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Raising the camera in a flash, Maddie took a picture of Lanie. The heavy 35mm camera acted like a shield between them.
Maddie peeked at me from the corner of her eye, and I kept my hand low, telling her silently to be calm. Everything would be okay. I hoped it would, at least.
“Maddie, it’s me.” Lanie inched toward the steps. “It’s Lanie, your sister.”
Lowering her camera again, Maddie stared. “Lanie?” She tasted the word.
“Yes. That’s what Angel calls me now.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “I kinda like it.”
Maddie stared like a deer in headlights but no longer bit on her bottom lip. I was just learning to read my girl, but I thought the blankness on her face was her shutting down, going somewhere she’d learned to while she was imprisoned.
“Eyes on me,” I told her.
Immediately, her eyes shifted from her sister to me.
“I’m here,” I said. “It’s okay.”
She dipped her head in a single nod, but flitted her eyes back to Lanie. She looked at Bou too, fear shining in her eyes now, but then swung her gaze back to her sister.
Was that recognition? Was Maddie coming up from the darkness enough to see her sister, who she had refused to see at the mill and the recovery house? She was still, waiting, as Lanie climbed the stairs past me.
Angel moved, but I glared at him, and he stilled.
Lanie was the only one I would allow past, and only as long as Maddie seemed okay.
Melanie reached out her hand toward her sister. “I’ve missed you so much. You are—”
Maddie slapped Lanie’s hand away, digging in her fingernails. Lanie hissed, drawing her hand back like she had been bitten by a rabid dog.
I stepped between them, holding Maddie’s chin. In her ear, I ordered, “Go inside and stay.”
Following my orders, Maddie let the screen door close.
When I gave the others my attention again, Angel was kissing away the blood blossoming on Lanie’s skin. His eyes under that scarred brow bored into me.
He dropped Lanie’s arm and lunged toward me.
I wasn’t backing down, but Wilde was on Angel’s shoulder, grabbing him by the collar of his MC cut. “Enough,” he growled.
Angel shook off his grip. “You saw what happened.”
“I told you,”—I reinserted myself—“Maddie wasn’t ready. And you didn’t listen.”
Lanie raised her chin. “I’m her sister. She belongs with me.”
“Would you listen to yourself? Shit’s been forced on her ever since she can remember. Isn’t there something about consent? Or at the very least... freedom of choice?”
I didn’t know how to get that through Lanie’s thick head. Maybe I was missing the whole point of it because I didn’t have a bloodedsibling. Celt and Bou were the closest things I had, and while I loved them, I didn’t spend my childhood with them. And I sure as shit would not’ve gotten in between Wilde and Bou.
Turning on my heel, I walked inside the house, needing to help Maddie, which I had been doing just fine before they came in and fucked it all up. The door creaked behind me after I already moved toward her room. I should’ve slammed it in their faces and locked it behind me.
“What’s this?” asked Lanie, picking up a picture.
I grimaced. None of her damn business, that’s what it was. I needed to comfort my girl.
“Is it one of Maddie’s?” asked Bou, looking over Lanie’s shoulder. “Maddie’s really good with a camera.”
“She is?” Lanie’s voice broke.
