Page 106 of Surviving Slater

"I need to finish this," I told him. I feared if he touched me I would waver. He nodded and dropped his hand. "I didn't know how to deal with it. Then that night you had a nightmare and called out your sister's name. When I asked about her, you left, completely shutting me out. Through some weird reasoning, I decided if I understood your past it would be easier to deal with the rejection."

His eyes held mine. It was hard to decipher what he was thinking. Did he have some idea where I was headed with this?

"I called Connor and asked him to look into your past to find out who Shannon was and what happened."

I watched as his features tightened. Soon there would be only anger. I fought against the instinct for self-preservation as I continued.

"Let me get this right," he said. "You got Connor to go snooping into my background?"

Slowly I nodded, knowing it was the start of the end.

"You knew it wasn't something I wanted you to know, but that didn't make any difference," he said angrily, raking a hand through his hair before he gave me a disbelieving look.

The end was unfolding right in front of me but there was no way to stop or fix it now. The way he looked at me made my stomach turn and I felt like my heart was being squeezed.

"You want to know how she died? Do you want all the gory details?" He was getting angrier with every word.

I bit my lip, trying to stave off the inevitable tears.

"She struggled in foster care. She didn't have me there to watch over her." I tried to interrupt him, but he put his hand out to stop me.

"You wanted to hear this so badly you went behind my back. Now I'll tell you everything." He was so furious, I hugged myself as tears stung my eyes. "She moved from one home to the next. She had no one but herself."

He drew in a deep breath. "As soon as I was old enough I began to search for her. But when I finally found her, it was…too late."

He paused for a moment.

"She committed suicide when she was sixteen." The sadness in his eyes was too much to watch.

"How did you find out?" I asked, needing to know who had told him that, because I knew it wasn't the truth.

"That's what I was told by that last foster family that she lived with. She jumped off a bridge...her body was never found."

I reached out, needing to comfort him, but he pulled away from my touch. It was the moment I realized I had lost him, and it became harder to breathe. The need to do the right thing and set him free from the grief made me carry on.

"I don't know how to tell you this…" He was still glaring at me.

"There is nothing you can say that I want to hear," he bit out. And I dropped my arms to my sides.

"She isn't dead," I blurted out.

He frowned as he took in my words.

"Connor found her," I explained and I watched an array of emotions cross his face.

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?" he asked, looking bewildered.

"She refused to acknowledge who she is. But Connor ran a DNA test. She is your sister—Shannon is alive."

"A DNA test?" he asked, and I nodded at his question.

He breathed in sharply before he turned away from me. I wanted to hug him but I knew my touch would be unwanted.

After a few moments of watching him, he spun around.

"Where is she?" he asked tersely.

"She's in New York using the name Riley Evans."