Page 81 of Praying for Thunder

“No.” I jumped out of the car before it had barely come to a stop.

“Hellion, wait!” Roamer opened his door.

I could barely breathe. “Rya.” Seeing bare footprints and hoof marks in the ashes and dirt, I growled, “No.”

She had brought the only friend she felt she had left.

“What’s wrong?” asked Chubs after parking the car and catching up.

At the sight of the flowers, I was practically gagging. “She thinks I’m dead.”

Knowing I had caused her pain, I suffered as if being gutted.

Oh, Rya… I faced the woods… then ran.

The draw to her—the need to find Rya—was so intense, it felt like I was maturing at an unheard-of rate. It felt like watching a movie when there is a montage of different timeframes in a character’s life, showing the viewer how time had passed, and the character was now much older.

I wasn’t an actor or a character. I wasn’t in a movie. But on that run to Rya, I grew into a young man. I rapidly became bolder. Confident. Purposeful.

None of this change was due to the fire I had almost surrendered to. It wasn’t Ani’s death. It wasn’t the goodbye to Dio or Diablo. It wasn’t the abuse by Grandma. It wasn’t being starved. And it wasn’t the beat-downs by a man who wanted me to be his.

It was her.

It was the fact that I almost broke a promise that had me running, already begging for forgiveness. Every footstep was another promise to never betray that girl again. There was nothing that would stop me from reaching her, ever. There was no one who was going to deny me her. Her dad, my father, they could both go fuck themselves.

Rya had promised herself to me. In return, I gave her my soul. How dare I think it was mine to offer to any entity, fate, or person that wanted it.

Leaping up and past the church stairs, I found Rya, on her knees, angrily crying to Jesus. “I trusted you, through it all. You got Mama. I got Thunder!” I’d never heard her be furious before, but she was, and she was magnificent. “You better bring him back to me or I will never—”

“Rya.” Out of breath, and so thankful this being was in my life, I grabbed my chest.

Her back seized.

Slowly, she looked up at Jay-sus. Then, she rushed, “Thank-you-and-amen.”

Without even making sure it was me, she was on her feet and running down the aisle. Her body slammed to mine, her sweet arms around my neck. “The house—burnt. Bones. I thought you were dead. Tell me you’re real.”

Her words, her fear, it was as if she had sensed me almost giving up in that fire. “I’m real.” I held her tight. “I’m real.”

“I thought you were dead.” On her tippy toes, she gasped, over and over near my ear. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead…”

Smelling her kind soul, I inhaled, breathing in something Onus, nor anyone else, could never offer me. My eyes slid shut as I held her. “Not my bones.” How had I forgotten how much I adored this girl? “I’m alive.” It felt like my feet had a place to stand again. “I had to move in with my dad.” She felt so fucking good to hold. “I tried so hard to get back to you.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever let her go again.

Even at twelve, Rya was taller, but so was I. She couldn’t catch up, never would. “I was so sad, Thunder.”

We were holding each other longer than ever before when I repeated, “I’m so sorry.”

Ryannon laid her head against my shoulder since it couldn’t reach the top. “You’re not dead.”

As her relief had her body relaxing, an old memory found its way back to me. “What pleases you, eases me.”

My imagination may have invented parts of Dio, but it didn’t stop him from being a smart fucker. I held Rya tight and sighed. Yes, pleasing you, eases me. My cheek nudged her hair, her forehead, wanting innocent kisses.

Leaning her head back to offer me what I wanted, she shook her short wild and free blonde hair off of her face—

Oh, fuck.

Dark circles shouted to me from under her golden eyes. Her cheeks were sunken as if she had stopped eating. Her hair was unbrushed…