Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(16)

For a while, it was a fresh start for all of us. Mason and Reese moved in together and started their happily ever after. Though her cousin Eva stayed with them for a few months until she met Pick Ryan, owner of the Forbidden Nightclub, and moved off with him, she never really disturbed their love nest. Mom actually stopped taking prescription drugs. And I met Brandt when he moved to town five months later.

For a while, life was great.

But drug addicts had a way of tripping up and falling back off the wagon. When I noticed some of my pills going missing again a few months ago, I knew exactly what had happened. And I knew what would happen if she kept it up. She’d self-destruct.

Once again, I said nothing.

A part of me wanted her to pay for what she’d done to Mason. A part of me wanted to hurt her for treating me as if I wasn’t a real human being, and yet another part of me was just too tired to deal.

I was fifteen years old, for crying out loud, stuck in a wheelchair with a disorder she’d probably caused by her drug use. Mom told everyone I was born premature, and that had caused my cerebral palsy, but I could tell by the look on Mason’s face when she said it that wasn’t true. Since CP came about from complications before, during or after birth, I figured she’d used while she was pregnant with me, or maybe she’d dropped me on my head when I was an infant. Whatever the case, I was just...done with it.

I knew I should’ve told Mason. But he was finally happy, and I didn’t want him to have to worry. So I tried to hide my medicine from her.

Except she always found it.

The day I came home from school and stumbled across her lying dead in bed, I realized I should’ve hidden my medication better, gone to Mason first thing, and not ignored what had been happening around me.

Twice now, I’d kept quiet and my only two family members had suffered because of it.

This new wave of guilt plaguing me was absolutely paralyzing. I couldn’t talk to Reese. I couldn’t talk to Mason, let alone look him in the eye. I basically couldn’t talk at all. I just wanted to die right along with Mom. It was my fault she was gone. No matter how crappy of a parent she’d been, she’d still been my freaking mother, and I missed her.

Yet I’d killed her.

After the police had come and I’d answered question after question through a few typed words here and there, Mason and Reese took me back to their apartment where they’d let me console myself in their bedroom.

My CP always acted up more in times of great stress or excitement, so my body went haywire as I tried to pull my knees up to my chest and hug myself into the fetal position. Squeezing my eyes closed, I focused every thought on going still, but muscles continued to tic anyway. Stupid muscles.

I hoped that if I thought about controlling them hard enough then I wouldn’t have to think about anything else.

That didn’t work.

Mason’s angry voice floated down the hall. Every once in a while, I caught a clear word from him, until I realized he was fighting to get custody of me before Social Services stepped in. Until that moment, I hadn’t even thought about what would happen to me. Steeped in so much guilt, I hadn’t even realized how drastically my entire life had just changed.

My mother was dead. Gone forever. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Now Mason was fighting for me, and I totally didn’t deserve it. If only he knew how I’d betrayed him, he’d send me away to the farthest institution he could find.

The trembling in my body grew worse. I knew that if I let it get bad enough, I’d probably upset my system into having a seizure, so I concentrated on breathing, thinking about nothing but controlling each inhale and exhale.

I felt cold and alone, but that was kind of how I wanted to feel. It was what I deserved. If only I could’ve died instead of her, justice would’ve been served.

But things had a way of making a person want to keep going.

The door behind me opened and a distinctly male shadow fell across the wall where I was staring. Still wanting to avoid Mason and all my guilt, I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping he’d think I was asleep and leave me alone.

But the voice that whispered, “Sarah?” wasn’t Mason’s.

“Brandt?” I whipped my head around to find him stepping into my brother’s bedroom with me.

He stopped a second to take me in. Then a heap of oxygen rushed from his lungs as he rasped, “Jesus,” and strode to me, shoving my wheelchair aside so he could crawl onto the mattress with me.

Pulling me into his arms, he gathered me against his chest and hugged me tight as he pressed his face into my hair. “I can’t believe this is happening. Are you okay?”

I laughed out an incredulous sound. “No. Not at all,” I answered, my voice breaking on the last word. And that wasn’t the only thing that broke. As my eyes filled with moisture, my control dissolved. I buried my face in his shirt and sobbed.

It was the first time I’d cried since finding my mom dead. Until this moment, I’d felt cold and numb, petrified with guilt and fear. But warm and secure in Brandt’s arms, I finally felt safe enough to let go. He absorbed my grief and eased the pain.

Voices down the hall told me how the apartment was filling with people, coming to pay their respects. Sometimes I’d hear a child’s shout, Reese’s quiet murmur, Noel’s regretful condolences, Mason’s reply. But none of that mattered. I was in my Brandt bubble, and I didn’t want to leave.