Page 67

So she locked them in cages. Starved them. Waterboarded them like they were enemy combatants instead of her own flesh and blood.

Dallas made it out.

His baby brother didn’t.

After the state institutionalized her, and the medication finally quieted the noise in her head, she realized what she’d done. She escaped the facility and jumped off the nearest overpass.

Good fucking riddance.

“Okay, so can you show me how to draw or what?”

His voice is sharp, but it’s the way he pulls back from her touch that guts me. Like he doesn’t think he deserves it. Like kindness burns.

Just like that, we watch it happen—the wall going back up, brick by quiet brick, right in front of us.

I brace for Lou to snap back, to meet fire with fire like she usually does. But she doesn’t.

Instead, she softens, her lips curling into a small, steady smile.

“You bet your sweet ass I can,” she says gently, like it’s the easiest promise in the world.

“Where’s the dad?” she barks, stepping out of the bathroom in cactus-print pajamas that read Don’t Be Such a Prick, toothbrush hanging from her mouth like a cigarette. She's already spoiling for a fight, and I haven’t even looked up yet.

I don’t flinch. Just keep my eyes on the file in my lap and answer, flat and honest. “No one knows. They’ve tried. He’s long gone.”

She disappears down the hall again, stomping like the truth pissed her off. The sound of furious brushing follows, like her teeth are to blame for any of this.

When she reemerges, she’s drying her face on the sleeve of her shirt. “So what? That deadbeat can just pop out of the shadows one day and snatch Dallas back like nothing happened?”

“Lou—”

She throws up a hand. “No, don’t Lou me.” Her voice climbs, sharp, all cracked glass. “So—you’re telling me Daddy Dearest can just show up out of nowhere and take him back? How the fuck is that fair to him?” She points towards his bedroom.

She grabs her hairbrush off the dresser like it owes her an answer and yanks it through her tangled hair, not even wincing when it snags hard.

“Another thing,” she spits, “where the fuck was he while his wife was holding her kids underwater and hoping they didn’t come back up? What kind of man lets that shit happen on his watch?”

That’s it. That’s enough.

I push off the bed, stride across the room, and close the distance between us. My hand clamps over hers, steadying the chaos mid-stroke. Her grip tightens like she might fight me for it, but I don’t move.

“Wildflower, give me the brush.”

Her eyes lock with mine in the mirror, steely and unyielding. “We’re not fucking kids.”

“No,” I murmur, keeping my tone even, “but we sure as hell act like it sometimes. You need to settle down, and so do I.”

She pauses, chest rising and falling like she’s deciding whether to punch me or let go. Finally, she exhales through her nose and surrenders the brush. Then like I had so many nights when we were younger—when love was louder than pain—I start at the ends and work through the tangles of her hair with slow, careful strokes.

“What’s really going through that head of yours?” I ask quietly, knowing the anger’s just a mask for something else.

She doesn’t speak at first. Her shoulders twitch like she might bolt. But then her voice comes out low and tired, all the fight drained from it. “I’m angry…for him. But I’m also angry at you.”

I nod once, still brushing. “You’re always angry at me.”

She flinches. Just barely. But I feel it. I know she feels it too—this bone-deep tired we both wear like second skin.

“When I read that file…” My throat closes. I push the words out anyway. “It gutted me, Lou. Tore me open and left me there.”