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Searching for relief from the guilt and shame.

Knowing it would never come because there was no solace for the condemned.

Darkness sat like a heavy drape across the endless sky. It was those few held, chained moments before night gave up its hold.

Daylight fluttering at the edges where I straddled my bike in the sleeping neighborhood.

My boots were planted on the pavement, and my hands clung to the handlebars while my mangled heart bled all over the place.

The small house across the street was darkened. Only the porchlight illuminated the stoop.

I shouldn’t be there.

I had no right.

I’d given it up long ago.

I knew I’d made the right choice. Letting him go. Knew this life was all wrong and the last thing I wanted was him exposed to it.

Endangered by it.

But fuck, it hurt.

The W that wound through the dead vines on my forearm burned.

A bare light flicked on inside, and I could see a shadow moving behind the drapes in the kitchen.

An intimation of my past.

The larger shadow leaned down and swept up a child.

Agony tangled my guts, and I warred, half a mind to stride to the door and pound on the wood.

Demand the right I’d given up.

But who would I benefit by doing that? I had nothing to offer. Nothing to offer but this life. So, I pulled back my throttle and rode off into the approaching dawn.

The breaking of the sun warm on my cheeks and the shape of Elena’s face behind my eyes.

EIGHTEEN

ELENA

I groaned as I stretched out of the uncomfortable position I’d fallen asleep in probably not more than an hour before.

Blinking as I looked up and found my head on one side of Brinley’s lap.

The barest light infiltrated through the living room window, the only hint that day approached.

She had her laptop balanced on the arm of the couch, and she gave a reassuring smile as she whispered, “They’re almost here.”

Relief punched me in the chest, and I sat up. With a heavy sigh, I rubbed my palms over my face. “Longest night ever.”

“The worst,” she whispered since Meems was asleep on the recliner.

Kai was the only one who’d slept upstairs, at peace and unknowing in his crib.

“Did everything go okay?” I’d looked at my phone probably fifteen thousand times, but Trevan hadn’t texted me the entire night.