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“Don’t use your—”
“I can and I will because Raiden is the only thing between us anymore.”
Lucky for her, the growl of a bike in the distance announces Raiden. There’s no victory in Lark’s eyes. She looks sad and defeated and fuck me if that doesn’t make me want to find a tall building and launch myself off of it. What was I even thinking, accosting her like this at a time when she’s more vulnerable than she’s ever been? It took so much courage to come back here, more goodness than I can even fathom to forgive her parents. She’s back to watch her mother die, now a mother herself. That must be like tearing out her own insides, and here I am, another complication.
Raiden’s bike thunders up.
“I’m going in now. Please stay out.” Her eyes plead with me. “My mom and dad won’t like it that you’re here, and rightnow, what they want matters more than anything.” It’s not just them. She doesn’t want Raiden to witness us having heated words. It occurs to me for the first time that as much as we tried to protect Lark, she’s always been protective of her older brother in equal measure.
She cuts me out of her life as she turns her back again, but this time, I’m not going to stand here and ignore all my instincts. I won’t let her leave again.
Chapter 8
Lark
For two excruciating days, I tackle the flower gardens during the daylight hours with very little sleep. Even if my mind would let me have a moment of peace, which it won’t, my mom’s soft moans and whimpers of pain keep me awake. Penny sleeps in my old bed with me. It’s a double, so there’s room. She goes down at eight and sleeps until around six or seven and between those hours, she’s lost to the world.
I’m glad she doesn’t hear her grandma trying to deal with pain that is barely controlled because my mom wants to be present with us and too many painkillers make her groggy and disoriented. She wants this time with us so badly. I don’t care how ironic that is, given how many years have been wasted. We’re together as a family again.
Between the lack of sleep, my exhaustion, my mom’s illness, and Gray’s immediate suspicions and threats about Penny, I’m extra jumpy.
Every time I hear a bike I nearly tear out of my skin.
“Holy shit, Lark, relax.” Raiden bites off a piece of licorice with his teeth. It’s some weird flavor. He used to like the thick grape ones, but now he only eats sour kinds.
I settle back in my chair and study my cards, my face heating. We both hear our dad walk through the house and settle in the living room. He’s probably picked up a book and will be staring at the same page for an hour, wishing he could lose himself in it. He just came back from the garage. He’s been outthere for a few minutes. I’m not sure what he was doing. Staring at the wall? Cursing god? Crying? Both Raiden and I heard him go out, but we stayed where we were in the kitchen, playing cribbage to give him privacy.
It’s Raiden’s crib and I pick out two cards from my shit hand and toss them down. He adds two of his own. We cut and draw. Cribbage is my parents’ favorite game. Despite all my fears and the secret hell I’ve been living coming back here, I haven’t taken a single second of this for granted. Being home, having my family around me, being with Raiden again. Prison changed him too. He’s harder on the outside and inside, but not scary. He’s leaner now and seems even taller, but he still smiles just the same and has the same kindness glowing in his eyes. I haven’t had a single second of doubt about him.
The cut produces a seven, which, based on what I just tossed into that crib, is exactly the card I need to lose this hand about as badly as I’ve lost all the others.
“You did a great job on the flower gardens in the front. I barely recognize them.”
It was easy to rip and hack at those weeds, even the thistles and the thorny ones. I just pretended they were Gray’s face as I demolished them and when I slipped into near exhaustion under the heat, I didn’t have to think about him at all.
The roar of a bike thundering up the street makes me freeze. Raiden immediately notices. I’m being far too transparent. The sound used to make the hairs on my body prick up in excitement. Now it sounds like a war drum thundering in my ears.
“Lark?”
“What?” I slap my cards down, trying to breathe past the way my heart has just leapt into my throat.
“You have nothing to be afraid of. You know that I’d rearrange the whole of the earth to keep you safe.”
The roar intensifies. I glance furtively to the window, even though we’re at the back of the house and the street is in the front.
I pray it goes past, but whatever god may or may not be out there doesn’t bother with me, because its roar shuts off right in front of the house. It feels like the blade of a knife slicing across my throat.
“Who’s here?” I rasp.
Raiden’s frown lines cut harder into his forehead. Most bikers have long hair and a beard, but not him. He hasn’t grown out either. “Gray.”
I try very hard not to act like I’m in obvious distress, but my brother knows me too well. He reaches across the table, takes my cards, and folds them into the deck. He resets the pegs on the board carefully, putting them back to the start. It’s kind of him, really, since he was set to skunk me. At the same time, there’s a brutal finality about what he’s doing.
“Gray told me that you guys had some heated words a few days ago when he was waiting for me to get here. He says he said some things about mom and dad, and you took offense.”
Gray hasn’t told him the truth. He loves Raiden. He wants to protect him from what we did.
I hoped this day would never come. My day of reckoning. I have to face the decision I made, and I’ll have to face it with Graybefore anyone else. There’s a small sliver of me that just wants to get it over with, but the larger part of me knows it won’t be a relief. It will be a painful fight every step of the way.
