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His two sons.

I wondered a lot as I approached and held out my hand. “No better way to introduce myself, I guess.” I grinned at her stunned expression. “I’m your new bodyguard.”

1

RAVEN

The one where the house is filled with the ghosts and nothing but regret, the one where it burns, toils, and aches, the one where pain smiles and thrives.

Iwiped my mouth and braced the sink with my shaking hands. The taste of bile still lingered in the back of my throat. I had no choice in this. Then again, neither had he.

The haunting sound of the church organ crawled through the cracks of the small bathroom walls. If grief had a scent, I was surrounded by it. We’d had peace for so long and now it just felt like peace was the last thing I wanted. War sounded more pleasant, more distracting. I needed the darkness, the kind that made the pain feel earned. The kind that said there was a price and that I’d more than paid it over and over again. But no matter how many times I replayed the memory in my head…

It didn’t make sense. Two plus two did not equal four.

“Raven!” he’d yelled. "Get back now!”

I'd just turned when he shoved himself in front of me then collapsed against my body like a promise breaking. The back ofmy head hit the cement, and when I’d looked up, all I saw was the perfect blue sky.

It was a sunny day.

A day made for greatness.

He’d held my hand.

He’d promised ice cream.

Minutes later, I was covered in blood.

“Raven?” Tempest’s voice—my twin sister and other half—muffled through the bathroom door. “It’s time.”

Time.

Something I’d never have enough of.

Something I’d never get back.

Just like him. How could he be so stupid? What was my life worth without him in it? My palm hovered over my still flat stomach. “Be right there, Tempest. Give me a minute.” Or an hour. Days. Maybe just give me a grave deep enough to jump into, as long as it’s next to his.

I stared at the running water, wishing I could disappear beneath it. Let it drown me, swallow me whole, let it take what I have left. Eventually I turned it off, watching the last few drips hit the porcelain sink. With shaking hands, I tucked my hair behind my ears, and with a calm I didn’t feel at all, I calmly, at least from the outside, opened the bathroom door and walked out, head held high the way I was taught.

Could he see me as I walked into that sanctuary? Was it stupid to even think he could? I hoped he watched, though. I hoped, which was so dangerous in and of itself. I was bred not to think of that word during dark times because it never made the burden lighter.

And yet I gave into temptation.

In that moment, I uttered it out loud again and again while staring into the mirror.

And then I believed it.

Desired it.

I hoped he smiled with tears in his eyes when I kept my chin lifted as I took the four stairs up to the pulpit, like he was proud of me for being brave.

I hoped he knew I didn’t break in that moment when every part of me wanted to, craved to actually.

Seven stairs led to the pulpit, each felt like I was climbing a mountain, and each step represented the finality of the moment. Each felt like the briefest of memories.

I'll never forget him. Ever. Things may have started slow between us, almost awkward. He became my friend before everything else. Before it was more.