Page 7 of Burn the World Down

All I had left was pain.

I was so damn alone.

Hunching my shoulders, I pulled my knees up to my chest, but I didn’t cry.

I hadn’t cried since Elliot’s funeral. I couldn’t. Everything felt like it was trapped inside me.

And I detested feeling sorry for myself. It didn’t help a damn thing.

I shifted and set the can of Diet Coke on the cheap, scratched bedside table that looked like it was staying upright by prayer alone. As I moved, I felt my healing bruises tug and my arm ache. I should have my sling on.

Closing my eyes, I laid back on the lumpy pillows and hard mattress. I let one sneaky thought take over. The little thing I gave myself when I needed to feel less alone.

The memory of the boy I’d crushed on.

My brother’s best friend.

Nathaniel Shawn Hagen.

Most people had called him Nathaniel or Nate, but those closest to him had called him Nash—an amalgam of the first few letters of his first and middle names. He’d lived down the street from us. His parents had been older, and he’d been a surprise baby for them later in life. He’d been tall, handsome, with thick, brown hair, and piercing blue eyes.

Smiling, I felt my frozen muscles loosen. I’d had so many teenage-girl fantasies about him. Of course, he hadn’t seen me that way. I’d just been his best friend’s pesky little sister.

Until he and Elliott had come back on leave from the Navy for my mom’s funeral. I’d been seventeen, and he was twenty-one.

He was the most gorgeous creature I’d ever seen.

And finally, he’d seen me.

He’d given me the best kiss of my life under the maple tree in my parents’ front yard.

I remembered that I’d trembled everywhere.

“So damn pretty, Georgie.” He’d cupped my face. “Grow up a little bit more. Use that clever brain of yours.” His thumb stroked over my cheek, and my eyelashes had fluttered, matching the butterflies in my belly. “I’ll be back.”

“Okay, Nash.”

His blue eyes had bored into mine. “See you when I come back. Okay?”

It had been a promise.

I nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

But when his parents died, he didn’t come home.

It hadn’t been a promise. It had been a lie.

Elliot hadn’t said much except that Nash had been recruited into a special program, with special missions, and he couldn’t get away.

When Elliot died, he hadn’t come home.

When my dad died, he didn’t come home, either.

I knew then that Nathaniel Hagen was never coming back.

Then Viv had needed me, and after being angry and sad at Nash, I’d locked his memory away.

But I did remember a rushed phone call with Elliot just before he’d died. It had been over a bad connection. He’d sounded tired and distracted, but he’d told me that if I was ever in trouble, to contact Nash.