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.”
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.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 100