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Her skin was dulled, drained of everything familiar, marked with faint scars and old bruising that told a story I didn’t want to read. Her collarbones sat sharp beneath the hospital gown, too pronounced, like she’d been slowly worn down by something invisible and relentless.

And then there was her neck.

God.

Blue and purple bruising marred it, violent fingerprints of what had been done to her. Beneath them, darker red marks circled her throat in uneven lines, indents where metal had held too tightly. I couldn’t recognise my sister anymore, and that was the worst fucking part.

“Doesn’t even look like her,” I murmured, my voice hoarse from screaming earlier. I reached out and pulled the blanket away from her feet, my stomach dropping as I saw the scarred flesh around her right ankle. ”Jesus Christ.” I turned away and faced the window, my hands on my hips as my head hung, a broken sob tearing through my chest. “Fuck!” I shouted, my fist colliding with the window paneling before I squatted down, my hands trembling as I covered my face in anguish, surrounded by a cacophony of beeps.

The guilt ate away at me, ingesting chunks of my soul as reality set in. She hadn’t been taken hours away and hidden away on a desolate property, or buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in bushland. Evie had been next to me the whole time, suffering horrific abuse at the hands of a serial killer meters away from our home. I should’ve known Evie hitched a ride from Wayne that night—he was the only person outside of our circle that she would’ve trusted enough to climb into his car.

“I didn’t want to leave her,” Jackson said suddenly. “I begged her to let me stay.” His jaw tightened as he stared at Evie, eyes locked on her like he could will her back just by refusing to look away. “He wasn’t supposed to be back until tonight,” he continued, each word controlled, but edged with something sharp underneath it. “He was meant to be gone all day. That’s why I left. That’s why I thought—” He cut himself off, swallowing hard, the anger flickering in his expression before he forced it back down.

I pushed myself up slowly, my knees cracking under the movement. The room felt heavier the closer I got to him, like even the air knew what we were talking about. I crossed the space and lowered myself beside him, our arms brushing as I sat. “Start from the beginning,” I said. “Tell me everything you remember.”

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

JACKSON

January 24th, 1993

“Get your fucking hands off her!” I snapped, yanking hard against the chains, metal biting deep into my skin. Evie screamed as Wayne wrapped his hands around her neck. I thrashed relentlessly, trying to get to her.

“Jackson!”

“I’m here, Evie!” I kept yanking as Wayne reached down and picked her chain up. “No!” I shouted as he wrapped it around her neck, her legs thrashing under him.

“No!”

I jolted awake so hard, I nearly ripped the IV from my arm. I sucked in a sharp breath and immediately leaned forward, one hand gripping the edge of the mattress like I needed to feel something real, or I’d lose my fucking mind.

“Okay,” I muttered.

“Okay, you’re okay…” I dragged a shaky hand over my mouth, forcing my breathing down, trying to get my body to understand what I already knew.

He was dead.

She was alive.

He was gone.

She was here.

I’d spent every night for the past week curled up in the pull-out beside her bed with antibiotics for the infection in the wounds on my back flowing through my veins. Each night, I’d wake up from the same fucking nightmare where I couldn’t save her. I usually didn’t trust myself to lie back down after that.

My heart was still hammering too hard, and too loud in my chest, like I was still somewhere in that basement, still trying to get to her.

I swung my legs off the bed, careful of the IV in my arm, and pushed myself upright. The moment I stood, my body felt wrong without her in my immediate reach. I pulled the chair beside her bed and sat down, right where I could see her properly. Close enough that if she woke up, I’d see it instantly. Close enough that if she didn’t…I wouldn’t miss a thing.

My hand found her warm one without hesitation. I held it gently at first, then tighter when my breathing finally started to even out. “Hey,” I murmured, letting out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. My thumb brushed over her knuckles, over the faint scars littering her skin. “I know you can’t hear me right now,” I added, glancing up at her face, watching for any signs of movement, but she remained still.

“I had a nightmare, but I woke up, and you were still here,” I continued, voice breaking slightly at the edges, despite me trying to stop it. My thumb kept moving back and forth over her hand.

“I don’t know what happens next,” I admitted, quieter now. “But I’m not leaving you.” I leaned forward slightly, resting my forehead near her knuckles, careful not to disturb anything attached to her. “You hear me, Evie?” I whispered. “You fight your way back. I’ll handle everything else.” I lifted her hand a little closer and pressed a careful kiss to her knuckles, like she might’ve felt it somewhere underneath everything else, and inhaled the lavender scent that coated her skin. I bathed her this morning, erasing the antiseptic aroma that clung to her.

The bruised skin around her throat was healing, yellowish-green imprints fading into blue hues. Her hair was different too—shorter now. Clean. Soft around her shoulders instead of tangled and wrong. One of the nurses cut it earlier after washing out everything it had picked up over time. Everything I didn’t even want to think about.

“I kept thinking,” I continued quietly, not really expecting a response, “that if I fixed enough things around you…if I made everything clean again…you might feel like you can come back.” My throat tightened, but I didn’t stop. “That sounds stupid when I say it out loud,” I admitted, a faint, tired breath of something almost like a laugh escaping me without permission. “But I need to do something,” I added softer. “Because sitting here doing nothing isn’t an option.” I leaned forward again, resting my forehead near her fingers, eyes on her face.