Page 56 of Redemption

I don’t yet know a word for what’s happened to her, but I know she’s gone forever.

The doctor won’t be able to fix her.

There’s nothing I can do. I’m powerless. Helpless.

Alone.

“Dane.” A soft hand shakes my shoulder.

I grab the delicate wrist and force the tender touch away.

Abigail reels back into the shadows of my bedroom. I shove upright off the cramped chaise and blink hard to focus on the present.

I run a hand over my face and find that my brow is slick with sweat.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur into my palm. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”

I’m not ready to face Abigail. Not when she’ll look at me with fear in her aqua eyes.

“You were having a nightmare,” she says gently.

The bedside lamp turns on, chasing the shadows away. I keep my face in my hand and apply pressure to my closed eyes, as though I can wipe the macabre images from my mind.

“You’re shaking,” she observes, voice soft.

I rub my temples and keep my eyes closed. “I’m fine. Like you said. It was just a bad dream. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Who’s Katie?”

I freeze. No one has said my sister’s name aloud since her funeral. Certainly not in this house.

She deserves better than that. She deserves to be remembered.

And I’ve spent years trying to forget.

I haven’t thought about that crash in a long time, and nightmares about it haven’t troubled me since I was a child. I never needed to be coddled or comforted when I was distressed in the middle of the night; I learned to overcome the fear on my own.

Comfort wouldn’t have been forthcoming, anyway.

“My sister,” I admit. “My twin.”

“I didn’t know you have a sister. You’ve never mentioned her.”

“That’s because she’s dead.” The words are flat and utterly devoid of emotion. “She died when she was five years old.”

Her small gasp makes something twist in the center of my chest.

“I’m so sorry.” She sounds like she really means it. My sweet, compassionate Abigail. “You were having a nightmare about her? You said her name in your sleep.”

I press my lips together for a moment, reticent to reveal the terrible extent of it. My father’s carelessness. My mother’s coldness. The fact that they replaced my dead sister with James and acted as though she never existed.

But Abigail doesn’t have an ounce of cruelty in her. She won’t dismiss Katie’s memory as an inconvenience.

I can trust my little dove.

“I was dreaming about the night she died,” I say after a long, heavy pause.

“You were there?” Abigail’s voice is soft with horror. “When you were only five?”