You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 115

It took me more reasoning to realize he had something in his palm. My candy.

Oh, god.

The tightness in my chest loosened, then bled into something worse—an ache with teeth. His scent reached me first: smoke, cedarwood, whiskey, and the traitor in my chest twitched like it recognized home.

Mum and dad weren't home. They had an appointment with the doctor and had to leave early. So, right now, it was just both of us.

He set the candy back on the desk with a careful tap, his gaze following it.

The candy... the memories it brought in this very room.

My fingers locked harder around the door. I'd rehearsed this moment in a hundred versions of my head; none of them told me what to do when it finally arrived.

What was he going to do to me? Hurt me? Drag me back home?

I knew he'd be furious that I left, but I couldn't say I regretted my decision—even though that decision had been haunting me.

"You left this." His voice walked a chill up my spine.

Still backing me, he tapped the sketchpad on the desk, one I hadn't noticed until now.

"Figured you'd have use for it since you'll be spending some time here."

Something delicate splintered near my heart. I tried to swallow, but my throat didn't cooperate.

Finally, he turned, and the world outside the doorway fell off its hinges.

Grey eyes. Perfect jawline. Brow stud, tattoos peeking out from his wrists.

How the hell did this sight become my undoing?

He braced his hands on either side of himself against the desk, leaning back. There was a glint in his eyes I wasn't used to seeing. It wasn't just cold or void. It was... detachment.

My pulse kicked harder than it had on the street. For the first time, something new sat between us. A narrow, shaky bridge I knew I'd helped build.

He fixed with me a stare. Though it wasn't intimidating, I looked away first, heat licking my cheeks.

"Thank you," I barely recognized the sound of my voice.

'The worst day of my life wasn't when I met you. It's every day after.'

Hearing those words in my head now felt like they'd been addressed to me. They stung different.

The door opened with a soft creak. His eyes were gone as he stepped out the door. The moment the door clicked shut, my chest tore open, spilling a grief I'd been choking back all day.

He left.

Seconds bled past, but my feet wouldn't move. My lungs burned for air, but I couldn't remember how to breathe.

He didn't come for me.

Finally, I forced my legs to obey, but they didn't take me to the bed. They carried me down the old stairs, out to the porch.

I looked left and right. Nothing. He was gone.

'It's a good thing, Rali. You don't need him around. Having him around only meant danger for you.'

God, if only my heart was half as smart as my brain. I should be happy that for the first time, the monster was letting me be.

Why the fuck did it hurt this much that there's no trace of him? Why did it ache to stare at the empty space in the compound where my father's car had once stopped, the place where a boy too cold for his age had first stepped into my life?

'Hi, Rali,' I remembered his first words.

God, why the hell did everything hurt?