Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(102)

A panicked disgust clotted in my chest, and I was sure my heart was no longer working. “It’s not your fault. It’s his. But . . .”

My voice shifted to a quiet plea, praying my sister would find comfort in me. That she would understand she no longer had to be afraid. “We have to report this to the police, Sammie. We can’t let him get away with this.”

“I know.” The words cracked, and a cry ripped from her throat.

It was born of desperation. Of grief and sorrow and shame.

She began to ramble, “I just . . . you have to give me a little time. I’ve been trying so hard. So hard to get to the point where I could tell you, and I trust you more than anyone.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled for a breath. “They’re gonna ask for details, Nikki. I know they are, and I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

I squeezed her hand. “How long was it going on?”

She dropped her attention to the floor, shuttering, her chest heaving with her breaths. “He always . . . made me uncomfortable. The way he used to look at me. The way he’d brush against me. I was twelve the first time he took me to one of those abandoned buildings by the river.”

Shock blew me back, and the air sucked into my vacant lungs.

A cloying type of awareness shook through me.

“What did you say?”

She blinked. “The buildings. Down on Row.”

Tremors rocked through me.

Full body.

Jolting.

“Oh, God. Oh God.”

I couldn’t breathe.

No.

No.

It couldn’t be. I was making assumptions, anxiety and fear getting out ahead of me.

Dizziness swooped down, making my mind tilt and the room cant.

I tried to get to my feet, but the weakness that had taken hold of my knees nearly dropped me back to the ground. My hand darted out to the couch as I forced myself to stand.

Nausea churned, twisting my stomach in painful knots. I tried to swallow around the bile I could feel crawling up my throat.

“Oh God,” I whispered again, looking around as if I were searching for an answer when there wasn’t one there.

Sammie pushed to standing, her hand on my arm, worry moving all over her face. “What if it was him?”

My eyes shifted to her.

I knew they poured with sorrow. With speculation.

The same as hers.

It hit me like a freight train.

What she’d been implying all along.

Why she felt compelled to tell me now.

I stumbled back, hand scrubbing over my face in hopes that it might break up the confusion. “I need to go. I need to think.”

I stumbled back into the kitchen and grappled for my purse, which I’d left on the little breakfast nook table last night.

I jerked open the door.

A tease of daylight danced on the horizon, cool morning air splashing my face.

It didn’t matter.

I felt sticky.

Clammy.

I stumbled down the two steps, unable to move any farther when I lurched forward and puked in the shrubs.

My spirit revolting.

Purging the instinct that had kicked up at the back of my mind.

Sammie was behind me. “Nikki, what are you going to do?”

“I just . . . I need to think. Figure this out.”

I didn’t even want to contemplate it. Didn’t want it to be true.

“He was a monster.”

Sammie’s confession whipped through my spirit.

“Where are you going?” she begged, clinging to the railing on the steps.

“I don’t know. I just . . . I need to go.”

I had to make sense of this before I made accusations I couldn’t take back. Even though my gut screamed they were real.

“Please, don’t do something stupid.”

I ran to her and pulled her into my arms, squeezing her so tight I could feel her heart battering against mine. “I’m so sorry, my sweet sister.”

Then I turned and rushed away.





34





Ollie





Footsteps pounded on the damp earth.

Desperate.

Frantic.

Trees rose on all sides, sentries and witnesses, and branches tore into my skin as I ran through the oppressive night.

Searching.

My eyes blurred in the darkness. Muddied by despair. I stumbled through the forest. Gnarled roots twisted, like spindly fingers that had clawed out of hell to hold me back.

Tears burned my cheeks as the wind blasted my face.

Cruel like the laughter I swore I heard before it was swallowed by a gust of air.

I screamed in the middle of it. “Sydney!”

Voice hoarse, throat bleeding with the pain. “Sydney!”

Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.

I dropped to my knees.

Sydney.



I roared, trying to break free of the sheets that were twisted around me like ropes and chains. Sweat slicked my skin, and my heart was busting right through the confines of my ribs.

Panted cries clawed at my raw throat.

Panic and desperation.

I kicked off the sheets and sat up on the edge of my bed.

I blinked through the dusky shadows that leapt through my room, trying to ignore what had pulled me from sleep.