Moonlight rained down and struck across the sharp, distinct angles of his face.
A devil who’d wormed his way into my life.
He lifted his chin in a gesture toward my door, and I realized he was waiting for me to go inside before he left.
My pulse skittered, and I tore myself from the spot, hurrying up the little walk that ran from the drive to the door. My hand shook like mad as I fumbled to find the right key, my heart in my throat as I turned the lock and let myself into my small home.
Reaching in, I flicked on the light and stepped inside, glancing back at the man who watched me.
Energy flashed.
A shockwave that I could almost see rippling across my yard.
Electric.
I ripped my attention from him and quickly locked the door behind me. I leaned against it, trying to catch my breath, to find my way back to who I was.
Dropping my purse on the couch, I moved to my bedroom, sank down on the side of the bed, and picked up the picture that sat on my nightstand.
Tears instantly stung.
It was one of Aaron and me. His arms were wrapped around me from behind, and that unending goodness radiated from his smile.
That hollow place howled, old grief tumbling through.
Deep and aching and unending.
Guilt came, too.
Wanting someone else for the first time, and in a way I never had before. In a way I didn’t know existed.
Those tears broke loose.
They streaked down my cheeks, and I lifted my face toward the ceiling.
God, give me wisdom, why did you bring me here? Is it wrong? Is it wrong?
Because I no longer knew what I was supposed to feel.
Eight
Trent
A torrent of rain poured from the turbulent sky as Trent fumbled across the lot.
Ground pitted and cracked.
A crater through the middle.
Everything slowed.
Spinning. Spinning. Spinning.
World coming off its hinges.
Confused.
Disoriented.
Wrong.
So wrong.
The eternal lights of Los Angeles gleamed and glinted against the heavens, his sight blurred and bleary as he searched through the smoke.
Desperate.
Frantic.
Trent dropped to his knees at his side.
A sob ripped up his throat, and his hands searched his body, like he could reach inside and stop it, take it away, keep it for himself the way it was supposed to be.
“No. No. No,” trembled from his mouth.
Blood covered Trent’s hands, the rain washing it away only for it to soak them again.
Tainting.
Destroying.
Wrong.
So wrong.
“No,” Trent choked, pressing down on his wounds. “Please, no.”
His hand fisted in Trent’s shirt, dragging him close, the words a gurgled rasp at Trent’s ear. “One reason. One reason.”
Tears streaked Trent’s cheeks, burns where the wind lashed at his face. Agony slashed. Cutting him in two.
He slumped down, his soul released, and with it, Trent felt a piece of himself go missing.
He lifted his face to the heavens and screamed.
One reason, one reason, one reason…
I jolted upright in bed, eyes flying open to the darkness that cloaked my room, air screaming in and out of my lungs in long pants and my heart thrashing in old pain.
The physical kind.
The kind you felt when you were always going to be missing something in the middle of yourself, and there was nothing you could do to get it back. It was going to ache and moan and bleed forever.
Truth that I was the one responsible for it in the first place? It boiled like poison in my spirit and coiled my stomach in nausea. In this disease that just kept festering. Rotting and decaying and somehow healing with the gift I’d been granted in the middle of it.
I heaved around the strain—the regret—the shit I could never take back—and I tried to get my bearings.
Rain pelted at the windows and wind howled through the trees. Every single time that shit brought the dream. A fuckin’ constant reminder of who I was, of what I’d done, not that I was ever gonna forget.
Exhaling heavily, I roughed a hand through my hair, trying to calm my battering heart, trying to jerk myself out of the past that would forever hold me hostage.
Distance and time didn’t matter.
But one thing did.
I tossed my sheets and climbed from my bed, easing out of the room and into the hall. I nudged the door open farther.
Nightlight aglow, his room was cast in stars, a galaxy hanging from the ceiling, his little body tucked under his covers and serenity on his face.
I edged inside, sat on the side of his bed, and brushed the golden hair from his forehead. I pressed a kiss to the skin.
One reason.
That’s all I had.
And I needed to remember that was all I was ever gonna need.
Nine
Trent
Los Angeles, Twenty-Five Years Ago
The soft, soft voice pulled him from sleep where Trent was tucked in his bed. Their mommy sang her favorite song she liked to sing, Amazing Grace, her voice the prettiest voice in the whole wide world.