Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(95)

“No . . . she must have dropped it there sometime.”

His hands dropped, and he took a step forward, getting in my line of sight, misery etched across his face. “She was wearing it that night.”

My head shook. “No. She couldn’t have been. You don’t know that.”

A groan ripped from him. “She was wearing it, Ollie. She was.”

I pointed at him, trying to put some space between us. Refusing what was trying to suck me under.

Darkness.

Terror.

Hate.

“You don’t fucking know that,” I grated.

He stared at me, something so raw on his face that my heart slammed against my ribs.

“I do know, Ollie.”

“How the fuck would you know that?” I spat, unable to keep the anger out of my words.

“I was with her.” It was a raked gasp. Words barely formed.

My brow pinched. “We all were with her.”

His hands fisted in front of him. Regret and frustration and something that looked too much like guilt. “Fuck. Listen to me, Ollie. I was with her.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I was with her.” It was a shamed whisper.

There was nothing I could do.

The rage that poured free, leaching into my veins.

I shoved him.

Hard.

He flew back against the brick wall.

“What did you say?” I demanded.

“We were together. I told you it wasn’t just your fault.”

Red blurred my vision, and everything spun.

The sky and the earth and my spirit.

A jumbled chaos that took over inside of me. “You fucked my sister?” The accusation was full of disbelief.

Of disgust.

No words came from his mouth.

But guilt was written all over his face.

Anger burst in my blood. “You fucked my sister?”

Disgust met the roar as I lunged for him. My fist flew. Connected with flesh and bone.

Pain burst in my hand, and Rex just . . . took it. Face pinched up in pain as a trickle of blood dripped from his nose. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

He slid down the wall, hitting the ground with a thud. His head rocked back and he buried his face in his hands. “So fucking sorry.”

I backed away.

Gripped by sorrow.

Grief swooping in.

Clouding my mind.

Shutting down my spirit.

My lip curled, and I backed further away. “Sorry’s not good enough.”

I turned and left him there, unable to see as I stumbled up the three flights of steps in the darkened stairwell.

Everything was blurred.

My eyes and mind.

An altered state of consciousness.

It couldn’t be her.

It couldn’t.

I had to keep searching. Keep watching. Keep hunting.

I would find her.

She would be safe.

Fly, fly, dragonfly.

Her voice danced all around me, and I choked, a cry ripping free.

It echoed on the enclosed walls.

Bouncing back.

Grief.

Grief.

Grief.

I couldn’t stand.

I dropped to my knees, crawled the rest of the way up the last flight.

At the top, I forced myself to standing as I staggered out into the short hall, hands pressed to the wall to keep myself from falling.

Falling.

I’d thought I could live.

That I could see through this.

Past it.

That I could let go.

But this?

It was all I could feel.

All I could feel.

Pain.

Excruciating.

“We are three. Forever and ever, you and me.”

I fumbled through the door and into my loft.

Nikki’s scent hit me like a blow.

It blasted me back, and a sob ripped free from deep within my chest.

What did we do?

What did we do?

I stumbled to the cupboard, pulled out a brand new bottle, twisted off the cap.

Anything to dull the feeling of my skin being sheered from my bones.

Flaying me open.

I tipped it up and gulped half of it down, drenching my stomach in morbid heat. Praying for reprieve.

I moved to the couch, and like a fool, I grabbed the remote and flipped on the television.

I slugged back another huge gulp.

Another and another.

Time passed.

A minute. An hour. A day.

I didn’t know.

It didn’t matter.

My head lolled against the back of the couch as I drifted through the haze.

Darkness spun.

Color blipped and flashed from the television. A slur of voices landed on my ears. Too loud. Too much.

A woman in a purple dress stood in front of the yellow tape that blocked off the old building where investigators swarmed, delivering her news.

A body had been discovered.

Forensics was on the scene.

Speculation.

Speculation.

“Sydney Preston was sixteen years old when she went missing fourteen years ago.”

That storm rumbled from the depths of me.

Rising and lifting and consuming.

For months, I’d had the gut-deep intuition that something was coming.

Something wicked.

Ruthless and cruel.