Page 30 of Another Damned Storm

He followed me inside. “First, do me a favor and keep your voice down. A lot of these folks are on edge with the rise in attacks, and if they find out my big sister is back from the dead after twenty-six years, it might not go so well.”

The crush of reality squeezed my heart.Twenty-six years.

“You’re forty-three?” I wheezed. How was that even possible?

“And you look like you haven’t aged a day,” he said quietly.

Technically, I guess I hadn’t. I mean, time had passed, and I was a few months older, but as long as Hook’s magic flowed through me, I wouldn’t age.

“Do you want the grand tour?” he asked.

With the way my stomach was doing somersaults and I couldn’t seem to really catch my breath, that was a hard pass. “Is there somewhere we can sit and talk, just the two of us?”

He nodded and shot me a grateful look. “This way.”

We walked in silence through a large communal area, up a few flights of stairs, and down a couple of hallways. People watched us along the way, but it wasn’t like out in the street where they’d been eyeballing me like I was the enemy.

“This is my place,” he offered, opening a dull gray door with the name ‘Hinkins’ stenciled in blocky black letters on it.

The space inside looked bigger than it probably was thanks to everything being jammed into one room. To the right, a well-worn couch sat under the only window in the place, next to a sagging shelf filled with books. To the left, a kitchenette ran along the wall with a small dining table.

Everything was more colorful than I would have expected for a space my brother called home. Eclectic decorations hid the dull gray walls, and I spotted a basketball tucked away behind the front door.

My Matty had never enjoyed playing basketball.

And in the back, half-hidden by a sliding door, I spotted his bed, neatly made.

Things really had changed. I mean, that much was painfully obvious, but seeing his bed made drove that reality home. I’d fought with him every single day of his adolescence to just make his fucking bed. The only time he’d ever done it without being reminded was when he wanted something.

Now, here he was, twenty-six years older, with all of his shit in order.

He motioned to the couch, and I sank down onto it. I was officially numb. I didn’t know what to say, or think, or do.

“Where have you been?” he asked, sitting at the other end.

At least I didn’t have to figure out how to start the conversation.

“The Nassa.”

His right eyebrow winged up. “The island?”

“The Nassa is the realm. Nusthena is the island.”

He waved me off like the details didn’t matter. “But you’ve been there this whole time?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” Taking in his space again, it was harder than I expected to put the truth into words. “Except it’s only been a few months for me.”

There was no look of surprise. “I figured it was something like that, considering.” He motioned to me like my appearance was all the explanation he needed.

“I…” Still didn’t know what the fuck to say. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long?”

He inhaled deeply and sat back. “Lily explained what she thought happened when I finally woke up after the attack, but part of me didn’t really believe it.” He cast me a look I couldn’t read. “I saw what that monster did when it had control of my body. Everything. So, some part of me knew it was all real. I just didn’t want to accept it. Especially not when Lily told me what you did to save me.”

I swallowed hard against the lump growing in my throat. “I had to get Petra’s shadow out of you before it killed you.”

“Oh, it tried. I was hanging on by a thread when you showed up and tried to rip it out of me.”

I remembered it all like it was yesterday, but how much hadhis memories of that day faded in the years since? “You said Lily talked to you when you woke up?”