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Sara looked up at me with those big, wide green eyes and gave me her best impression of feigned innocence. Biting her lip, she glanced between me and the steel railing a few times before she finally graced me with a huge, wide smile. “Yeah, but now every time you come up here, you’ll see this, and you’ll be happy because you’ll think of me.”
Fuck, this kid had me wrapped around her little finger, and she damn well knew it. I ruffled her hair and pulled her in for a hug.
“You’re a brat,” I told her.
Sara giggled and grabbed my hand. “Come on, race you to the bottom!”
Tracing my fingertip over the worn letters, I allow a rare smile to spread across my face. It falls quickly when the vision of Sara’s dead body haunts me once again. “Miss you, squirt,” I whisper into the wind.
Chapter 4
Demon
Five days later…
Stepping into the clubhouse for the first time in months should feel like coming home. Instead, my skin crawls with discomfort and my palms sweat as if I’m approaching my final judgment.
My already fragile grasp on reality is slipping. Five days ago was the anniversary of the night I walked into a rundown Demonio de Hielo warehouse and found my little sister chained to a wall.
The passing years have done nothing to dim the memory of her battered and bruised body, images that will no doubt haunt me for the rest of my days. Finding her like that broke something inside of me. My world shifted on its axis as all the hopes and dreams I had for her future were left as broken as her body.
When I served overseas, I knew there was a risk I could return as a different man. I expected flashbacks and nightmares of the horrors I faced, and the blood that stained my hands. But those aren’t the ones that haunt me.
“Sara, fuckfuckfuck! Priest, call a fucking ambulance!” My hands hovered over her emaciated body, trembling while searching for somewhere to touch her. I needed to comfort her. To fix her.
There wasn’t a spot of uninjured flesh, not a single inch that had been spared from the brutality of her beating. Bloodand bodily fluids had dried beneath her, the foul stench another confirmation that we were too late.
I knew she was dead the moment I saw her.
I fucking knew.
But gone was any logical thought. My heart couldn’t process what my brain already knew.
Save her.
Save her.
Save her.
“Demon…” Priest’s voice was hollow, and the way he uttered my name, the tremor in that single word, would stay with me. Haunt me in ways I never imagined possible. “She’s gone.” In the darkest, deepest recesses of my soul, those words were branded into my very being.
She’s gone.
She’s gone.
She’s…
Gone.
Soft laughter comes from the living room, essentially saving me from the verge of a breakdown. On the plush sofas, Willow and Alaska sit with Teagan and Grace squashed between them. Leo pops his head up from the other side of the sofa and when he sees me, his eyes grow wide.
“D-man!” he screams, leaps off the sofa, then runs toward me, little legs moving fast. He slams into my legs, and I reach down to ruffle his hair. “What’s goin’ on little man?”
“I’m getting so strong.” He lifts his arms to show me his muscles. “Wanna see how high I can jump?” Leo proceeds to climb onto the back of the sofa and launch himself into the air.
“Leo,” Willow scolds. “Sofas are for sitting, remember, sweetie?”
He releases a loud, heavy sigh as though Willow is overreacting, and a smile tugs at the corner of my lips as the girls all giggle.
