Ethan pressed all his weight against me to keep me pinned.
The sight was too hard, and I squeezed my eyes closed to shut it all out.
I was confused. So, confused.
Anger rolled through me, and I snapped. My arms had a mind of their own as I fought against Ethan. I shoved him, and he pushed me ten times harder. I screamed, he squeezed my cheeks together. I pumped my knee into his groin, and Ethan took me to the ground and wrapped my wrists in one hand, putting his entire weight over my body. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I never wanted you to see this. You were never part of the plan.”
Then all I saw was black.
ollie.
I paced the road outside Travis’s car, my eyes itching to check the clock every five seconds. My palms sweat, gripping the bouquet of roses in my hand. In forty-eight hours, Mia and I would be in Spain getting married. I have been waiting for this day since I’d first felt her.
I would say saw her, but that would have been a lie.
I felt her first.
Her soul called out to me first, and then I saw her.
Where are you, love?
The car was packed up with our clothes, her camera, my journal, our pictures, and the dozen or so roses Zeke and I had made her.
My Mia Rose.
The Artist green card had been mailed to my residence yesterday. Travis had brought it with—the first thing I’d asked to see. I had a way back and forth to the states. Mia had dual legal citizenship, with a little help from Lynch.
I fucking did it, and all I needed was for her to walk through those iron gates so we could get married and go home.
Where are you, love?
“Are you sure you said three?” Travis asked. His heavy glare did nothing to ease the ache rising inside my chest. I couldn’t think under all the weight, and I leaned over the hood of his car and tried to breathe. The burn in my chest only intensified with each passing second.
“She’s coming.” I opened the door and set the bouquet of roses over the passenger side. The clock read ten minutes past three. The air was still cold, but sweat pricked my forehead. “She’ll be here.”
Epilogue
“In the wake of death,
a monster was born.
His name was Karma,
and he craved revenge.”
—Oliver Masters
Ethan.
THERE WAS FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF. Psychologists had fucking figured it out in five bloody stages. I had passed denial a long time ago, but never reached bargaining—stuck in a continuous cycle of Anger.
Anger, my most trusted and loyal friend. I could count on Anger. It was there when I woke up. It was there when I closed my eyes. Anger even took me in my sleep. The rage had become a part of me—a monster—and I fed that bloody beast every godforsaken day.
Sixteen Months Ago
It had been a year since I’d walked up the steps of Dolor, but it seemed like just yesterday I saw her face.
“Don’t you look snazzy in your new uniform,” Livy says. “Are you egg-cited? I’m so proud of you.” Her hand grabs mine as she always did to get my attention, and a small smile washes over her face as she looks up at me with matching blue eyes. Her use of egg-cited started one year on Easter when we were younger, but it had bled into an all year thing between the two of us.
I know Livy is proud of me, but I’m mad at her at the moment. She was taking off to a reformatory school to get help. She said I wouldn’t understand, but one day I would. And all I see now as she smiles up at me in admiration is the fact she did not trust me enough to confide in me. We were supposed to be family. We were supposed to be in this shit together.
The least I could have done was thank her, smile, or given her a lick of appreciation or acknowledgement, but I had walked away, holding onto a fucking grudge against her.
A bloody fucking year.
If only I’d known what I knew now.
I waited outside the door for Lynch, when, finally, the door creaked open and he greeted me with an outstretched hand. It took me a second to swallow the beast inside and shake his hand—it took everything. Even while shaking his hand, I wanted to snap his wrist for not doing the one thing he’d promised: Keep Livy safe.
“Mia is important to me,” he had said over the phone when he had called me for help about a matter. I hadn’t spoken to the chap since Livy’s death, and he had the nerve to call me with a favor. I should’ve told him to go fuck himself. Livy had been important to me, too. She had been in his care, his responsibility. He was supposed to help Livy. She was the only family I had left, and here I fucking am, back at Dolor because he needed me.
Little did Lynch know, I had other plans in mind.
My heart warned me with every step I took up the stairs as I followed Lynch. It told me it would leave me too if I continued this path of vengeance, but the monster inside shut that bastard up.
Side by side, we walked past Livy’s old wing. I turned my eyes away, anything to lessen the blow and shield myself from the memories threatening to resurrect. I’d kept those memories locked up, but now the monster inside pounded against my skull, rattling in its cage, thirsty for redemption.
Not yet, my dear friend. Your time will come.
Livy’s death had reminded me there were no second chances. No rewinds. No going back in time to erase the damage. You only have one chance, and I’d missed it by a long shot.
Late, without so much as a decent excuse.
The pressure stacked heavier with each long stride down Livy’s old wing. My hands fisted at my sides, and Lynch stopped in front of the nurse’s station. “Her name is Mia. She has no idea I’m her father,” he warned me in a hushed tone. “I prefer to keep it that way.”
“I understand,” I complied. Livy was my sister, and I preferred for her to be alive today, but we didn’t always get what we wanted.
The door opened.
We walked through.
Mia laid there, withdrawn and dazed, clutching a phone in her hand. A large cut sliced through her eyebrow and she parted her cracked and bruised lip. Caramel-brown eyes studied me, waiting for a reaction. I fought to maintain the fact this was Lynch’s daughter, and I shouldn’t care, but the animal inside quieted at the sight of her. This girl scared him, too. I dropped my eyes to the floor so she couldn’t see what her stare did to me. At least until I’d figured it out for myself.
Lynch spoke first and introduced me. I stayed quiet at his side.
She asked about a friend before making demands, then had the audacity to throw in a few jabs at Lynch’s credibility as a dean. I laughed a little inside.
This girl was a storm.
I immediately wanted to know everything there was about her, and how she was able to control my anger when I’d spent months trying to pack its shit and move it out.
After watching the evidence Mia had captured on video, the monster inside me awakened. “Mind if I ask you a few more questions?” I asked as I bagged the phone.
Mia, despite her situation, was intimidating. When she looked at me, she looked through me. Her eyes violated me, frisked me for weapons, and rendered me defenseless—with just one fucking look. I had to know more. I had to know how she carried the same jaded look in her eyes as my sister had, and still be here when my sister wasn’t. How had Mia gotten this far?
Mia’s ability to tell her story with only a few shed tears was impressive, considering I was the one who had to pause her, close my eyes, and prepare for impact. Every similarity was a punch to the gut. She mentioned her uncle and what he had done to her. She mentioned her mom, and the way she had left her. And the only family she had, shipped her to Dolor.