Page 81 of Bleed the Shadows

I remembered the way Remy had looked up at me in the car the night before, the words that had been on his lips.

Leaving them felt almost as impossible as staying.

I hung my jacket by the door and started up the stairs. The loft looked dark and I wondered if the Butchers were in their rooms, but when I got to the top of the staircase I saw that the living room wasn’t dark after all. It was lit by soft gold light.

From a Christmas tree.

And not just a Christmas tree, but the biggest Christmas tree I’d ever seen indoors.

It took up most of the space in front of the loft’s huge windows, barely clearing the ceiling. And the tree wasn’t alone: it was surrounded by shopping bags, more than I could count, all of them overflowing with what looked like Christmas tree decorations.

I’m pretty sure my mouth hung open as I stared, my brain spinning.

Then Bram stepped around the tree, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, his feet bare. He looked almost embarrassed, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, you’re home.”

“I’m home?” I looked around the darkened living room for Remy or Poe, but they were nowhere to be found. “Whatisthis?”

“It’s a Christmas tree.”

I walked toward the tree, mesmerized by the shimmering light in the dark room, Main Street lit beyond the windows.

“Yeah, I kind of got that part, but where did it come from?”

“I cut it down.” He hesitated. “For you.”

I turned to look at him and for a split second, I saw him as he must been as a little boy, before he’d lost his parents and his innocence. “You… cut it down. For me.”

“Would you prefer one from one of those tree lots? Because I can…” He looked around, like he was ready to dispose of the tree then and there if I asked.

“No!” I took a deep breath. “It’s… it’s gorgeous. I just… I’m just surprised.”

“Good surprised or bad surprised?”

“Definitely good.” I reached out and touched one of the tree’s branches, still supple and soft. “I just can’t believe you’d do this for me.”

“We should have done it a long time ago,” he said. “You deserve a Christmas tree.”

My throat was doing this funny thing where it closed up, like I was going to cry, so I turned my attention to the bags cluttering the living room floor. “What is all of this?”

“Decorations,” he waved his hands around in a very un-Bram-like show of excitement. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got some of everything.”

“I…can see that. Did you save anything for anyone else?”

It looked like he’d bought up several stores’ worth of inventory.

“I’m not sure, but Cassie said the lights were the hardest thing about putting up a tree, so I did that part,” he said. “I can decorate it too, if you want, but Cassie said that part was fun and you might want to help.”

I was having a hard time not smiling. “You asked your sister about this?”

“I wasn’t going to ask Poe and Remy. They’d probably sabotage me for shits and giggles.”

“We wouldn’t have sabotaged you.” Remy entered the room from the hallway, came closer to investigate the tree, and stumbled over the cord to the Christmas lights.

“Watch out, dickhead.” Bram reached out to stabilize the tree as it wobbled. “You almost knocked over Maeve’s tree.”

“We might have sabotaged you.” Poe walked into the room and slung an arm over my shoulders. “What do you think, little bird? This tree big enough for you?”