Page 17

Della

Everleigh is crying.

She has her head down and her hands over her face.

Mom wanted her to stay home. She never went to school. She never went anywhere. Mom suffocated her, keeping her a prisoner in our house.

A constrained life would have killed me, but Everleigh never cried or complained.

My nose itches from the sharp smell of antiseptic in the air. I lift my hand to scratch, but my arms won’t move.

“Ever?” I call out.

She doesn’t hear me.

A large man with thick blond hair and a short beard rests his hand on her shoulder, saying in a soft Southern accent, “She’ll be okay, cher .”

Rune Fontenot. One of her scent matches.

Out of the corner of my eye, more figures stand close by, but I can’t turn my head to see who they are. If Ever is here, her scent matches are never far. Cian and Kylian will be here too, and I will love Kylian forever because he killed the man who hurt my sister.

“This is my fault,” Everleigh cries. “I should have known something was wrong.”

“No. It was my fault,” I tell her. “I was the one who went to Haven Academy.”

Cian comes into view, his serious dark green eyes focused on me. He looks concerned, which I hadn’t been expecting. He is never anything other than calm and serious.

“What do you think she was doing at the school?” Cian asks.

Kylian shakes his head, narrowing his gray eyes a bit. “Not sure. We can ask her when she wakes up.”

Everleigh brushes tears from her cheeks. “What if?—”

Fire lances me in my chest, and I gasp, crying out.

Loud beeping cuts through whatever Everleigh was about to say.

Cian rushes to the open door, shouting down the hallway, “We need a doctor. Something is wrong.”

Everleigh reaches a hand to mine… and it goes right through me.

I’m sinking, falling through the bed as Everleigh shouts, “Is she dying?”

Two men in white coats rush in, pushing past my sister.

Another shouts, “Someone get a crash cart in here!”

An electric crackle fills my head, and everything explodes.

I hold Everleigh’s hand as I lead the way from our house in the middle of the night, whispering, “Come on, we have an hour at the fair.”

“But Mom will find out,” she whispers back.

“No, she won’t. You need to have fun, and we’re going to have it.”

I raided my piggy bank just for tonight. Everleigh lives in a cage, and it’s time to break my big sister out of it for the fun she never has. Who cares if we get into trouble?

We ride every ride; we eat cotton candy and caramel popcorn so sweet I get a headache from all the sugar.

And my sister laughs like I haven’t seen her laugh before. We slam our bumper cars into each other, our hair flying into our faces as we shriek and ram our cars again.

We trudge home, exhausted, much later than I had planned, our cheeks sore from laughter and our bellies aching from too much sugar.

We approach the house slowly. All the lights are on.

Ever’s hand squeezes mine as she whispers. “Oh, no.”

Mom should have still been sleeping unless she woke to use the bathroom and found us gone. I know what that means. Big trouble.

Everleigh stays home. That has always been the most important rule.

And I broke it deliberately.

I squeeze her hand back. Not in fear, but determination. “Did you have fun tonight?”

She turns to me, forehead furrowed as she chews her lip. “Yeah, but ? —”

“Then that’s all that matters. Mom can scream at me for five hours, and it won’t matter.” I squeeze her hand again. “Come on.”

The door swings open as we approach, as if she were standing on the other side of it, peering out through the peephole.

But no one is there—just a vast black hole that pulls me inside.

I fall, screaming, my hand ripping from Everleigh’s as pain tears me apart.