Page 79

Confronting our shared past?

Reliving the unknown?

The gravel crunched beneath my tentative steps as I approached the front door. Before I could even raise my hand to knock, Jackie opened it suddenly, a wide smile greeting me. “Damn, am I glad to see you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Jackie didn’t reach out to hug me, and she didn’t invade my space, but her beaming smile and warm brown eyes were welcome enough. She had been kidnapped herself once, years and years ago. While she had only been gone for five days compared to my months, she had a better understanding than most of what it did to you. I suspected that was why she gave me the physical space she did; she knew how much I needed it.

I followed her into her home, the large living room greeting me. The entire back wall was floor-to-ceiling windows, with the tall trees of the surrounding property seen in the distance.

“Where’s Silas?” I asked, dropping my bag by the front door and kicking off my shoes.

Jackie pointed down the hall to her left. “He spends most of his day in the library,” she explained, stuffing her hands into her pockets and rocking back on her heels nervously. “He still struggles… well, with the sun, and that room gets the darkest if you try hard enough.”

“How is he?” I asked quietly.

She let out a tired sigh. “How are you?”

“Point taken,” I huffed with a laugh. “Is Brooks still hounding you?”

She was taken aback for a moment and shook her head slightly with an amused expression. “I forget you remember things now. You know Brooks?”

I nodded. “Lexington told me his brother was fighting you and Will for custody of Silas. I assumed it was Brooks; he’s the brother I met.”

“Brooks is insistent, but I don’t blame him. He just wants his brother with him—no one could blame him. But it’s not what Silas wants right now, and my job is to protect that boy, no matter who it pisses off,” she explained.

“You’re doing right by him, Jackie.” I took her hand in mine, giving her a reassuring squeeze. She smiled gratefully and looped my arm in the crook of her elbow before leading me down the hall.

Jackie and her husband were loaded, and the sheer size of their home showed their wealth well. We weaved through a few halls before stopping in front of a set of double doors. I could hear the sound of music wafting through the cracks of the doors—a slow, steady beat.

Jackie smiled and let out a tired sigh. “He’ll be happy to see you, even if he doesn’t show it at first.”

I nodded in understanding and knocked on the door lightly as Jackie took her leave, giving me the space to talk to Silas. “Hey, kid. It’s me.”

He was silent on the other side of the door, but the volume of the music decreased ever so slightly. I took it as my cue, easing the door open and slipping in, shutting it quietly behind me. The library’s curtains were drawn, but lamps lit the area around the room, casting everything in an orange glow.

“Silas?” I called as I looked around, hoping to find the boy who would live in my nightmares for the rest of time.

“Over here,” he called quietly. I followed his voice to the back corner of the room, past a few rows of stacked bookshelves. I had only seen Silas a few times since we were separated in the hospital all those months ago, and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting now, but seeing him so healthy was still a shock.

He was sitting on the floor of the library, pillows and blankets surrounding him and stacks of books to his side. A half-eaten sandwich was pushed out of the way, and a few empty water bottles littered the floor. His hair had grown, brushing the tips of his ears. He had filled out, his spindly arms growing in strength after finally having access to food—real food.

He looked up at me, and I was startled by what I saw. Though his body had changed, his soul remained shattered—a quiet ruin lurking beneath the surface, visible only in the dull, lifeless stare of his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

A soft breath slipped past my lips as I closed the distance between us and dropped down onto the floor beside him. I settled in right at his side, extending my legs out across the floor. “I wanted to see you.”

He eyed me for a moment, the air heavy between us. He was like a brother to me now, but what we’d been through together had fractured our relationship.

“Why now?” he finally asked, turning back to the book I hadn’t seen him holding earlier.

I reached over and lifted the cover slowly to peek. “Dante’s Inferno?”

He smiled—one of those rare soft smiles I only saw in the uptick of his lips. “It’s cool.” He sighed and looked around him at the scattered books that littered the floor. “It’s all really cool, Goldie.”

“The world?”

He nodded. “I can’t believe how much there is to it. Every time I learn something new, I have a dozen more questions. I feel like I could spend the rest of my life in here and still not learn everything I want.”

“I get the feeling,” I explained. “I dropped out of school when I was only six; I was self-taught in everything after that.”