Another stuttered breath filtered out of Kai, and he rolled around to face me, still sucking his thumb as he curled into my chest, his free hand fisting up in Silas’s shirt that I wore.
On instinct, my hand went to his back to pull him closer. Wanting to shield and guard him, too. Or maybe it was just a bare, blatant promise that I would.
A toil of brand-new intensity suddenly blazed out of Silas, and his palm slipped to my cheek.
And I guess that was the point when everything cracked.
When there was no ground left below me.
When I stumbled.
When I fell.
Already sure I’d be crushed at the bottom.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SILAS
Darkness reignedand ghosts crawled the walls. The gloom that had always painted my life rimming the edges of the room, poised and ready to devour.
But a light held it at bay.
Flames around her.
Brinley Webber in my bed with that little boy tucked up against her chest.
Wildfire.
I set my hand on her cheek.
I was scorched.
Charred.
Ash.
Staggering in a direction that would tip me over the edge.
Drawn to a cliff like it exerted five thousand tons of gravity.
A force I wasn’t sure I had the will to fight.
But I had to.
I had to remember who I was.
THIRTY-NINE
SILAS
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
His dad returnedthe next week just like he promised, the rumble of his truck again lifting the hairs at the back of Silas’s neck.
Yeah, he still wanted to punch him in the face, but there was some dark place inside him that was eager for what he had.
Silas figured he owed it. That every dollar the jerk ever made should be given to Silas’s mom. She was the one who had earned it. Worked and toiled to put a roof over their heads when this scumbag never gave a crap.
