A harsh breath wheezed into his lungs. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to admit it. I didn’t know how to tell you I was the one to blame. I was fucking terrified and heartbroken, and all I wanted was for it to end.”
An exact echo of me.
Rex took another step back in my direction. “We fucked up. We fucked up so bad. But I see it clearly now. I get it in a way I couldn’t then. Those mistakes weren’t malicious. They weren’t cruel or intended to hurt. They were mistakes we made as we tried to figure out who we were.”
His brow twisted in emphasis. “Figure out how to live and who we were supposed to be. How we’d all fit because every single one of us knew things had changed. No longer kids but not grown, either. All of us were fumbling through.”
His entire face pinched.
Agony and grief.
Lifting an arm, he drove his finger toward the door as he chucked the words. “But there is someone out there who is cruel. Someone who is malicious. Someone out there who did this to her. Someone who hurt her. He’s the one to blame, Ollie.”
Stumbling back, he bent in two, his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath like he’d just been struck in the stomach with a bat. “He did this. Not you. Not me.”
I could barely form the words, the weight of them so heavy on my tongue. “We sent her out into the night. By herself.”
“I know.” He angled his face up to look at me. “I know. I’ve carried that for so many years, just like you have. And God, it hurts so bad, thinking about what she might have gone through. But I knew Sydney, and so did you.”
He seemed to have to force himself to straighten. “And I know you know she wouldn’t want this. You know she’d want you to live. To experience and to love and to take this life for all it’s worth.”
My hands curled into fists, my mind and my heart and my spirit at war.
For a minute, we got lost in it, both of us trying to catch up, before Rex took a step forward, his head angling as he started to speak.
“Rynna? My family? They are that life. I didn’t think I could love again after Sydney. It took me so many years of hating myself, thinking I deserved to be alone, that I didn’t get to find joy because of it. Thinking I deserved to suffer.”
Tremors raked down my spine, his words like claws sinking into my skin.
“I know better now. I know that’s not what Sydney would have wanted. I got that chance to live, Ollie. I was given it, and I’m not going to reject that gift. I won’t waste it. I love Rynna with all of me. Wholly. I was the fool who thought I didn’t have anything left to give when really I had everything. Right there. Waiting for me.”
Emotion curled and crushed.
Overwhelming.
Too much.
He shifted away, his hands on his hips, speaking the words toward the wall. “Don’t waste your life blaming yourself, Ollie. I’ve stood aside and watched you in misery for too long. I was a fucking coward who couldn’t tell you the truth because I was afraid you’d hate me. I’d convinced myself it’d only hurt you more, knowing about us. But I know better now.”
He looked back at me. “It’s time for us to both stop making those mistakes. It’s time for us to live. To embrace life the way Sydney would have wanted us to. Don’t waste that. Don’t waste what you and Nikki have. I haven’t seen you happy in so goddamned long . . . and these last weeks? That’s what you’ve been. Happy.”
Could feel my heart clattering in my chest. My voice shook. “I don’t know how to do that . . . how to live knowing she didn’t. I’ve spent my whole life searching for her. I don’t know how to accept that she’s . . . gone.”
Saying it was a blade.
Cutting deep.
Tears blurred my eyes.
Sydney was gone.
He looked back at me, his mouth wobbling with the truth. “You remember who she was.”
Fly, fly dragonfly.
We both jerked when the door leading to the outside stairs banged open. I moved to peer out into the hall.
I had to blink to clear my eyes, my spirit soaring at the sight before I realized it wasn’t Nikki.
It was Sammie.
Wringing her fingers nervously, attention darting all over the place like she thought she was doing something wrong.
“Sammie,” I said, stepping out into the hall. “What are you doing here?”
She gulped and tentatively looked up at me. “I’m worried about Nikki. She left early this morning, and I can’t get in touch with her. I was hoping she was here.”
It was instant.
The worry that blasted through me. “She’s not here. I haven’t talked to her. What do you mean, she left early?”
Sammie’s face fell. “I think she’s in trouble.”
Felt the world crashing down on me when Sammie nervously told me her suspicion of her uncle, and I grabbed my keys, rushing for the door.
Rex told me to go, promising that he would get Sammie home safely.
No one needed to be alone until we were sure.
Sammie didn’t want to speculate.
Terrified she was pointing a finger that shouldn’t be pointed.
But my guts screamed, my spirit sure.
I didn’t wait for the elevator. I took the three flights of stairs faster than I ever had, busting into the garage after I’d punched in the code.
Dread leeched through every inch of me when my sight landed on my turquoise truck.
The windshield was smashed in.
Fury rumbled like a storm.
Coming closer and closer.
My garage was a fucking fortress.
A place not a soul who wasn’t welcome should be able to get in to.
I inched forward.
Fear leeched into my flesh when I reached out and plucked the tiny folded note out from under the wiper.
Heart in my throat, I unfolded it, horror eating me up when I found what was written inside.
She can’t hide. She’s always been mine.
35
Nikki
It was funny how different it felt being out there alone. When there were no voices to cloud the calm beauty of the scene spread out like a painting in front of me.
The gurgle of the streams and the rush of the water as it gathered strength, rolling over the side of the jagged cliffs and tumbling to the lake far, far below.
I needed it.
Peace.
For hours, I’d driven in search of an answer, and I’d ended up here, seeking a place to process what had become a muddled, chaotic disaster inside me.
One made of sorrow and hurt and an onslaught of overwhelmingly devastating questions.
I lifted my face to the blazing sun that pounded from above, falling through the Alabama sky that was the purest blue.
The sweeping stretch of beauty laid out below was almost a mirror, the blue, expansive lake and the twist of the river that wound around the mountain in the distance.
My spirit throbbed and pulsed, and the prayer silently spilled out into the vast expanse of land below.
Sydney, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
I hate it.
I wish I could go back to that day and change it.
Take it back.
Let you know that we loved you. So much. It was the fear of it that had held our tongues. We’d never, ever wanted to sever those bonds.
Yet, those bonds had been severed in the worst, worst way.
And my sister . . .
Hugging my knees to my chest, I rocked where I sat on a dry patch on a smooth stone that had been carved out by the flow of the waters.
Sadness cut through the center of me. I had no idea how to piece it together.
If I was attempting to draw lines that didn’t connect or if I was just praying that they didn’t.
A gentle breeze rippled through, swishing through the tops of the trees. I hugged my knees tighter.
I swore, I could feel her brushing across
me, a whisper in my ear.
Fly, fly, dragonfly.
A wistful smile tugged at one side of my mouth, and I let my eyes drop closed and relished in her memory.
In her hope and her beauty and the way she had looked at life.
I was almost too lost in the moment to hear the movement behind me. It took me a second before I froze just as the hairs at the nape of my neck prickled in awareness, standing on end.
“They’ll be coming for me soon.”
The voice swallowed me from behind.
Low and menacing.
Disgust swam with the fear. Lighting my nerves and jumping into my veins.
Todd. He was there.
And I suddenly got the sensation of something I should have known all along.
The way he’d watched.
The comments he’d made.
Always right there, gaze directed at me in ways it shouldn’t have been.
Tremors rolled, and I tried to hold them back when I slowly pushed to standing and cautiously swiveled around to face him.
He stood at the edge of the woods that grew up the side of the mountain behind him.
The same mountain where I’d played as a child. Ran and laughed and believed.
“Uncle Todd.” I attempted to send him a surprised, welcoming smile as if this were all one big coincidence when all I wanted to do was throw up again.
This was the man who’d hurt my sister.
Inflicted a kind of pain I couldn’t comprehend.
My mind flipped back through everything that had happened over the last few months.
My apartment getting broken into.
My grandma’s box stolen.
The notes on my windshield.
Caleb shouting at Ollie that he had no clue what he had been talking about.
It wasn’t until that second I realized he hadn’t been lying.
It wasn’t Caleb who had done all those things.
Todd cracked a smile that sent a cold chill skating over me. “Well . . . if it isn’t Nikki Lou.”
I tried to smile again. All I managed was a grimace with the way he was looking at me. “What are you doing all the way out here?” I asked, going for coy.
As if I were clueless.
A naïve little girl.
That’s what he’d always wanted, right?
“Looking for you.”
My knees knocked.
Oh, God.
I had to stay strong.
I frowned at him in an innocuous way. “Well, you could have just called. I would have been happy to come out to Grandma’s for a visit.”
“Think we both know it’s too late for that.”
My mouth went dry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was a lie.
I knew it would be so much better to play dumb with a desperate man.
He laughed. Biting and hard. “Come now, Nikki. You think I don’t recognize it in your eyes? You think I don’t see the way you’re looking at me?”
So badly, I wanted to refute it. To stand my ground. To continue to pretend. But the denial of his claim won out. “You don’t know anything about me.”
An ominous chuckle rode on the dense, dense air. “I know everything about you, Nikki.”
My blood froze.
My heart stuttered.
I tried to remain steady. To draw out time. Studying the best way to beat him.
Fight or flight.
I still wasn’t sure.
All I knew was I wouldn’t let him win.
His nose curled in some kind of unknown disgust. “I should have known better than to trust someone to do what they’re told. Should have known that punk kid would get greedy and not follow directions.”
Confusion had me shaking my head. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
It was true.
He was talking in circles.
Unbalanced.
I guessed I’d just missed out on the fact he was deranged.
He made a low sound. Disbelief and outrage. “He was supposed to dump that old car. Should have done it myself, but I figured the farther away I kept myself from it, the better. Hell, should have done it all those years ago, but I figured I’d better get gone.”
A disorder shifted through the breeze. Branches lashing as if they felt the tumult.
He took a step forward, coming out of the shade of the trees and into the light.
Depraved darkness standing in the rays.
Brown hair greasy and unkempt, the same way as it’d always been. Clothes a little ratty. Those few extra pounds prominent around his middle. None of those things mattered.
It was the evil in his eyes that made him ugly.
“Never imagined that tweeker would run straight to that asshole who was always watching you like he thought you belonged to him.”
Uncertainty moved through me, a niggle at the back of my mind that was quickly adding up.
He was talking about the Bel Air.
Ollie had bought the Bel Air.
“You know Caleb?” I asked.
Keep him talking.
Keep him talking.
“Of course, I know who Caleb is considering you do. Wasn’t sure if I should run out and protect you from him that night a couple months back when I followed you to his and that girl’s apartment. Had to stay back when the cops showed up a few minutes later.”
Dread spiraled.
He’d been following me all this time.
Since the first time Brenna had called me for help.
“About a week later, I found him downtown, all itchy and antsy, and I knew it wouldn’t take all that much to convince him to haul it away.” Todd smiled as if his thought process was genius.
“He was supposed to dump it in the river or the lake. Should have known, even with all the rust, he’d be seeing dollar signs. Didn’t want to get close to it, touch it, dirty it up more.”
“Dirty?” Fear blazed. So hot I could feel the bead of sweat slide down my spine.
I took a step back, trying to keep as much distance between us as possible. “What do you mean by that?”
His voice was nonchalant. “I was watching. Figured it wasn’t such a bad thing when they were gonna take it into that garage and fix her up. That might even be better than dumping it in the lake. But the second I saw that pig show up and the police take it away, I knew I had to speed things up. That you and I didn’t have that much more time.”
He was moving closer, rounding to the side. For every step of his, I took one in the opposite direction.
“And my apartment?” I asked, hating that I had to, but knowing my only chance of getting away from him was understanding his depravity.
“Sorry about that, but I had to get that box. Put some stuff in there for safe keeping ’fore I left. When I heard my ma was starting to sell stuff off, that she was failing, I knew it was time I came back. Been planning it for a while, needing to get back to you. It was a sign when your mama told me on the phone she’d been clearing out the attic. That was my collection, you know?”
Nausea surged and my heart hurt.
God only knew what was in that box.
“Didn’t help matters that you had to go and run those classes for women in that basement. Bunch of hens cackling and gossiping and saying things they have no business saying. Your head all filled up with that nonsense.”
“How do you know that?” I shouldn’t have said anything, shouldn’t have bitten, but the scraping words pulled free of my throat.
His chuckle could have been construed as affectionate—soft and warm—if it hadn’t skated through me like ice. “Told you, I know everything about you. Been watching you for your whole life. Knew the second I saw you that you were mine. ’Course, I had to stop watching you for a bit when things got messy, and I had to go away.”
Messy.
Sydney.
Sydney.
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
Bile prowle
d my throat, stomach twisting in sickness.
Vomit threatened at my mouth, and I struggled to keep it down. To stay strong.
But I was so close to falling to my knees and weeping.
For my sister.
For my best friend.
For me.
We’d begun to circle. Our footsteps crunched beneath us, his forward, mine back.
I was trying to figure out the best direction to run, the quickest route to help, when the wicked words strummed from his tongue.
“Didn’t mean to kill her.”
A stifled gasp jerked into my lungs.
The air stifling.
Suffocating.
“Why?” It was a plea. “Why would you hurt her? Hurt my sister?”
Why if he’d always been after me?
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Some things you just have to test out.”
I choked.
“I had to protect us, Nikki. Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve done for you. So we can be together.”
My knees wobbled.
“They weren’t supposed to find her . . . and that damned car . . . should have burned it.” He said it all as if I should feel sorry for him.
As if the world was against him when he was the monster prowling in the midst.
“Now everyone’s gonna know. Means we don’t have much time.
36
Sydney
Sixteen Years Old
Tears stung her eyes, and her heart physically hurt. She hugged herself around her middle as she trudged along the side of the curving country road.
She should have called her mama like Ollie had suggested, but she needed to think. Clear her head before she went and said something she would regret.
She tightened her arms around her as a hot wind blew through, her skin sticky from the exertion and her face hot from the tears.
She was so over this. It was as if all four of them were playing a stupid game and none of them were gonna win.
She almost rolled her eyes.
As if she didn’t know about Ollie and Nikki.
She’d known for years that there was something extra special about the two of them. That they were more. Their spirits seemed tangled in a way that’d been intended before time existed.
Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel Page 32