Always asking me questions.
Where I was going and who I was with.
But at the time, it’d barely blipped on my radar.
“He was . . . odd.”
More tears streaked from her eyes, soaking her face. “He wasn’t odd, Nikki. He was a monster.”
Horror locked up my throat, and my hands went to my chest as if it might shield me from her words.
“He was a creep and a monster, Nikki. Of the worst kind. A vile, disgusting creep who stole my childhood. My innocence. He made me believe I could never trust a man until Lyle came into my life. And . . . and . . . and I just have this sick feeling . . .”
Her grief spun through the room. Hanging on the dense air. Clinging to the walls.
I swore I could feel it crawling across the floor and climbing into me.
My spirit shook, so heavy I could feel the weight of it sagging in the middle of me.
Regret and confusion and anger.
Who knew hate could be such an instant thing?
But I did.
I hated him.
Hated that he could hurt my sister.
“Sammie.” Tears flooded down my face. “I’m so sorry I didn’t know.”
She swiped at the wetness on her face and released a brittle, frustrated sound. “How could you know when I kept it a secret? It was my darkest secret, Nikki, because I couldn’t stand the thought of someone knowing. Of someone knowing what he’d done to me.”
My eyes squeezed, and I forced out the words, praying she hadn’t gone through this alone her whole life. “But Lyle knows?”
She barely nodded. “He knows what happened to me. He doesn’t know who. He thinks it was a stranger. I didn’t know how to tell him if I didn’t want my family to know. God knows what he’d do.”
Oh, that made two of us.
Fury bristled through my being, and I thought maybe I could relate to the things Ollie had said. To the way he’d wanted to hunt down whoever had hurt his sister.
The overwhelming need to make something right when you had absolutely no control over it.
But at least in this circumstance, we could still do something.
Sammie suddenly gasped for a breath. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to burden you with this when you were dealing with so much, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer. Not with him out there. Not with my baby girl in her room . . . not with other little girls out there. Not after all these years of hiding it. I . . . I—”
A shadow of grief clouded her face. “What if he’s hurt someone else? What if I never told anyone, and he did it to someone else? I’m responsible for that.”
Dropping onto my knees on the carpeted floor, I inched her direction, took her by both of the wrists, and lifted her arms in between us.
They’d been hanging so helplessly at her sides.
I needed her to know she wasn’t weak. That she had strength.
“No. You can’t blame yourself. You were just a little girl.”
Conflict pinched her face. “It was still happening when I was fifteen.” Her voice clogged with a ragged cry.
“Fifteen, Nikki,” she begged, as if it changed things, and she was all of a sudden somehow responsible.
But that’s what predators did. They made their victims believe they were somehow to blame. That they should be the ones ashamed, manipulating and filling them with fear.
A panicked disgust clotted in my chest, and I was sure my heart was no longer working. “It’s not your fault. It’s his. But . . .”
My voice shifted to a quiet plea, praying my sister would find comfort in me. That she would understand she no longer had to be afraid. “We have to report this to the police, Sammie. We can’t let him get away with this.”
“I know.” The words cracked, and a cry ripped from her throat.
It was born of desperation. Of grief and sorrow and shame.
She began to ramble, “I just . . . you have to give me a little time. I’ve been trying so hard. So hard to get to the point where I could tell you, and I trust you more than anyone.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled for a breath. “They’re gonna ask for details, Nikki. I know they are, and I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
I squeezed her hand. “How long was it going on?”
She dropped her attention to the floor, shuttering, her chest heaving with her breaths. “He always . . . made me uncomfortable. The way he used to look at me. The way he’d brush against me. I was twelve the first time he took me to one of those abandoned buildings by the river.”
Shock blew me back, and the air sucked into my vacant lungs.
A cloying type of awareness shook through me.
“What did you say?”
She blinked. “The buildings. Down on Row.”
Tremors rocked through me.
Full body.
Jolting.
“Oh, God. Oh God.”
I couldn’t breathe.
No.
No.
It couldn’t be. I was making assumptions, anxiety and fear getting out ahead of me.
Dizziness swooped down, making my mind tilt and the room cant.
I tried to get to my feet, but the weakness that had taken hold of my knees nearly dropped me back to the ground. My hand darted out to the couch as I forced myself to stand.
Nausea churned, twisting my stomach in painful knots. I tried to swallow around the bile I could feel crawling up my throat.
“Oh God,” I whispered again, looking around as if I were searching for an answer when there wasn’t one there.
Sammie pushed to standing, her hand on my arm, worry moving all over her face. “What if it was him?”
My eyes shifted to her.
I knew they poured with sorrow. With speculation.
The same as hers.
It hit me like a freight train.
What she’d been implying all along.
Why she felt compelled to tell me now.
I stumbled back, hand scrubbing over my face in hopes that it might break up the confusion. “I need to go. I need to think.”
I stumbled back into the kitchen and grappled for my purse, which I’d left on the little breakfast nook table last night.
I jerked open the door.
A tease of daylight danced on the horizon, cool morning air splashing my face.
It didn’t matter.
I felt sticky.
Clammy.
I stumbled down the two steps, unable to move any farther when I lurched forward and puked in the shrubs.
My spirit revolting.
Purging the instinct that had kicked up at the back of my mind.
Sammie was behind me. “Nikki, what are you going to do?”
“I just . . . I need to think. Figure this out.”
I didn’t even want to contemplate it. Didn’t want it to be true.
“He was a monster.”
Sammie’s confession whipped through my spirit.
“Where are you going?” she begged, clinging to the railing on the steps.
“I don’t know. I just . . . I need to go.”
I had to make sense of this before I made accusations I couldn’t take back. Even though my gut screamed they were real.
“Please, don’t do something stupid.”
I ran to her and pulled her into my arms, squeezing her so tight I could feel her heart battering against mine. “I’m so sorry, my sweet sister.”
Then I turned and rushed away.
34
Ollie
Footsteps pounded on the damp earth.
Desperate.
Frantic.
Trees rose on all sides, sentries and witnesses, and branches tore into my skin as I ran through the oppressive night.
Searching.
My eyes blurred in the darkness. Muddied by despair. I stumbled through the forest. Gnarled roots twisted, like spindly fingers that had clawed out of hell to hold me back.
Tears burned my cheeks as the wind b
lasted my face.
Cruel like the laughter I swore I heard before it was swallowed by a gust of air.
I screamed in the middle of it. “Sydney!”
Voice hoarse, throat bleeding with the pain. “Sydney!”
Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.
I dropped to my knees.
Sydney.
I roared, trying to break free of the sheets that were twisted around me like ropes and chains. Sweat slicked my skin, and my heart was busting right through the confines of my ribs.
Panted cries clawed at my raw throat.
Panic and desperation.
I kicked off the sheets and sat up on the edge of my bed.
I blinked through the dusky shadows that leapt through my room, trying to ignore what had pulled me from sleep.
Banging.
A constant pound, pound, pound at my front door.
The room spun like a bitch, that bottle I’d drained sitting in my stomach like a lethal dose of poison.
Or maybe it was just the poison of what I’d done.
Sydney.
Sydney.
I could still hear my screams echoing back from the forest. I’d hunted for days, which had turned to weeks . . . months . . . years.
Listening and waiting, and for all these years, the tiniest spark of hope had remained.
The hope that she was out there somewhere, safe and happy but trying to get home.
A fool’s dream. A dream that had kept me going.
Moving.
Breathing.
Pain attacked me from all sides.
Knives stabbing deep, driving all the way through.
Piercing. Cutting.
My guts spilled out onto the floor.
I’d wanted to be a better man. Fuck, I’d wanted to be a better man.
“All I want is for you to love me.”
Nikki’s voice danced through the void of my room.
Taunting. Coaxing. Prodding.
Little Tease.
Little Tease.
I wanted to cling to it. Hold it. Cherish it.
But it hurt too bad.
More pounding echoed from the front door.
“Go away,” I shouted, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell they could hear me from my room.
Whoever it was just kept on. Becoming more and more demanding. Harder and harsher with each boom.
Someone wanted to get their ass kicked.
Scrubbing a palm down my face, I glanced at the clock.
Four in the afternoon.
Fuck.
I should have gotten up.
Gone to the station.
Demanded answers.
Hunted more.
Hopelessness wrapped around me.
Chained to bricks and stones that dragged me down into the blackest abyss.
What the fuck good would it do?
I had nothing left to find.
Nothing left to give.
I hadn’t checked in downstairs. Had no clue if the shifts were manned. If the bar was running smoothly or if everything had gone to hell.
Thing was, that bar could burn to the ground with me in it, and I wouldn’t even blink.
Because I was already in hell.
A brutal, unrelenting hell.
Another round of pounding.
I did my best to keep the rush of fury in check, but my blood was already boiling.
At myself. At the world. At whoever had done this to my sister.
Pain clutched my stomach when I let the idea slink into my mind. Swore that it physically shredded my insides.
Still couldn’t process it. Didn’t want to.
Couldn’t stop it.
It was the only thing I could see.
Blood.
Dirt.
Bones.
A cry raked from my lungs.
More pounding.
I staggered out that way, careening across the floor, ready to tear into any poor fucker who was waiting on the other side.
I peered through the peephole.
Rex.
Motherfucker.
That was a whole new layer I couldn’t process.
Couldn’t stomach.
A fresh round of hatred went skating through my veins. Boiling over.
“Not sure you want me to let you in here.”
“Need to talk to you,” rumbled through the wood.
“Not exactly up for chit chat.”
Because what the fuck was he going to say?
“Not going anywhere until you open this door, so you might as well open up.”
“Then you’re going to be there all night.”
“God damn it, Ollie, this isn’t a fucking game. Open the door. I need to talk to you.”
Rage had me twisting the lock and flinging the door open.
“You got something to say?”
Bitterness bled out.
Hurt right behind it.
Rex stood in my doorway.
Dark bags under his eyes. Hair a complete mess.
Like he hadn’t slept for a second last night.
Ridden with guilt.
Good.
Warily, he glanced up at me. “Deserve for you to hate me, Ollie. I should have told you a long time ago.”
Sharp laughter bounced from the walls. “You should have told me? Told me what? That you were fucking my little sister? That the two of you had something going on that night? That you knew where she went?”
I moved to get in his face, words flying, razors on my tongue. “Is that what you’ve got to tell me?”
He shoved me.
It was enough to knock me back a foot.
He jabbed his finger against my chest. “You want to blame me, Ollie? Blame me. Fine. If you think I haven’t been blaming myself for all these years, you’re a fool.”
My teeth ground as I got back in his face. “Yeah, you made me a fool. Keeping this from me? Are you kiddin’ me, Rex? You were supposed to be my best friend. I trusted you with her, and you were the one I should have been protecting her from.”
Rex stalked deeper into my loft, hands ripping at his hair, growls coming from him like he was the one who was about to lose all control instead of me.
He whirled back around. “I fucking loved her, okay?”
He gasped, like saying it was met with gutting relief.
“I loved her, and you made it plenty clear that I couldn’t. That any guy who even looked at your sister was getting his ass kicked. Tell me how the fuck we could contend with that?”
His face contorted in anger.
In rage and grief.
“So, we snuck around. Kept it a secret so we wouldn’t hurt you. Because your sister didn’t want you to be angry with her. Didn’t want you to be angry with me. She was keeping the peace the exact same way as you did with Nikki.”
I jarred back.
He scoffed. “Don’t act like we didn’t know. All this time, and you think we didn’t know? That she didn’t know?”
Shock beat through my blood. “Sydney knew?”
Rex huffed a breath. “Of course, she knew. She was pissed you wouldn’t tell her. That you thought you had to keep her out. That you wouldn’t let her in.”
More regret.
Could I shoulder any more of it? I didn’t fucking know how. I could feel it piling on me.
Rubble and rocks and debris.
A fucking bomb.
It’d destroyed any semblance of peace.
Old grief curled through Rex’s hard expression, something sour seeping through.
“And I was too big of a pussy to stand up and say something. I should have said something. Instead I—” His words broke off, and Rex gave a harsh shake of his head.
Heartbreak.
I knew exactly what it looked like.
It clutched and clung and tortured.
Slamming him from all sides.
“If I’d have just stood up that day and made a claim, Ollie.”
He choked, trying to bite
back a sob.
Like it’d come from out of nowhere.
Balled up grief that had simmered for too many years.
His eyes filled with moisture, and my heart was beating out of my fucking chest.
Regret. Confusion. Sympathy.
For a beat, I covered my face with both my hands.
What the fuck was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to feel? Because right then, I was feeling too damned much.
Rex stood up straight. Stretching his arms out wide. “It was my fault. Be pissed off at me, man. Hate me. Blame me. Because it was my fault. She was there that night because that was where I was gonna be. She was pissed because of me. She left because of me.”
With every line of confession, he hit his fist against his chest.
Harder each time.
“Because I kissed that chick because that was what I thought you expected me to do. You were right that night. I was a pussy. I was a pussy because I didn’t have the guts to tell my best friend I loved his sister.” He slammed his fist against his heart again.
“My fault.” It was a rasped cry that boomed against my walls.
I blinked at him, trying to see through the daze. To process and add and make sense of what he was saying.
His mouth twisted in agony. “We loved each other. We did. Just like you loved Nikki, and you’re a fucking fool if you think that it was any different.”
He sucked in a choppy breath. “We’re all responsible. All of us . . . a bunch of stupid, ignorant kids who didn’t know any better. We made mistakes. Mistakes we didn’t have any clue would lead to what they did.”
My back hit the wall, and I was searching for air, lungs squeezed tight.
Regret shook Rex’s head. “The next morning when we found out she hadn’t made it home . . .” He stumbled like he couldn’t handle the memory, his voice hoarse and raw when he finally spoke. “I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up and die, Ollie.”
Hurt blistered through me.
His.
Mine.
My body rocked.
I didn’t know how to stand under it.
“Rex,” I attempted. Needing to shut him down. Because I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.
Torment rushed from him on a torrent.
The guy beaten up and mangled.
In a way I’d never seen him before.
Like maybe there was a chance he felt an ounce of what I was feeling right then.
He held his hand out like he was the one stopping me. “Just fucking listen, man. I’ve kept this in for so long. For so long, and I can’t bear it anymore.”
Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel Page 31