Page 10 of Tempest’s Torment

I step inside and close the door behind me. Home, yet it doesn't feel like home anymore; it hasn’t since Lucy was murdered six months ago. Right now, it feels off, like someone’s watching or waiting, but nothing moves and there’s no sounds.

You're imagining it. That's what everyone keeps telling me.

It’s been six months since I climbed out of that cabin and left half of myself behind. I force myself to move. I kick off my shoes and throw the keys onto the table beside the door. I make myself a coffee; tea would have been better, would have helped ease my nerves.

I tell myself I'm getting better, that one day I’ll be able to move on with my life. I’m full of shit. How do you move on when you’ve been through hell?

The doorbell rings. I jump so hard my mug slips from my hand, hot coffee splashing across the floor. My heart pounds as I make my way to the front door, but nobody's there, only a bouquet of fresh flowers sitting on the step, no card, no name.

I look up and down the street and spot a white van turning the corner at the end of the road and disappearing.

I throw the flowers into the bin.

The next afternoon, I find the back gate standing open, but I know I locked it. I always lock it.

The day after that, it's the kitchen window that’s unlocked. I stand there staring at the latch. I locked it, I know I did. I check every window, every door. Every single night and every morning.

Maybe I'm forgetting, maybe grief is doing this, and maybe my therapist is right: trauma makes you see danger where there isn't any.

I repeat it until I almost believe it.

I go to Lucy’s grave; it’s now the only place that I feel close to her. I see that someone else has visited her. They left her flowers, white lilies. Lucy always hated lilies. "They smell like funerals," she would always say.

I smile despite myself as I brush my fingers over the headstone. "I know," I whisper. "I brought sunflowers instead."

I spend the next twenty minutes with her, telling her everything that’s been going on. I know she’ll never think I’m crazy, she’d never believe that.

I stand, brush the grass from my jeans, and turn toward the car.

"Lilah." My entire body locks, I know that voice; I know who it is even before I even turn.

Evan’s leaning against the cemetery gates, his hands shoved into his pockets, like he's been waiting, like he's got nowhere else to be. He looks exactly the same: no guilt, no regret, no sign that murdering my sister cost him a single night's sleep. He smiles and my blood turns to ice, but then he turns and walks away.

Panic claws at my gut. God, he’s back, how the hell is he back? The police have been looking for him for the past six months. He vanished when the men who found me went looking for him. The cops haven’t been able to find him and neither has anyone else.

My feet move harder than ever before. I run to my car, locking the doors the moment I’m inside. I don't remember the drive, my mind running a mile a minute. One minute, I'm gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ache, and the next, I'm pulling into the Kings of Anarchy clubhouse.

I barely get the car into park before the engine dies. Omen’s already outside; he looks up as I pull in, his expression changing the second he sees me. I should be afraid of him. He’s huge at six-feet-seven, with jet black hair and tattoos that cover the majority of his body. He's a scary-looking guy, but I’m not afraid. He was one of the men that found me running from that cabin. To me, Omen is safe, he’s the only one that’s safe.

He doesn't come to the car, doesn't knock on the window, or tell me to hurry up. He just waits while I stare through the windscreen, trying to make my hands stop shaking. They don't, but eventually, I force the door open, the cold air hitting my face.

"He found me." The words scrape out of my throat.

Omen doesn't ask who, he already knows. “Okay."

That's all he says, one word, no disbelief. Just... okay.

He falls into step beside me as we head inside. The clubhouse is loud, filled with voices, laughter, and music. It all fades into the background as he leads me into a small office at the back.

"He left flowers," I whisper. “On Lucy’s grave.” The words tear from my throat. I hate that he was close to her again.

Omen doesn't interrupt.

"The back gate, someone opened it." I swallow hard. "The kitchen window was unlocked. I convinced myself that I was imagining it, that I hadn’t locked them.”

Omen is quiet, watching me, waiting.

"I saw him,” I whisper, my entire body shaking. "He was at the cemetery." My voice cracks. "He smiled at me."