The Revenge by Tijan

She was cupping the side of my face, and she was smiling at me.

Our eyes were so close our eyelashes were almost touching, but neither of us cared. We were breathing each other in, we were that desperate.

“Mom,” I whispered, biting back tears. “What happened?”

“Oh, baby.” She lifted her head, winding her arms around me, and she tugged me to her. She held me gently in her arms now, as if already shielding me from what she needed to tell me. “We’ll get to that. I promise.”

I felt her head lifting. Turning.

She tapped my arm softly. “You tend to your man, because you’re not the only one who saw a ghost today.” She stepped back, but her gaze was trained over my head, toward whoever had been waiting for our reunion to finish. She squeezed me once more before stepping away. “I need to see to my man, too.”

She was the one who ran this time, going up the stairs toward Peter.

His hand hadn’t moved from the doorknob, like he was scared to let it go. But then she was in front of him, and he leaned back.

She stopped.

I found myself waiting, holding my breath.

My mom lowered her head, as if she were suddenly shy. She was saying something. I couldn’t make out the words, but whatever she said, it worked.

Peter surged for her, wrapping his arms around her, and he lifted her in the air. He let out a roar before burying his head in her hair, smoothing one hand down her hair, and as I watched, he kept touching her. They hugged a long time, maybe even longer than she and I had, but he never stopped touching her. Even after their hug was done and she moved back an inch, their heads were together. She was saying things to him. He was nodding; both were crying. He never stopped running his hand down her arm, over her shoulder, down her hair, smoothing over her cheek.

I felt Kash behind me, and my body was already sagging into him.

He caught me, but it wasn’t a big catch.

I felt him, and my body gave out. He merely stepped in behind me so I was resting on him. His hand came around my stomach. He nuzzled down by my ear and neck. “You okay?”

I nodded, but reached up. My hand slid through his hair, clasping the back of his head, and I looked to him. He was observing me, his eyes hooded, and I remembered my mom’s words. “Are you okay?”

His chest rose and held.

Something was wrong.

I turned around to stand facing him. His hands fell to my waist, then moved around so one of his palms lay flat on my back, tunneling up under my shirt.

I continued watching him, touching his chin. “What happened?”

His eyes went from my mouth to my eyes, and I saw he was conflicted.

“Kash.”

He frowned, a sadness shining from him. “I had to make a choice.”

I caught my air again. “Between?”

“You and my brother.”

I flattened my hands on his arms, my lungs still ceasing from relaxing. “And?”

“And…” He drew in another sharp breath. It sounded painful. “You’re not going to like it.”





FORTY-NINE

Kash


Three weeks.

We waited while the family got used to having Chrissy back.

There was a media shitstorm over Chrissy’s “back from the dead” situation. How that news got leaked, I didn’t know, but it was on the list to find and punish.

For three weeks, people were afraid to ask Chrissy what she went through.

Bailey did try, but Chrissy folded into a nearly catatonic state. She stopped talking for two days. It was enough to scare everyone, so for the rest of the time, Bailey basked in her mother’s presence. Peter got laid again—a lot, judging by how he was the one glowing all the time. Seraphina’s laughter didn’t echo in sadness anymore. Cyclone was living up to his name; he was literally a cyclone again, running everywhere in the household.

Payton looked nervous when she saw Chrissy, and I made a point to check in with Marie.

“It’s like she’s been trained to be invisible. She’s here. She’s spending time with the kids. But the second Chrissy shows up, Payton scatters like a scared mouse. I’m now fine with the lady, realized I was wrong to get all up in my feelings the first time, but yeah. It’s the oddest thing.”

Chrissy never balked. Bailey never said a word. So Payton was excused from my mind.

She wasn’t a problem.

Another person that wasn’t a problem: Matt. He was hanging out and seemed to be stabilizing. He mentioned an idea for a company and wanted to talk to me about it later. He also mentioned a girl had caught his eye, but that’d been the only mentions of either.

It was during those three weeks that we all chose to forget about Calhoun and Quinn’s trial, and we all chose to forget that Chrissy was home after enduring something so horrific that a mere question about it would paralyze her.

It took them that long to finish questioning my brother, before they were content to move him to a different holding facility.

After I told Bailey my plan, she wanted to help. I didn’t want her to incriminate herself any more, but I had to be honest. I couldn’t lie to her, and that meant she did it without my knowledge. I woke one morning and she was sitting there, cross-legged and beaming at me. She was waving a piece of paper in the air. “I have what you’ve been waiting for.”

“Tell me you didn’t.”