Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Take the bag that was waiting for him there and run it back to the same spot.
Shove it into the hole near the bank and cover it with branches and leaves.
There’d be an envelope just for him in the side pocket, one that he’d split the contents of with his dad back where he always waited at the end of the road.
He didn’t even have to see the guys who were in a boat on the river who came for it, the sound of the garbled boat engine only hitting his ears after he disappeared back into the forest.
Yeah, he knew what was in those bags. He might have been an idiot for doing this, but he wasn’t a moron.
But it was hard to care when he’d seen the weight sliding off his mother’s shoulders. The bags under her eyes not so deep.
He was halfway through the woods when he heard the telltale sound of the muted boat engine, one that idled in the place it sought every three nights.
Out of breath, he paused beneath the glow of the moon, his mind spinning and his stomach sour.
He set his hand over his heart where it beat.
Knowing whatever the cost, it was worth it.
FORTY
BRINLEY
I was prodded from sleep by giggles and a little hand smacking against my face.
Okay, not prodded.
Knocked.
“Bwinwey. You got eyes?”
One of my lids was being peeled back, and my one-sided sight was filled with a cherub face that was peering into my eyeball like he might be able to see into my brain.
I released a sleepy laugh, forcing myself to blink all the way open.
Kai was on his knees at my side.
Shocker, the spot where Silas had slept was empty.
A deluge of memories came flooding back.
Silas’s mouth on me, his head between my thighs.
No fear.
No terror.
No shame.
I only wanted more.
More than anything, I was sure I’d feel regret for sharing what I had. Sure I’d want to go running from his property, which was only asking for more humiliation since there was no doubt he’d only come dragging me back.
But there was none.
No embarrassment or disgrace.
Kai knocked me out of the trance by patting both my cheeks.
“You ’wake?”
I cleared the roughness from my throat. “Yeah, baby, I’m awake.”
“My Bwinwey?” He bobbed that sweet head.
My chest again felt like it would cave.
Mush.
Shaking the drowsiness off, I forced myself up to sitting.
He scrambled right onto my lap, chubby arms locked around my neck as he bounced on his knees.
“I eat?” He nodded.
It was so emphatic, there was no question he considered this an emergency.
I curled my arms around him and stood, my heart pressing fiercely against my ribs as I rocked him back and forth.
“I think we should probably change this pee-pee diaper first,” I teased around the fervor that had taken me hostage.
A riot of giggles erupted from him. “I not got pee-pee.”
“Are you sure?” I spun him around.
Another outbreak of giggles. A song of joy that banged the walls, ricocheting back to penetrate a spot inside me that I didn’t know existed.
I kept swaying and swinging him as I carried him from Silas’s room and into his.
The upper floor was quiet, no one around, the clear life of the house apparent in the faint drone of the television and distant voices that rose up from below.
I inclined my ear.
Was Silas down there? Did I want him to be? I wasn’t sure I could face him, not when there was a heavy chance that what I was feeling would be painted all over my expression.
No way to conceal it.
Rays of morning light poured in through Kai’s window, a spray of motes dancing merrily and lighting up the adorable decorations.
Illustrated trucks and tractors and trains were stuck to the walls, and the bedding in his crib matched.
A giant ‘Kai’ was painted over his changing table and a smaller swirl of ‘You are loved’ was beneath it.
Affection gripped and pulsed, and the emotion welled as I carried him to his changing table.
Realizing what Silas, Elena, and Meems were trying to portray to him. Knowing that they wanted him to feel safe every time he entered this room.
I settled him onto the cushion, and he giggled some more, the terror from last night long gone in the light of the day.
Every cell in my body rose in defense of him. Wanting to show him that.
Love.
My spirit clogged because I was sure I wouldn’t ever want to stop.
I peeled back the tabs of his diaper, and he scratched the nail of his little index finger over the words that had been written for him.
“Wove?” he sang, half melody, half question.
No doubt, he’d been read the statement over and over as the rest of his family had stood in this exact same spot with him.
“That’s right, Kai.” My voice was thready and thin. “You are loved. So much.”