“Nothing, Elijah. Did you call your brother? After I asked you not to?”
“I—” She can’t find the words. She doesn’t want to lie, can’t lie when his glare has her pinned like a butterfly under glass. Elijah had said Caleb had a storm inside him, but it’s not a raincloud, it’s a cloudless sky that’s too bright to look at. Fierce and hot and impossible to hide from.
“Shit.” He yanks off his jacket and slams it over a dining chair.
“I’ll pay for the long distance?—”
“It’s not that. You nearly got your brother killed. What were you thinking? Especially after what those assholes did at the motel? What do you think they would’ve done toyouif I hadn’t shown up?”
It seems stupid now, especially when Caleb’s reasons are perfectly valid. After everything that happened to her, she hadn’t stopped to think it might happen to Graham, too.
“It’s not her fault. I told her she could call him,” Elijah blurts out.
Caleb looks at Elijah, and for a single, terrifying second, Sarah can see Jacob Vass in his face. Something incandescent flares in his eyes, and he shoulders past her into the kitchen.
In one brutal motion, he tears the phone off the wall and slams it on the table.
Both Sarah and Elijah jump at the noise. Half the plug sticks out of the socket, snapped off by Caleb’s wrath. “Fuck,” Caleb says, gripping the back of a chair, and Sarah’s terrified he’s going to break that too. “Fuck.”
Sarah inches backward until she’s standing in the doorway. This is the man who can’t be trusted with knives. She sees it now.Go, the voice at the back of her head urges over the roar in her ears.Just go. It’s the same voice that whispered to her when Ben had slumped over the kitchen counter, blood seeping between his fingers as he clamped his hand to his neck.
The fury drains from Caleb’s face, and he’s Caleb again, not his father. “Oh God. I’m sorry, Sarah. It’s not because of you. I should’ve done this years ago.”
He glances at Elijah.
“He didn’t do anything!” Sarah rushes forward to stand in front of Elijah, who quivers like a rabbit.
Caleb’s shoulders go limp. “No. Of course not. Sarah, please return to your room. You shouldn’t be down here. It’s for your own safety.”
“Will you be okay?” she asks Elijah.
“He’s fine,” Caleb says.
“I was asking Elijah, not you,” she snaps.
Both brothers look surprised at her outburst. Caleb straightens and lifts his chin. The fire in his eyes has extinguished, and he regards her with a cool, assessing gaze. She’s done it now. She’s shown herself. Revealed a bit of the stress that’s been boiling inside her for so long. She’s no longernice.
“I’m fine, Sarah,” Elijah says. “Go. He’s right. You shouldn’t be down here.”
Sarah looks from Elijah to Caleb. A vein throbs at Caleb’s temple, but his fists have uncurled from the chair. Elijah crosses his arms and nods.
Go. Just go. She plods out of the kitchen and drags her feet up the stairs.
Caleb’s voice rises from the kitchen when she reaches the landing. “Why did you let her make that call?”
Holding her breath, Sarah closes her door—from the outside—and shuffles back to the top of the stairs, praying the house won’t give her away.
“So her brother could come. What’s the harm?”
“You know we can’t have people here. What if—” Caleb’s voice chokes off. “We can’t let Dad win. I’m only trying to protect you.”
“I can protect myself,” Elijah says stubbornly.
“I know you can. But?—”
The railing squeaks under Sarah’s trembling hands.
“Shush,” says Caleb. “What was that?”
