Page 165 of Burning For You

For years. And no one saw it.

“You’ve had no urges prior to this?”

He shook his head. “I told you that was an accident. It was. I don’t know what I thought. That you’d wake up and be fine and get out, or get Mom and Dad. Fate. I left it up to fate. I didn’t want to be blamed for the house being destroyed. I saw you when I returned home and just figured that happened and everyone was watching it burn.”

“But it didn’t because two people died.”

“You can’t even call them Mom and Dad anymore, can you? Just admit it. You hated them as much as me.”

“No. I didn’t. Or maybe I did at times but not the same as you. I hated what they did, but not them.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, Skye. Let your new family know what you’re really like.”

Sean turned to look at the window in the room where they were being watched.

“They know who the real me is,” she said. “You never will. So that’s it, you watched it burn and then had to do it again after that car fire?”

“It was kind of addicting. It let me be me again with no one knowing. No one judging or getting on my case. My little secret. And then it got boring doing that. But you wrote an article. And then another. And I saw the crowds building and the panic set in around town. And every fire that happened, you were there to see if there was a story. I decided to change it up when I saw there were other ways to make them burn bigger and faster. I liked knowing I was causing all of this. There was power in that.”

“That’s why you burned down the house Corbin was building?”

His laugh felt like spiders racing up her spine. “That one was sweet. And that was personal. Because you all needed to know what it was like when it touched your family. Everyone needed to feel what I did. But Sara, she got nosy. She stopped the big one.”

Skye gulped. “What was the big one?”

“Oh, your new family home. That was supposed to go up with your new parents in it too. But that took more planning.”

“No!” she screamed, standing up. “None of us needed to feel that and I’ll be damned if I let you drag me down with your sick mind.”

The officer opened the door to the sound of Sean’s laughter.

He was ill. The realization hit Skye that her brother was mentally ill.

Something in him had to have snapped, but it wasn’t for her to say or even care.

Ash was right there waiting for her, pulling her into his arms.

“Shhh. I’ve got you. Let it out.”

“I can’t cry for him anymore. For any of this. I have to be done.”

“It’s done,” Tate said. “He’s going away for a long time. All because of you and the confession you got out of him.”

“That isn’t why I did it,” she argued.

“We know,” her mother said. Her real mother in her eyes. Both Carrie and Jim pulled her out of Ash’s arms and hugged her together. “You did it for you. You’ve always had to do what you needed.”

“And you let me. You never fought me on it and I didn’t realize that until now.”

“We never will,” her mother said. “You know what you need. You always have.”

She looked at her brothers’ faces there. Even Brenna must have rushed in.

Then her eyes landed on Ash’s. “Yeah, what I need is this.” She moved into his arms and held him tight.

Her past was staying in the past. Even if her parents’ friends or anyone else reached out, she was moving on. It just had to be that way.

Ash squeezed her so hard and picked her up. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”