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Her hands curled tighter around my forearms and her voice dipped in emphasis. “You think you live a life unworthy of love, River. I know you do. I’ve seen it. I’ve watched it. I’ve felt it. Do you think I haven’t always known how you meet any bit of joy you receive with reticence? How you’re terrified of it? Like it makes you a bad person for accepting it?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Iama bad person, Raven.”
Disbelief shook her head. “Why don’t you go back and ask any one of those women…any one of those children…if they think you’re a bad person?”
“Raven…” How the fuck did I answer that? Yeah, it meant something, what we did. I’d never regret it, but it didn’t change the rest of it.
“Askmeif I think you’re a bad person,” she goaded.
My sister was always goofing around. Radiating light. But there wasn’t anything light about her right then.
I watched the old ghosts play through her eyes.
The kind of demons you could never fully outrun.
She turned me to face out the window. “How about her, River. Why don’t you tell her and ask her if she thinks you’re a bad person. I’d bet my life that she won’t.”
She paused for a moment before she murmured, “I think she might understand you better than anyone else. More than anyone else could.”
It was right then that Charleigh looked our way, as if she felt the weight of our gazes peering out at them. They were still on the lawn, but she had Nolan on her lap, and she was rocking him back and forth as he pointed at something in the sky and prattled on about something the way he did.
Sun shining all around them, faces lit in the glitter of the day.
I could feel Raven peer up at me. “I told her that you were strongenough to hold her burdens…and I’m willing to bet she’s strong enough to hold yours, too.”
She gave a small shake of her head. “I know what you tattooed on her arm, River, and I have to wonder if that might not have been meant for you, too.”
We stayed like that for the longest time while her words banged around inside me.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to start getting ready. I plan to look extra amazing tonight. I have a date.”
She’d crossed the room and had started up the stairs by the time I was able to process what she said.
My stomach fisted, and I sent her a glare as she climbed the stairs, her hand gliding on the handrail as she did.
And Raven? She fuckin’ cracked up.
I pounded at Raven’s closed door.
“The hell is taking you two so long?” I shouted at the wood. It was getting close to ten. Nolan had been dropped at Miss Liberty’s hours ago for his big sleepover with his friends.
The kid had to have been the most excited I’d ever seen him. Fuckin’ bouncing off the walls and asking me if it was time to leave every three seconds.
Raven had organized it with Miss Liberty, setting it up that Trent and Eden and Jud and Salem could leave all their kids with her for the night, along with Nolan.
It was all to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Kane’s opening, though what we were really celebrating was the coronation of Sovereign Sanctum from years before.
Trent and Jud had been intrinsic to its birth, and it was only fitting that they would be here for it.
Miss Liberty was being more than well-compensated for her going over and above, though I imagined she might be having secondthoughts with the fucking mayhem that had to be going down at her house right then.
I’d gotten back what felt like five hours ago to Raven and Charleigh locked behind Raven’s door. I’d knocked then and had been met with Raven telling me to go away as a shit-ton of giggles echoed through the wood.
Now, I was fucking itchy, and some douche-nod wearing a goddamn suit who I’d never seen before was downstairs waiting on my sister.
Fuck my life.
I started to knock the back of my fist on her door again when it suddenly burst open. It sent me stumbling back a step when Raven came strutting out.
