“A Breedmate shelter,” Razor confirmed.
She nodded. “Laurel and I lived at St. Anne’s until we were twelve years old. It wasn’t always a happy place to be, but we had each other. Until the day came when we were told Laurel was being adopted.”
“Just Laurel?”
Willow had asked that same confused question when St. Anne’s strict director had brought both girls into her office to share the so-called good news. “A Darkhaven couple from Montreal had arranged to adopt her. They’d come around St. Anne’s a few times to window shop. Apparently, they were impressed with Laurel’s academic performance and her flawless behavior record.”
“What about you?” Razor pressed.
Willow let out a humorless laugh. “My grades were never a problem, but I was always getting on the wrong side of the director, Sister Agathe. Laurel was the good girl, the rule follower. Where she was reserved and quiet, I was stubborn and wild. Sister Agathe used to say the only way Laurel and I were even remotely similar was when we were looking in a mirror.”
“Didn’t it matter to this couple that the child they wanted to adopt had an identical twin she’d be leaving behind?” Razor sounded defensive, even angry. “They couldn’t make room for both of you?”
“The Townsends only wanted one child, according to Sister Agathe. Maybe if I’d been more like Laurel, they might’ve reconsidered, but . . . it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t be like her in anything even if I tried. Besides, she was just a better person than me.”
Razor made a dubious sound. “I don’t believe that.”
“You never knew my sister. You don’t know me either.”
“I know enough. You’re a good person, Willow.”
She shook her head in the darkness. “If I was, I would’ve given Laurel my blessing and told her to live a happy life with the Townsends, to not worry about me. Instead, I begged her not to go. I convinced her that we needed to run away together before it was too late.”
“Did she agree?”
“Yes, eventually, she did. I knew she didn’t want us to be pulled apart any more than I did. But I also knew she wanted a home, a real home. She wanted parents that would love her, and to have a normal life—as normal as we could expect after the way we’d lost our own parents. I wanted that too, but not if it didn’t include her. So, I hatched a plan for us to escape St. Anne’s and leave Quebec City.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person. You were a twelve-year-old child who didn’t want to lose your sister.”
“I was selfish, Razor. I knew Laurel desperately wanted what the Townsends could give her, but I was willing to sabotage that just so I wouldn’t be left alone.”
“What did you plan to do?”
“I had saved enough money for two train tickets back to New Brunswick. From there, I planned for us to sneak over the border into Maine and never look back.”
“That wouldn’t have been an easy thing for two young girls. Deadly dangerous, in fact.”
“I know that now. Even then, Laurel understood the risks better than I wanted to. The night of our big escape, she lost her nerve. We had sneaked out of a seldom used maintenance entrance and were two seconds away from freedom when Laurel stopped. She told me she couldn’t do it—she was too afraid to run. She begged me to come back inside with her before we got caught.”
“What did you do?”
“I couldn’t go back in there, Razor. I couldn’t sit inside that place and watch her leave the next day knowing she would be gone forever. My plans were in motion. My mind was made up.”
“But hers wasn’t.”
“No,” Willow said softly. “Or maybe it was. I think Laurel believed that if she didn’t run away with me, I’d stay at St. Anne’s. But maybe she just wanted a life with the Townsends. Maybe she wanted that more than she wanted to stay with me, and she didn’t know how to tell me.”
“So, you kept going by yourself that night?”
“Yeah. Because while she must have believed I’d never run without her, I knew it would be a lot easier for her to go and live her own life if I was already gone. We hugged each other for the longest time. I didn’t want to let her go, but I did. Then I ran. I took the train as planned, and I just . . . left. For years I kept running farther and farther away from St. Anne’s, until I finally ended up in Colorado.”
Willow hadn’t expected to tell him the long sob story of her past, or to admit her shame over her attempt to hold her twin back from having the happiness she deserved. Yet to her surprise it felt good to tell someone what she’d been through.
Maybe it was the darkness of their surroundings that gave her courage. Or maybe it was simply the fact that she was so emotionally and physically exhausted she had no more strength to hold anything else inside.
“Laurel and I reconnected a few years later. I tried to give her space to live her life with the Townsends. I didn’t want her to know that I struggled, or that I missed her every moment of every day we were apart. I couldn’t have been happier when she showed up in Colorado. Even though I was worried for whatever had made her run, the brief time we had as sisters again was like a dream for me. Now, it’s all turned into a nightmare.”
She lifted her hand to swipe at a tear that spilled onto her cheek, but Razor was there first. His fingertips brushed feather-light against her face, a caress that lingered for only a fraction of a second.
