“You don’t have to stay,” she murmurs.
“I’m not leaving you alone. Not tonight.”Not ever again, if you’d have me.
Her lips curve faintly. “Safe,” she whispers, closing her eyes against my chest.
And I lie awake long after she’s drifted off, staring at the ceiling.
But I’m not really staring at the ceiling.
I’m counting.
Her breaths: In two-three-four. Out two-three-four. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest. One-two-three-four.
I check my watch: 2:47 a.m.
Check her forehead: Temperature seems normal now.
Check her breathing: Still steady.
Check her pulse at her wrist: 62 bpm. Normal.
I should sleep. I should let her sleep without obsessively monitoring every breath.
But I can’t.
Because I know two things with absolute certainty:
I’m in love with my stepsister.
And I can’t imagine ever letting her go.
NINETEEN
HARPER
Sleep isn’t sleep.It’s fragments. Jumps. Flickers of neon. Hands on my skin. Breathing too fast.
Then—
Caleb.
His warm chest and his strong, warm arms that are like a shell of safety around me.
He’s real, unlike the nightmares.
Every time I jerk awake gasping, he’s exactly where I left him—holding me like I’m something precious instead of a mess of pain and stupid decisions. His gentle breath stirs my hair. His heartbeat is this slow, steady rhythm beneath my ear. When it feels like I’ve never had anything steady before.
But the dark is patient. Every time I close my eyes again, it seeps back in.
Trauma’s a bitch like that. It doesn’t stay buried—itdrags all your old shadows out by the hair and shoves them under your nose like:remember this?
Twelve-year-old me, jamming a chair under my bedroom doorknob.
Fourteen, sleeping with a knife under my pillow.
Sixteen, learning to become invisible because it was safer than fighting. Running, safer still.
Seventeen—becoming loud and reckless, daring people to hurt me because that was the only power I had left.