Page 12 of Owl’s Cherished Mate

The word hit me square in the chest. Criminal. It was the word this whole town used when they talked about our father. The word I’d been running from since I came back.

“I never said you were,” I said, forcing my voice to soften. “But Darren⁠—”

“Here we go.” He crossed his arms, let his head fall back, and rolled his eyes. “Darren this, Darren that. You’ve never even talked to the guy, Bonnie. You don’t know him.”

“I know enough. I know he was involved in Dad’s operation. I know he was there when they were running pills out of the Tidal Caverns. He worked with Dad, Lawson. He was part of the whole thing.”

“So? He didn’t get arrested. Dad did.”

“Because Darren ran. That’s what he does. He uses people and then disappears when things go bad. Pins his shit on them.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“That’s exactly what happened. It’s not the first time he’s skirted trouble with the law. Ask anyone in town.”

Lawson’s face flushed red. “I’m not going to ask anyone in town! The people in this town look at me like I’m trash. The only people who don’t are Cade and Darren. Cade’s my friend. He treats me like I’m not just some screwup kid with a convict for a dad.”

“He’s not your friend. He’s Darren’s little brother, and Darren is⁠—”

“Darren has been there for me!” Lawson’s voice rose another level—one he’d never used with me before. His fists clenched at his sides. “Where were you, Bonnie? Where were you when Dad got arrested? When they put him in handcuffs in the driveway and the whole neighborhood watched?”

My throat closed.

“I was six when Mom left,” he continued, his voice raw and shaking. “Six. And you were the one who was there. You made me dinner, helped me with homework, and told me everything would be okay when Dad fell apart. I remember that. All of it. But then you left too.”

“I went to college. That’s not⁠—”

“You left!” The words tore out of him filled with so much fury I took a step back. “You packed up your car and you fucking drove away. You didn’t come back for two years. Two years, Bonnie. Not for Christmas. Not for my birthday. Do you know what that was like? Dad was either gone, high, or locked in his room, and I was alone. Cade was the one who showed up. Darren was the one who checked on me. They were there. You weren’t.”

Every word was a knife cutting into me, and the worst part was that he was right about enough of it to make arguing impossible. I had left. I had driven away. And whatever my reasons were—escape, survival, the desperate need to be something other than Gravis Williams’s daughter—none of them erased the fact that my little brother had been alone.

“I came back,” I whispered, tears pooling in my eyes.

“Because they made you. Because if you didn’t, I’d go into foster care. Not because you wanted to. Not because you missed me.” His chin trembled, and for a second, I could see a six-year-old little boy underneath his scowl. Then, in a snap, the little boy was gone, replaced by the angry teen standing in front of me. “At least Darren and Cade chose to be here for me. Nobody forced them.”

He turned and walked down the hallway toward his bedroom. The door slammed so hard it rattled the pictures on the wall.

Everything in me wanted to go after him. To bang on his door and make him listen. To make him understand that Darren wasn’t who he thought he was. But his words were still ringing in my ears, and the truth in them made my chest ache too much to move. I stayed where I was, staring at the empty space where he’d been standing. A shaky breath escaped me, and then the tears began to fall.

Heading to the library crossed my mind.

Not for the free internet, or to get any studying done. Just the space itself. The quiet. The calm. The mug of tea that appeared without being asked for.

Him.

I shoved the thought away and wiped my eyes.

I didn’t get to think about him. I didn’t get to want things right now. My time for that had come and gone, and it hadn’t done me a damn bit of good.

Look at where I was.

My brother thought I’d left him.

He thought I’d abandoned him.

And the truth was—I had.

The thought looped through my head, feeding the guilt that had lived inside me for years, turning it into something tangible I couldn’t ignore any longer.