Page 94 of Gray Dawn

The driveway might as well have been paved with glue for how my feet stuck now that I was here.

An unexpected guest, I stared and stared, wishing I would catchherin one of the windows.

The front door burst open, bouncing off the siding with a suddenness that shot my heart into my throat, but the thin silhouette emerging onto the porch didn’t belong toher. Or to Camber.

A girl around fifteen locked gazes with me, and tears sprung to her blue eyes. She broke into a smile that caused my ribs to creak under the weight of her stare. She leapt the stairs, hit the grass, and ran straight for me.

“Brother.”Elise—sweet little Elise—threw herself at me hard enough to bruise. “You’re here.”

The last time I saw her, she was five years old and spitting mad at me for handing her over to the cleric. It had taken me six months to convince him to place my much younger siblings into foster care to protect them from our eldest sister’s maliciousness. To foster each child in a different family had been my own idea. It tore us apart, and I had been prepared for them to hate me for it, but it had given them the best hope of surviving to adulthood when Delma had wanted to slit all our throats to become Calixta’s heir.

“How is this possible?” I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her close. “How are you here?”

“Rue found us.” She held on like I would vanish if she took her hands off me. “All of us.”

“Rue…found you?” I had been promised that was impossible. “How…?”

“Okay, well, Colby located us. She’s thebest. Then Rue picked us up and brought us back.”

Colby.

I should have known.

The last part of Elise’s comment stuck with me, and I asked, “You live in Samford now?”

Before Elise could answer, the door flew open again. Three more girls and one boy spilled out in a tangle of limbs. They ranged in age from eleven to seventeen. They spilled down the front steps in a rush of yells and laughter, kicking up gravel as they stampeded toward me.

Impact knocked me to the ground. I landed on top of someone—probably Elise—who yelped before crawling out from under the pile of wriggling and squealing bodies pinning me.

“I missed you.”

“Hi.”

“I love you.”

“It’s really you.”

The tumble of words scrambled together as my vision blurred, either from sharp elbows and bony knees that kept sinking into my gut or from this unexpected surprise I never could have imagined awaiting me.

A shadow stretched across my face, and the kids scattered, leaving me in a bruised sprawl.

“Sorry about the dogpile.” The figure leaned over me. “I swear I warned them to behave.”

Her.

It washer.

Years ago, I had locked her name in the vault of my mind and thrown away the key. It broke free now, as my vision cleared to find her offering me a hand up before the kids swarmed again.

Arden.

It wasArden.

MyArden.

“You know them?” I wiped the sweat off my palms before allowing her to help me to my feet. “How…?”

I wedged my legs under me, but my knees shook. Fear. Excitement. Anxiety. I couldn’t tell.