Chapter 21
Brody
I got out of the chauffeur-driven town car the nanny used to take me and Cal to swimming class and ran into the house. The gravel crunched underfoot, and tall shadows from the long hedges that lined my childhood London home swayed in the late English summer.
“Brody, your bag!”
I ignored Millie’s exasperated yell and charged inside, the medal I’d just won in the local swimming competition clutched tightly in my hand.
Cal came in behind me.
“I want to show Emily my medal,” I told him.
Cal nodded. “Maybe she’s in her room?”
I went upstairs, running as fast as I could. Our older sister, Emily, was eighteen to our thirteen and the only constant in our lives. She was more like a mother figure than a sister. I didn’t care about telling my mum and dad about the win, I only cared about telling Emily.
I got to her room and knocked frantically. No one answered, so I pushed inside.
It was quiet. There was no one here. I searched in the wardrobe—sometimes she hid in there just to mess with me—and then in her en suite bathroom. Nothing.
I ran out into the hallway.
“Cal! I can’t find her,” I complained.
Silence met my call. I sighed, disappointed, and went back downstairs.
Cal stood at the edge of the kitchen, right where it met the open-plan living room. He stood so still, it made me stop and watch.
What was he doing?
“Cal?” I called to him.
He didn’t budge. He didn’t even seem to hear me.
“Cal! What’s going on?” I asked, wandering toward him. “Emily wasn’t upstairs.”
“She’s—she’s here,” Cal said slowly, in a voice I’d never heard before.
I got closer to him. He was shaking. Cold crept over me as I took him in. It felt like the place where he was staring, the dark living room, yawned like an abyss beyond us.
Suddenly, I was scared to look. It was too quiet. Emily was never quiet. She was loud, messy. A force of nature. And just like that, even at thirteen, I knew.
I knew she had finally gone where we couldn’t follow.
Something slammed shut inside me. That last part of my heart that had resisted my father’s lessons and his urging to turn away from football and friends, and acting my age.
The door banged closed inside me, and in that second, I said goodbye to my youth, to childhood and innocence and hope. I shut the door on all of it.
A tear ran down my brother’s face. He blinked faster and faster.
“Brody?” Cal whispered.
“It’s okay. Go upstairs and call an ambulance. Then go and get Millie. She’ll be in the garage sorting the laundry. Tell her I need her in here.”
“She’s—she’s cold already,” Cal said haltingly.
“Okay, then get Millie first. She’ll decide what to do. She’ll call the police. Go on.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take care of her. Don’t worry.”
Cal watched me a second longer, more tears falling.
“Go now. Go on.”
He turned and walked stiffly away.
And I was alone with my sister’s body.
I turned around, the cold that had blossomed in my chest spreading out, sending ice into my veins.
Emily lay beside the couch. The carpet was dirty around her. Vomit. She was on her back. Had she choked? I crouched in the mess on the carpet, uncaring. I reached out and touched her cheek.
Cal was right. She was cold. We’d been gone all day. Swimming right after school. Today was the housekeeper’s day off. She’d been lying here, just like this, all day.
That door inside me that had swung shut locked with a resounding click.
My top-of-the-line fitness watch buzzed on my wrist, waking me up.
Today, I didn’t mind the five-a.m. wake-up call.
I was relieved. I hated that dream. Dream, memory, whatever.
I glanced at my watch. September fifteenth.
So, that’s why I was remembering that terrible day, so long ago.
It was nearly the anniversary of her death.
Saturday, me and Cal would take a red-eye flight to London and then drive four hours out into the countryside, where we’d laid my sister to rest at our family’s estate.
No matter what, we never missed going to her grave on the day she died.
I got up and went into the bathroom, splashing my face with cold water. The dream lingered on the edges of my consciousness. That door I’d closed inside myself and locked had never once been rattled in all the years since… until the other night.
Finding Selena bleeding on the floor had rattled it. I couldn’t have that. It couldn’t happen again.
So, I needed to continue the plan I’d come up with that night, lying beside her while she’d slept. Another woman wasn’t dying on my watch. No fucking way.
I grabbed the bag of clothes I’d picked up in town yesterday and made for Selena’s room.
I went into the darkened room and headed to the bed.
She moved when I got closer. She was awake this time. Her body’s internal clock was adapting to the early mornings easily.
“Get dressed. I got some workout stuff for you,” I told her shortly. I crinkled the large paper bag I held.
“What workout stuff?” her voice came from within her cocoon of covers.
“Get up and see,” I told her and laid the bag on the floor, slapping on the overhead lights. I left the room to go downstairs and take my supplements.
Buying some proper workout gear was the minimum I’d had to do yesterday in order to be prepared for today.
Selena couldn’t keep working out in too-large sweats.
They were a hazard, falling down as she was running, not to mention how dangerous they’d be once I got her into the gym downstairs and onto the machines.
Also, the sight of my shirts slipping off her shoulders and my sweats riding dangerously low on her hips was making me feel like a fucking creep. It had to end.
I drank my creatine and stared out the window at the sun rising over the sea. Even I couldn’t deny the beauty of this place. The coastline was the perfect example of Hade Harbor’s perilous beauty. Stunningly beautiful, but jagged and dangerous. One wrong step, and you’d fall.
“What the hell are these clothes?” Selena complained behind me.
“Feel free to wear your leather jacket and boots if you prefer,” I retorted and turned to see her.
I stared.
And stared.
I’d gotten her black clothes. She didn’t seem like a pastel-color person.
The skintight leggings would reduce friction when she ran.
The long-sleeved, warm shirt was the kind I’d seen her in before.
It came right down to her fingertips. A tight zip-up jacket went on top of it.
She was barely showing an inch of skin, and yet, the shape of her body was undeniable.
I usually only saw her in her baggy, unattractive clothes. Nothing prepared me for the sight of her in this formfitting outfit. Her effortless beauty was a gut punch.
She pulled her hair back off her face and tied it into a high, swinging ponytail. Her slender back arched, and her breasts pressed forward.
Jesus.
I turned back to the sink and prepared another drink, shaking it until it was all dissolved.
“Here, drink this,” I said curtly and tossed it to her.
She caught it easily, revealing a natural athleticism that she seemed to forget she had.
“What is it?”
“Creatine, protein, collagen. It’s good for you, and it tastes… good enough.”
She made a face and sniffed at it. Then she ventured a sip and gagged.
“That’s disgusting,” she complained.
“It’s good for you. Drink and we can get on the road. Are you sore from yesterday?” I couldn’t stop my gaze from dropping over her body.
She considered my words, drinking slowly. “Nothing I can’t survive.”
I nodded approvingly. The little heathen had decided not to complain. I respected that.
She finished her drink, pulling a face until the last mouthful, and then shuddered all over. She set down the glass.
“Okay. I’m ready. If I throw up your drink on you… just know that you deserved it.”
“Noted. Let’s go.”
It was hard to get out of my head today, even running. The weather wasn’t great. A shower had just passed. We ran on the rain-slicked streets, and I tried to drag my mind to the present and away from the dream. We didn’t talk, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
When we turned the corner and spied the gates at the end of the road, Selena put her head down and accelerated. She shot off in front of me, and I had the sudden, undeniable urge to chase her.
Not to race her and win.
The impulse to chase her. Catch her.
I followed, a burst of speed bringing me level with her as we reached the gates. I edged past her, and she threw out an arm and tried to hold me back.
“No cheating,” I told her firmly and slipped past her. “Last one to the door is the loser.”
Her laughter followed me. I raced inside the gates and up the long drive.
She was right behind me, tugging at my T-shirt, trying to drag me backward. I leaned forward and let my weight continue to bear me forward.
“God, you’re so heavy!” she said between gritted teeth.
“Don’t be a sore loser,” I goaded her and took another step.
She had my T-shirt in a death grip. A loud rip filled the air. I glanced down just in time to see the top tear down one side from the shoulder.
I was at the door, my feet brushing the huge welcome mat. I reached out an arm, within touching distance of winning.
“If you want to see me shirtless, little heathen, there are easier ways—” I started, smug with my win and enjoying the first time that morning that my sister’s death had fled my mind.
“Like hell! You haven’t won yet, Sinclair!” Selena exclaimed, and then her arms were going to my shoulders.
Before I could wonder how she was planning to still pull off a win, a weight landed on my back, throwing me off-balance.
She’d jumped onto my back. She shoved my arm down so it was no longer only inches from touching the door.
I hadn’t expected the move, and my feet weren’t planted right. I tilted to the right, pulled by her body weight, and then, we were heading right for one of the stone pillars that bracketed the front door. She was going to hit it.