Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
No one has come to save us.
No one has come to save Katie.
My father is slumped over the steering wheel. It’s not an unfamiliar sight to see him passed out after a night of drinking, but this time, there’s a thick crimson stream that flows down his slack face.
The car horn rings in my ears. I’m clawing at them, raking my hands through my hair as though I can pull the sound from my mind.
Katie is looking at me with one eye, but she doesn’t see me. She doesn’t see anything.
I cry out for help, for salvation, for mercy.
Anything to escape this nightmare.
After a while, I go quiet. I accept that no one will come for me.
No one will bring my twin sister back to me.
I don’t yet know a word for what’s happened to her, but I know she’s gone forever.
The doctor won’t be able to fix her.
There’s nothing I can do. I’m powerless. Helpless.
Alone.
“Dane.” A soft hand shakes my shoulder.
I grab the delicate wrist and force the tender touch away.
Abigail reels back into the shadows of my bedroom. I shove upright off the cramped chaise and blink hard to focus on the present.
I run a hand over my face and find that my brow is slick with sweat.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur into my palm. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”
I’m not ready to face Abigail. Not when she’ll look at me with fear in her aqua eyes.
“You were having a nightmare,” she says gently.
The bedside lamp turns on, chasing the shadows away. I keep my face in my hand and apply pressure to my closed eyes, as though I can wipe the macabre images from my mind.
“You’re shaking,” she observes, voice soft.
I rub my temples and keep my eyes closed. “I’m fine. Like you said. It was just a bad dream. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Who’s Katie?”
I freeze. No one has said my sister’s name aloud since her funeral. Certainly not in this house.
She deserves better than that. She deserves to be remembered.
And I’ve spent years trying to forget.
I haven’t thought about that crash in a long time, and nightmares about it haven’t troubled me since I was a child. I never needed to be coddled or comforted when I was distressed in the middle of the night; I learned to overcome the fear on my own.
Comfort wouldn’t have been forthcoming, anyway.
“My sister,” I admit. “My twin.”
“I didn’t know you have a sister. You’ve never mentioned her.”
“That’s because she’s dead.” The words are flat and utterly devoid of emotion. “She died when she was five years old.”
Her small gasp makes something twist in the center of my chest.
“I’m so sorry.” She sounds like she really means it. My sweet, compassionate Abigail. “You were having a nightmare about her? You said her name in your sleep.”
I press my lips together for a moment, reticent to reveal the terrible extent of it. My father’s carelessness. My mother’s coldness. The fact that they replaced my dead sister with James and acted as though she never existed.
But Abigail doesn’t have an ounce of cruelty in her. She won’t dismiss Katie’s memory as an inconvenience.
I can trust my little dove.
“I was dreaming about the night she died,” I say after a long, heavy pause.
“You were there?” Abigail’s voice is soft with horror. “When you were only five?”
I nod absently, detaching myself from the volatility of that night and looking at the memory with cool, clinical eyes.
It can’t hurt me if I don’t relive it.
“My father was driving drunk. A bad habit of his. He thinks he doesn’t have to follow the law when it’s inconvenient to him. He was driving us through the Dales when he took a corner too sharply. The Jeep rolled a few times. My father was unconscious for several hours. Katie didn’t make it.”
“Dane…”
My name wavers, and I finally look up at Abigail to find that her remarkable eyes are shining with tears.
Tears for my sister.
For my loss.
My chest aches, and it’s all I can do not to reach for her when I know she’ll recoil again.
“Is that why you…” She trails off and then tries again. “When I crashed the Jeep. I understand why that must’ve been so upsetting for you. I didn’t know.”
I try to shrug, but it’s a sharp movement to throw off her empathy. I can’t allow her emotions to bring out the new feelings she evokes in me.
Not when it comes to this.
Because if I feel what I felt that night, it’ll destroy me.
Maybe it already has.
Then, by some miracle, she’s closing the distance between us. She sinks down onto the chaise beside me and places a tentative hand on my knee.
I can’t help grasping it and pressing her palm directly over my aching heart. She doesn’t pull away.