talking about them.
Warnings: angst, twin sibling drama, hockey rivalry, family trauma, estranged siblings, garrett graham deserves a headache, reader chooses violence, eventual sibling reconciliation
A/N: I promise that the competition between Dean and Y/N is coming next chapter :) <3
Garrett woke up because he couldn't feel his hand.
At first, he assumed he'd slept on it.
Then he became aware of warmth pressed against his side, someone breathing softly against his shoulder and fingers still loosely tangled through his.
Y/N had crossed the invisible line they'd created down the middle of the bed sometime during the night.
Her head rested close to his shoulder, hair spread across his pillow. One knee had apparently ventured into his territory too, and the blankets had been dragged almost entirely towards her side.
Garrett stared at the ceiling.
Some things really didn't change.
Carefully, he tried moving his hand.
Y/N immediately tightened her grip.
Then, without opening her eyes, she mumbled, "Stop moving."
Garrett's mouth twitched.
"You've cut off the circulation."
She cracked one eye open.
"You survived Dad. I think you'll survive holding my hand."
The humour disappeared before either of them could stop it.
Y/N's eyes opened properly.
For a second, he wondered if she'd retreat.
Instead she loosened her fingers slightly.
Garrett flexed his fingers.
Pins and needles immediately shot through his palm.
"Actually, yeah. You should be sorry."
She rolled onto her back.
The room was pale with morning light. Neither of them had closed the curtains properly the night before, and a thin strip of sunlight cut across the floor.
Garrett checked the clock.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept that late.
Probably because he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually slept.
Y/N rubbed both hands over her face.
"Did we really listen to Mom last night?"
"I hoped I dreamt the tomato part."
Garrett turned towards her.
"Oh, no. That's staying forever."
"I avoided tomatoes for two years."
"You still don't eat them."
"Because they're disgusting."
"Because you think they're full of bugs."
Garrett grabbed a pillow.
Y/N immediately raised both hands.
She made an offended noise and snatched the second pillow.
"What happened to your wrist?"
"What happened to your concern?"
Garrett blocked it with his forearm.
She refused to release it.
For several seconds, they wrestled over it like children until Garrett yanked hard enough to pull her halfway across the bed.
Then she started laughing.
Garrett couldn't help it.
It wasn't the careful laughter they'd been giving each other over the last few days. The kind that always carried the awareness of everything waiting beneath it.
Y/N tried to pull the pillow back.
Garrett held it out of reach.
"I have an injured wrist!"
"Then stop starting fights."
"You started it in 2007."
She kicked him beneath the blankets.
A knock hit the bedroom door.
Dean's voice came through.
"Are you two murdering each other?"
She covered her mouth to stop herself laughing.
Y/N called, "He's losing a fight."
Garrett's head snapped towards her.
"Wilkinson, I knew I liked you."
Garrett threw the pillow at the door.
Dean laughed from the hallway.
"Breakfast in twenty! Also, Garrett, your sister snores."
"You said that when we were kids."
"I didn't snore last night."
"You sounded like a lawnmower."
"Ask Dean. Apparently he heard you through the wall."
Garrett watched her gather clothes from her bag.
He hadn't meant to say it quite so confidently.
Y/N studied him for a second.
The kitchen smelled like bacon.
Y/N came downstairs wearing leggings and an Eastwood sweatshirt this time, Garrett following several minutes later because she had banned him from the bathroom until she finished getting ready.
Dean looked up from the table.
"What? You're literally sharing a room."
"I didn't say anything weird."
"You were thinking it weird."
"I'm always thinking weird."
Garrett watched her stare inside.
"What are you looking for?"
"You've been staring at them for twenty seconds."
"Because I'm deciding which one belongs to Dean."
From the table, Dean became serious.
Y/N reached for a black mug.
Y/N walked towards the coffee pot.
"I was told not to use Dean's mug."
"There is literally a D on it."
She turned the mug around.
A huge white letter D covered one side.
Logan choked on his coffee.
Garrett leaned against the counter, openly laughing.
"You're encouraging her."
"I have twelve years to make up for."
"She's been here one night and you're already unbearable together."
Tucker slid a plate onto the table.
"They're twins. What did you expect?"
Y/N poured coffee into Dean's mug.
Then she handed it to him.
"I don't actually want this."
"Because Garrett told me you get weird about your mug."
Garrett suddenly found the refrigerator fascinating.
"You have eight other mugs."
"I understand completely."
Garrett took the chair beside her.
Tucker put food in front of him before Garrett could ask.
"Why does everyone keep ordering me around?"
"Because otherwise you forget basic human functions," Logan said.
"He did that as a kid too."
"You used to come home from practice, play video games for five hours and then wonder why you had a headache."
"You did it until I left."
Garrett picked up his fork.
Y/N looked oddly pleased.
He realised she'd remembered something ordinary again.
Garrett decided he could live with being insulted if that was what came with it.
His phone buzzed on the table.
Every person in the kitchen went still.
The reaction was instant.
Garrett looked at the screen.
Some of the tension disappeared.
Y/N continued eating, but Garrett noticed how closely she listened.
Garrett looked across at Dean.
Garrett pointed at both of them.
"Not your ridiculous competition. Coach wants everyone there."
Y/N's smile vanished slightly.
"He specifically said you too."
Her brows pulled together.
"Apparently the university has been contacted by the media."
Dean's expression sobered.
"Someone leaked that Phil was arrested at the old Briar development centre."
Y/N leaned back in her chair.
Something closed behind her eyes.
Garrett rose automatically.
"We'll find out before anyone says anything publicly."
"You already have a public life."
"That doesn't mean they get our family history."
"It means they're going to try."
Garrett couldn't argue with that.
Phil Graham had spent years attached to hockey. His name had appeared in sports sections long before Garrett ever put on a Briar jersey.
A former hockey star arrested after an alleged hostage situation involving his two children?
People would want the story.
Y/N walked towards the counter and poured out the rest of her untouched coffee.
Garrett watched it disappear down the sink.
"You don't have to come."
"I can find out what's happening and come back."
"This isn't just your scandal."
He rested his hands on the back of his chair.
She looked towards the window.
"They'll put his hockey photographs beside ours. They'll call Mom's death a family tragedy. They'll find out I ran away and turn it into some mysterious missing-daughter story."
Garrett's stomach twisted because she was probably right.
"They'll ask why I changed my name."
"You don't have to answer."
People hated empty spaces.
Phil had spent years filling them with lies.
Y/N had survived by refusing to explain herself.
Now strangers might decide they deserved an explanation.
Garrett crossed the kitchen slowly.
He stopped several feet from her.
"What do you want me to do?"
The question seemed to surprise her.
Not here's what we're doing.
Y/N thought for a moment.
Garrett nodded immediately.
"If someone asks why I'm Wilkinson, don't tell them."
"If reporters come near me—"
"What? I didn't say I'd commit a crime."
"We can be useful without speaking for you."
"Getting between you and cameras isn't the same as deciding what you say."
Y/N looked around the kitchen.
She seemed uncomfortable with the sudden wall of support.
Too much kindness had always made her suspicious.
"Plus Dean's head is enormous. It'll block most cameras."
"My proportions are excellent."
Garrett grabbed his keys.
"Apparently that's our thing."
Coach Jensen's office wasn't built for six hockey players, one Eastwood defender and Hannah.
Hannah had already been there when they arrived, sitting in one of the chairs opposite Coach's desk. Allie stood behind her, arms folded, while several members of Briar's athletics administration crowded near the windows.
Y/N stopped in the doorway.
Garrett almost bumped into her.
Y/N gave a cautious wave.
Allie stared between Y/N and Garrett.
Garrett knew exactly what was coming.
"You actually do have the same face."
"We don't," both twins said simultaneously.
"Your friends are irritating."
"They're growing on you."
"I know. Hannah told me about you."
Y/N's expression immediately became guarded.
"There is no good stuff."
"She told me you scared the shit out of someone who deserved it."
Then Coach cleared his throat.
Y/N stood beside the wall.
He didn't tell her to sit.
A woman from the university communications office introduced herself, but Garrett barely caught the name.
His attention remained on his sister.
"We received requests for comment beginning early this morning," the woman explained. "At this stage, police have confirmed only that Phil Graham was arrested during an ongoing criminal investigation."
"What was leaked?" Garrett asked.
"The location. Your involvement. Y/N's identity."
"That you were previously Y/N Graham."
The room became very still.
Y/N's face revealed nothing.
Garrett felt anger rise anyway.
"I'm repeating the language used in the inquiries."
He had promised not to speak for her.
He turned slightly towards her.
The communications officer noticed.
"What exactly are they asking?"
The woman opened her tablet.
"Whether you are Garrett's missing twin sister. Whether you have been living under an assumed identity—"
Y/N's voice was sharp enough to cut across the office.
"Wilkinson is my legal name."
The woman continued more carefully.
"They're also asking about Claire Graham's death."
Garrett's hands tightened.
"Whether police are reopening the investigation."
She didn't seem to regret answering.
The communications officer nodded.
"That information hasn't been released publicly."
"What about Dad's arrest?" Garrett asked.
"The police will handle criminal questions. The university's concern is protecting students and staff from unwanted media contact."
"I have a question anyway."
Coach rubbed his forehead.
"Can we physically remove reporters from campus?"
Y/N covered a smile with her hand.
The communications officer looked towards Garrett.
"Because of your visibility as team captain, we expect reporters may approach you first."
"That's our recommendation."
The woman answered carefully.
"Y/N has no obligation to speak to anyone."
Garrett immediately wished he'd kept quiet.
She looked almost amused.
The communications officer continued.
"If you want, Eastwood's media office can issue a short statement confirming your name and asking for privacy."
The answer was immediate.
"I've spent twelve years deciding who gets to know where I came from. I'm not introducing myself to strangers because someone leaked my life."
Coach Jensen nodded once.
The communications officer made a note.
Y/N's shoulders relaxed by a fraction.
One of the administrators answered, listened briefly and stepped outside.
Garrett noticed Coach exchange a look with him before the door closed.
"There's already someone outside the arena."
Y/N went completely still.
She looked at him immediately.
"I was going to ask which entrance."
"You're doing the thing."
"Planning how to get me out without asking me."
"How do you want to leave?"
The question seemed almost irritating to her.
Like she had prepared herself to fight and suddenly had nowhere to put it.
She looked towards the window.
"If we sneak out the back, they'll camp outside until they get a photograph."
"There's already photographs of you," Allie said.
That was what they wanted.
Two Graham children back together after twelve years.
"If we walk out separately, they get to write whatever story they want."
"So we walk out together."
Something tightened in his chest.
"You said you wanted to."
"I expected an argument."
Dean leaned towards Logan.
"I preferred him emotionally repressed."
Garrett flipped them both off.
There were four reporters by the time they reached the main entrance.
A man holding a microphone who immediately straightened when Garrett became visible through the glass.
Garrett stopped with her.
Everyone else remained several feet behind.
The doors suddenly looked very far away.
Garrett could feel her breathing change.
Y/N's right hand curled against the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
"What do you need?" he asked quietly.
There was noise beyond the glass.
People calling his name already.
He didn't promise to protect her.
Didn't promise nothing would happen.
He simply stood where she asked him to.
Y/N pushed open the door.
Noise rushed towards them.
"Garrett, can you confirm—"
Her body flinched when someone shouted her name.
Garrett remained beside her.
"Is it true you're Garrett Graham's missing sister?"
Garrett felt rage hit so quickly he nearly tasted it.
Like she had been an object misplaced for twelve years.
Y/N's hand suddenly found his.
The cameras clicked faster.
"Garrett, when did you find out your sister was alive?"
"Y/N, why did you change your surname?"
"Did you run away because of your father?"
Garrett felt it immediately.
The reporter took a step closer.
"Y/N, police records indicate you entered foster care after disappearing from the Graham family home. Did you accuse your father of involvement in your mother's death?"
Garrett stepped forward before he could stop himself.
Her face had gone pale, but her eyes were hard.
The reporter tried again.
He had expected her to keep walking.
Instead, Y/N looked directly at the camera.
"My name is Y/N Wilkinson."
The cameras continued clicking.
Y/N's hand remained wrapped around his.
The reporter opened his mouth.
She didn't let him speak.
"And I don't owe anyone the story of what happened to me after that."
Silence spread strangely through the small crowd.
"The police are investigating my mother's death and my father's actions. Anything else belongs to me and my family."
Garrett's throat tightened.
"So if you're going to print my name, print the right one."
For about three seconds, everyone was too surprised to follow.
Then questions erupted behind them.
Garrett barely heard them.
He was looking at his sister.
Y/N let go of his hand only when she needed to open the passenger door.
Garrett stopped beside her.
"I was going to say badass."
"You thought I was going to get emotional."
Before he closed the door, she looked towards the reporters.
Her bravado faded slightly.
"Did I just make everything worse?"
Garrett leaned against the open door.
"It'll be everywhere by tonight."
"You said what you wanted them to know. Not what Dad wanted them to believe."
Y/N's expression softened.
Garrett tapped the edge of the door.
"I think Mom would've liked that."
Her eyes immediately filled.
"I was feeling powerful."
"You can cry powerfully."
Garrett smiled and closed the door.
By four that afternoon, Y/N's statement was everywhere.
Dean discovered it first.
He walked into the living room holding his phone above his head.
Y/N looked up from where she sat beside Hannah.
Dean turned the screen towards her.
Her own face stared back.
A photograph taken outside the arena showed her holding Garrett's hand while looking directly at the reporter.
The headline beneath it read:
GARRETT GRAHAM'S MISSING TWIN BREAKS SILENCE: "I DIDN'T DISAPPEAR. I LEFT."
Logan took out his own phone.
"Several outlets are using Wilkinson now."
Garrett came in carrying two drinks.
Dean held the phone towards him.
"Your sister broke the internet."
Garrett handed Y/N one of the drinks.
She accepted it automatically.
"Because you're related to me."
Hannah took Dean's phone.
"Most of the comments are supportive."
"Never read comments," Garrett agreed.
Dean reached for the phone.
"You're emotionally defective," Tucker said from the kitchen.
Y/N looked down at her drink.
Hannah put Dean's phone face down.
"You don't have to be okay with people knowing."
"It's weird when strangers talk about the worst thing that ever happened to you like it's entertainment."
Hannah understood better than anyone in the room.
"I hate that they know I was in foster care."
Y/N rubbed her thumb over the coffee lid.
"Because people hear foster kid and start deciding things."
"That you're damaged. Difficult. Troubled."
"You thought I abandoned you."
"I'm not trying to start a fight."
Garrett rested his forearms against his knees.
"I decided who you were without knowing anything that happened to you."
"And I did the same to you."
Dean appeared ready to say something.
Logan grabbed the back of his shirt.
Y/N smiled into her coffee.
Her phone vibrated on the table.
Garrett saw her expression.
Everyone watched without pretending otherwise.
Her expression changed gradually as she listened.
Then something Garrett couldn't identify.
Garrett waited approximately half a second.
Y/N stared at the dark screen.
"They formally charged him."
Garrett's chest tightened.
The room became completely silent.
Tucker turned off the tap in the kitchen.
"Meyers's statement was enough to get an emergency review of the evidence. Mom's recording, Nancy's testimony, the medical records..."
Garrett's hand found hers.
Y/N looked down at their fingers.
"They found the original autopsy photographs."
"I thought they'd already had them."
"Apparently Dad knew someone at the hospital. Some of the images weren't included in the file that went to investigators."
Another hole in the truth deliberately created because Phil Graham knew the right people.
"Bruising around Mom's neck."
Garrett stopped breathing.
He has held my throat until I couldn't breathe.
"And injuries to her back that weren't consistent with falling down the stairs."
Hannah covered her mouth.
For years, he'd pictured the stairs.
His mother's body at the bottom.
His father telling him not to look.
Now there was something else.
Violence before the fall.
A fight Claire knew she might not survive.
Garrett felt himself disappearing into it.
Then Y/N squeezed his hand.
Two fingers rose beneath her eye.
"There's more," Y/N whispered.
Garrett didn't know if he could take more.
"Ellis said Dad entered a plea."
"There was an emergency arraignment at the hospital."
Garrett knew before she said it.
Phil would never admit what he had done.
Something almost like laughter escaped Garrett.
Their mother's voice was on tape.
Nancy had witnessed years of abuse.
Meyers claimed Phil admitted pushing Claire.
Their father had kidnapped people, stalked his children and nearly blown up a house.
And he was still insisting none of it belonged to him.
Y/N watched Garrett carefully.
The word settled heavily.
Y/N's expression changed as she said it.
Lawyers turning memories inside out.
Their mother's death becoming photographs on screens.
Y/N's childhood becoming evidence.
"You don't have to testify," Garrett said.
"What do you want to do?"
Y/N stared at him for a long time.
Then she looked towards the television, where her photograph remained frozen beneath the news headline Dean had muted.
I DIDN'T DISAPPEAR. I LEFT.
"He spent twelve years telling people what happened."
"He told police Mom fell. He told social services you chose him. He told you I didn't want you. He told me you hated me."
Her eyes returned to Garrett's.
"I think I'm done letting him be the only one who talks."
Garrett's throat tightened.
"I'm terrified to testify."
"That's not the same thing."
Garrett looked down at their joined hands.
"Don't do it because I'm doing it."
"I've got my own things to say."
No declaration that they were going to destroy Phil together.
Garrett preferred it that way.
Y/N leaned back against the sofa.
Across from them, Dean quietly took his phone and closed every article he had opened.
Logan turned off the television.
Tucker returned to the kitchen and started cooking without asking anyone whether they were hungry.
Nobody tried to make the moment bigger than it already was.
Garrett sat beside his twin sister while evening settled outside the hockey house.
Tomorrow there would be reporters.
More pieces of their childhood dragged into the light.
But tonight, Y/N's key was hanging beside the front door with everyone else's.
Her Eastwood bag was upstairs in Garrett's room.
Their mother's recording was safe inside the metal box.
And when Garrett glanced towards Y/N, she was already looking at him.
Neither needed the signal this time.
They were watching each other anyway.
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