The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(92)

Her grandfather took her arm anyway, and she relied on him to get out of the back. As she weaved on her feet, she glanced to the front of the car.

“So how did you fix it so fast?”

“You’ve been gone three days.”

Nyx turned her head to him—and cursed as a shot of pain ripped up her spine. “It felt like longer.”

It felt like forever.

The screen door slapped shut, the sound making her look to the porch.

As Posie raced out of the farmhouse and down the steps, her pink flowered dress and her blond hair streamed behind her. But she didn’t make it to the car.

She stopped dead halfway across the lawn.

As her eyes went wide, she dropped her hold on her skirting and clasped her mouth—and all Nyx could think of was . . . she didn’t have the damn strength for this. After everything she had been through, she didn’t have the energy to deal with Posie’s hysteria.

Nyx exhaled and shook her head—

With resolve, Posie seemed to collect herself, regathering that dress. And as she crossed the distance to the Volvo, her eyes were blinking quick, but there were no tears.

“Come on,” she said calmly, “let’s get you inside.”

As Nyx’s fragile, hysterical sister took hold of her arm, and quietly and with purpose, led the way to the house, Nyx went along without argument or a false show of strength. It was like the pair of them had traded whole portions of their personalities.

Or at least lent them for a little bit.

The stairs seemed next to impossible, and Nyx had to rely heavily on Posie to make it up the steps at all. And getting to the front door felt like she was sprinting ten full miles.

Inside the house, she looked around and again felt no connection to any of it. Not the rustic, handmade furniture, even though she had arranged the chairs and sofa and side tables. Not the photographs on the mantel or the painting on the wall, even though they all featured family members. And the rug underfoot was a total mystery.

“Shower,” she said. Mostly because she didn’t want to talk to anyone and figured it would buy her some time alone.

She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to eat. She just wanted to lie down.

Posie took her to the bathroom. Opened the door. Pointed to the tub. “Bath.”

“Shower.”

“No, bath. You won’t be able to stand up in the hot water for long.”

When Posie forced them inside and shut the door, Nyx shook her head. “I can do it. I don’t need help—”

“You must need to pee.”

Nyx blinked. Looked at the toilet. Wondered if she could remember how one worked.

Strange, she didn’t recall how she’d gone to the bathroom when she had been down below. She must have gone. She just couldn’t remember how or where.

She couldn’t remember whole parts of the experience beforehand. Just like she couldn’t remember much of her time in the farmhouse. It was as if she had a drape of amnesia over everything that had ever happened to her.

“I’ll start the water.” Posie pointed to the toilet. “You sit there.”

As her sister didn’t budge, Nyx murmured, “You’ve changed.”

“You’ve been gone for a lifetime, as it turns out.”

As they stared at each other, Nyx thought, Shit, the young pretrans. Posie had not only had to deal with that death, but also with the fact that she hadn’t known where Nyx was.

“Grandfather told me,” Posie said. “Where you went. Did you find her?”

Nyx slowly shook her head and braced herself.

“Well.” Posie turned to the tub and started the water. “There’s that then.”

“Are you okay?” Nyx asked.

Posie bent down and put her hand in the rush. Then she adjusted the hot side. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you’d tell me if you weren’t.” Glancing back, her sister nodded at Nyx’s clothes. “Do you need help getting undressed? And sit down on that toilet now.”

“I will. But I’d like a little privacy.”

“I’m checking in on you in five minutes.” When Nyx tried to talk, Posie put up her hand. “Just stop. I’m not going to argue with you about common sense.”

Posie went to the door. “Five minutes. And if you lock this door, I’m going to get grandfather’s axe and chop it into kindling.”

As her sister quietly shut things behind her, Nyx stared at the panels. There were two towels hanging on a rod, and for a moment, she wondered what they were there for. Turning to the sink, the two toothbrushes in the stand caught her eye. With a shaking hand, she touched the grip of the pink one. Of Posie’s.

She remembered putting her toothbrush in her backpack.

So naive. So incredibly naive.

Posie wasn’t the only one who had aged a million years in such a short time.

Nyx lifted her eyes to the mirror over the sink—and gasped. A stranger stared back at her, one with dirt and mud and blood on her face, in her hair, down her throat. Her eyes seemed like they’d changed color, and there were deep hollows in her cheeks that had not been there before. She looked as though she had been to hell and back.

With a shaking hand, she touched the wound on her temple—and then noticed her chipped nails and the raw places on her wrists.