Instead, she slows her pace, bending down every few minutes to scratch behind its ears or murmur something softly to it when she thinks no one else is around to hear her.
The first time I saw her do it, I had been sitting across the street, watching from a distance the way I always do.
She was crouched down in the middle of the walkway, her blonde hair falling forward over her shoulder as she cupped the dog’s face in both hands and pressed her forehead gently against its nose.
The sound of her voice had been so soft I could barely hear the words. But I swear the tenderness settled somewhere deep in my chest. Livingston is kind in a way the world has never been to her.
There’s a quiet warmth that lives in everything she does, in the way she moves through the world with a careful gentleness that most people probably mistake for weakness. I fear that she could never love the kind of darkness that lives inside me.
The monstrous rage.
The absolute lack of empathy I feel for anyone who isn’t her.
If it ever came down to it, I would choose Livingston over anyone.
Over everyone.
It wouldn’t even be a choice.
I would choose her without half a thought, even over my twin brother.
The thought pulls a quiet smirk from my lips.
Not because I doubt my brother would do the exact same thing.
Tristan Vale might be the only person in the world who understands that kind of devotion better than I do.
If someone ever threatened his girl, Winter, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. He would burn entire cities to the ground if it meant keeping her safe.
And if it came down to choosing between me and her, I have no doubt my twin would cut me into pieces without losing a minute of sleep. The respect between us runs deep enough that neither of us would ever question it.
Which is exactly why he understands why I’m here. He didn’t say hey, maybe don’t fly across the world to stalk some girl you met once when you were ten. He didn’t ask me for an explanation, instead, he drove me to the airport.
I don’t consider myself or my brother anything like our father at all. We get our looks from him, I suppose. Our height and the jet black hair, but there’s something else we get from him that most people would say is an unbecoming trait.
Whatever we want we get, and we will fight for it until someone surrenders and hands it over. I’ve heard people liken my father to a monster, but the things that he covets and desires aren’t what interests Tristan and myself.
Our father wants power, money, the souls of people he can control. My brother and I have one track minds, I’d say. All of our time, attention, and devotion are poured into one thing.
In his case, it’s our foster sister Winter LeBlanc. For me, no matter how many times our father told me I was wasting my potential, how I could have so much more in this life if I would just stop fixating on a girl who probably doesn’t even remember me, that was never an option.
Because Livingston Rhodes has been my entire life since the day I laid eyes on her, and her name will be the last thing to pass my lips before I leave this earth.
Even when I was too young to understand what the feeling meant, she lived quietly in the back of my mind. When I was a teenager and finally old enough to start looking for her, the search consumed every part of my life. Every decision I made, every connection I built, every skill I learned eventually circled back to the same goal.
Finding her.
Making sure she was safe.
Now that she’s finally within reach, the ache I thought would disappear has only grown worse.
For years I imagined that being close to her again would settle something restless inside me, that seeing her in person would somehow quiet the constant tension that has lived under my skin since the day she disappeared from my life.
Instead, the opposite has happened. Being this close to her without touching her is unbearable. Watching her walk just a few paces ahead of me without being able to reach out and pull her into my arms feels almost impossible to endure.
I want to know what her hair feels like sliding between my fingers. I want to hear the sound she makes when she laughs without trying to hide it. I want to hold her against my chest and promise her that the rest of her life will be safe. The thought of never having any of those things twists something violent in my chest. Because my girl should never have to walk through the dark alone.
I immediately match Livingston’s pace when she slows.
