Page 17 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

What the hell was that?

Was this some kind of pre-death epiphany?

Maybe we should be worried. Maybe he got a diagnosis and only has two weeks to live, and this is his farewell tour. Because, honestly, that would make way more sense than whatever just happened here.

I yank open the door and step into the hallway, and immediately, something feels off.

It’s way too quiet. No voices, no footsteps, not even the distant clatter of dishes or a sarcastic quip from Luc echoing down the hall.

And that man cannot not be heard. It’s like he came with a built-in speaker system.

I make my way toward the kitchen, bare feet silent against the floor, and find élise at the table, reading a magazine, a mug of tea steaming beside her. She looks up as I walk in, her face immediately warming with affection as she smiles at me.

“Hey, chérie ,” she says, setting the magazine down. “Would you like some tea?”

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yeah, thank you.”

She stands to pour it for me. “Dane and Piper went for a walk. Your dad left not long ago. Otis and Luc are at the gym.”

I freeze .

Everyone is gone?

élise must notice, because she comes back to the table and places the tea in front of me. “I asked them to go.”

“You did?” I ask, eyebrows furrowing.

She nods. “Luc would’ve never left your side willingly, but I wanted a chance to talk to you. Alone.”

I blink at her, unsure of what I’m supposed to say, but I nod, because okay.

She reaches across the table and squeezes my forearm, carefully avoiding my cast. “How are you feeling?”

I lift the tea to my lips, giving myself a second to answer. “The pain meds are doing their job.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Her gaze meets mine, wide open and full of something I don’t recognize.

Would my mom have looked at me like this?

Would she have known to ask the right questions without saying much at all, without letting me dodge them?

Is this what having a mom would feel like?

The thought knocks something loose, and before I can stop it, my eyes fill again.

élise stands immediately and pulls me to my feet. She doesn’t hesitate, just wraps her arms around me and tucks my head against her shoulder, one hand stroking my hair, the other rubbing gentle circles over my back.

“It’s all right,” she whispers into my ear. “Everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you, ma belle . We all do. You’re not alone, okay? You hear me? Everything will be all right.”

Something inside me stirs as she holds me. Not the fire I’m used to—rage, adrenaline, or raw desperation—but something smaller, softer.

Hope, maybe?

élise holds me until I stop shaking, but I have no idea why I am or when it even started. But once it eases and I take my first steady breath, she eases back. Her hand is still warm on my upper arm as she studies my face.

“Did you have a good conversation with your father?”

I huff before wiping my nose with the back of my wrist. “I don’t know. He was… weird.”

Her brows lift slightly. “How?”

“Apparently, he wants to be a better dad now,” I say, and even though I tried to force my voice to be even, the words come out raw. “Said a lot of things about being there and trying, wanting to do his best.”

élise nods slowly, her expression unreadable. “And what do you think?”

I exhale, and my shoulders slump. “I don’t know. That I’ll believe it when I see it? I don’t even know why he’d want that now, or what I’m supposed to do about it.”

“You’re the child. You only have one thing to do.”

I furrow my brows. “And that is?”

“Give him the chance to love you.”

“Give him the chance to love me,” I echo. “I don’t even know how to do that.”

“You don’t have to fix or forgive anything. You don’t have to accept it, match it, or pretend it means more than it does. You just let him try. You live your life, and if he wants to be a part of it, let him show you. If he doesn’t? Then that’s on him.”

She gives my arm a little pat, then takes my wrist, guiding me toward the couch. “Come. Sit with me.”

I follow her, letting her tuck me under her arm as we settle onto the cushions.

“I had a conversation with Dane,” she says after a beat.

So that’s why they’re all so weird?

Dammit, Dane.

“You did?”

élise nods. “That boy loves you so much. ”

My chest aches in that familiar pulse of fierce, complicated love for my brother. “Yeah,” I say thickly. “He loves me too much.”

“There’s no such thing,” élise replies, smoothing my hair with the same soft rhythm she used earlier, but there’s something sad in her eyes.

“What did you talk about?” I ask, dreading the answer and how much I need to hear it.

She runs her fingers lightly over the flowers on my tattoo, tracing one petal like she’s memorizing it. Mason flashes through my head like a spark, and the ache deepens.

“Did Luc tell you that his father committed suicide when he was thirteen?”

I freeze, and the room shifts from under me, tilting everything .

“No,” I breathe out.

Fuck.

“It was very hard for us. Of course, it was hard for Luc, but for me, it was unbearable. I was married to the love of my life. We had a good kid who was loud and wild, always getting into trouble, but I loved him so much. That was all I ever had to worry about. Whether Luc had jumped off someone’s roof again. ”

Roofs?

“I had a good life,” she continues, voice smaller.

“A loving husband, a sweet boy, a home that felt full, and then one morning, I woke up, and there was a letter beside me. A goodbye.” She swallows hard, her eyes turning glossy.

“He was just like Luc,” she shares. “Adrenaline in his blood, always chasing the next thrill. I guess… I guess that’s how he wanted to go. ”

She looks past me, like she’s somewhere far away now.

“He jumped off a bridge. I think he wanted to feel alive one last time. I ask myself every day if that last jump gave him joy or dread.”

I can see it too easily. Luc’s dad, alone, wind rushing past him, choosing that fall, choosing finality. élise, finding a letter instead of a husband, and a young Luc, waking up in a house with one less heartbeat.

They didn’t deserve that pain.

This woman, who brought me into her home without hesitation and put her arms around me.

Luc, who held me while I broke, who pulled me into his chest like it was the safest place in the world.

Luc, who lost his father because he chose to leave.

And I’m planning to do the same damn thing to him.

To all of them.

Flashes of the people I love finding me gone fill my mind.

élise, waking up to the news. Luc, reliving the silence he already had to survive once. And Dane.

God, Dane.

I told myself it would be a relief for him. That he’d finally be free after giving up everything for me—his choices, his dreams, the years of his life he sacrificed trying to hold me together. I convinced myself I was a burden he’d finally be able to set down.

But now, seeing what that kind of loss actually looks like?

Leaving him wouldn’t be freedom. It would destroy him.

Just like it would break Luc. It would hollow out Piper and Mason, and Finn would never be able to live guilt-free again.

And my dad, who just said he loved me for the first time in my life.

The idea of being that kind of pain in someone else’s life.

Fuck.

My insides turn to water, and my skin suddenly doesn’t fit right as my stomach churns violently, and before I can even process what’s happening, I’m on my feet and stumbling into the kitchen.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I barely make it to the trash can before I’m heaving, but nothing but bile and breathless panic comes out.

élise is there in an instant, her hand on my back, stroking gently. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. That was probably too much.”

“No.” I gasp between breaths. “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s not you.”

Because it’s not. Not really.

It’s everything.

It’s me.

She pauses, then says, carefully, “Dane told us about your plan, Alaina. That’s why I wanted to talk.”

I keep my arms braced on the counter as my knees wobble under me.

She waits for me to process a few moments longer before asking, “Feeling a little better?”

Pushing up from the counter, I breathe through the sudden onslaught and nod.

Physically, yeah. Emotionally? Still shredded to bits I’m not sure will ever fit together again.

She hands me a cloth to wipe off and a lozenge from a little ceramic jar on the shelf. It’s cherry flavored. I pop it into my mouth, shocked by the sweetness.

It reminds me of Finn, and I can almost feel his fingertips on my lips before I shove the thought away.

I feel fragile and off-center as we sit back on the couch. My body is still here, but my head is somewhere ten years ago and ten miles away.

“After he was gone, I struggled,” élise continues her story, like I did not just fall apart over her kitchen counter.

“Badly. I still do sometimes. It’s been hard every day for the last eleven years since that morning.

I fell into this black hole of grief and depression so deep, I didn’t think I’d ever climb out.

For a while, I couldn’t even care for Luc.

Not properly. I had to lean on my family to help.

If it weren’t for them, I don’t know what would’ve happened. ”

She’s not crying, and her voice is steady, but it’s not the kind of strength that hides the hurt, it’s the kind that comes from surviving it.

“They convinced me to go to therapy,” she says. “And I’ve been on antidepressants ever since. I’ll be honest with you, Alaina. They saved my life.”

I blink, then run my gaze over this put-together woman. “You’re on meds?”

She smiles, not at all offended by my question. “Yes. And it’s the best decision I ever made. It doesn’t make everything magically okay, but it makes the hard days feel manageable. The dark less dark. It helps me hold onto the good.”

I don’t even realize I’ve straightened my spine until the cushion creaks beneath me. “I’ve thought about it,” I say quietly. “But it’s like… it wouldn’t make the pain go away, at least not the physical one. And I’ve lived with this so long, what if it changes me?”

“That’s the thing. Depression numbs everything.

Not just the pain, but the joy too. The laughter.

The hope. The love. You’ve been walking through life with everything turned down, trying not to feel too much in either direction because the bad is too heavy.

But the medication, the therapy, it doesn’t erase who you are.

It gives you access back to the full range. It lets you want things again.”

She presses a hand over mine.

“You’ve already lived through days that tried to end you,” she says softly. “And you’re still here. That matters, Alaina. You matter.”

I let out a slow, shaking breath, everything in me wanting to deny those words. “It doesn’t feel like enough. Not most days.”

“That’s okay. Feeling it is the start. You don’t have to believe in the finish line yet, just that there’s still somewhere to walk toward.”

I stare at her, at this woman who held me like a mother, talked to me like a friend, and has seen more pain than I ever guessed, and I feel a little less alone.

“I called my therapist while Mr. Crews was with you.” élise holds my watery gaze. “And I asked her for an in-person session. She’s amazing, and she agreed to make time for us later this afternoon if you’ll come. With me.”

I don’t answer right away. I don’t know how to. My throat tightens at the thought of being as candid with a stranger as élise just was with me.

“Dane told us because he’s terrified,” she adds softly. “He told your father. He told me . Because he doesn’t know how else to help, and I know you didn’t ask for this pressure, Alaina, but he loves you. He just wants to see you okay. Alive. Even if you don’t feel okay right now.”

I look down at my hands.

One in a cast. The other curled in my lap.

I don’t know if this will help.

But maybe , maybe it’s enough to try.

Maybe it’s enough to keep from hurting Luc in the same way someone already did, and enough to stop Dane from watching me disappear when all he’s ever done with his life is fight to hold me together.

Maybe this is how I repay him—not by being okay, or by fixing it all, but by doing the one thing he’s ever asked me for.

Living.

Even when it’s hard.

I swallow the lump in my throat and meet élise’s steady, patient gaze.

“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll go.”