Protecting Dallas

“Dallas—”

“Don’t ‘DALLAS’ me!” I shouted at whichever one of them had said it. “You have each other, at least. You’ll always have each other. But Connor… Connor’s gone. Gone forever from my life, just like everyone else.”

I stared back at them accusingly, their pity only magnifying my rage.

“Dallas, listen…”

“No, you listen!” I screamed. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like. You can’t possibly—”

“DALLAS!” someone boomed.

I stopped in the middle of my rant, my whole body shaking, tears streaming down both my cheeks. Two fell simultaneously from either side of my face, racing each other to the floor.

“Dallas,” Kane said again, his voice only slightly lower this time. “You said you came here with nothing but the clothes on your back?”

It wasn’t a statement, it was a question… and one that made little sense. I cocked my head and stared back at him icily. There was challenge in my eyes.

“Yes,” I practically spat. “What’s your point?”

Slowly Kane raised his arm. He extended one thick finger and pointed it directly at me.

“So then what’s that around your neck?”

Forty-Eight

DALLAS

I reached up without thinking, my hand closing reflexively over the tiny diamond-shaped pendant. My brother’s pendant.

“Connor gave it to me,” I said defensively.

“When?”

I had to think for a moment. “For my birthday,” I said, remembering. “H—He sent it to me for my birthday.”

“Sent it to you?”

“Yes,” I said, lowering my head. The sorrow was threatening to take over again. “It… it was…”

“The last thing he sent you before he died,” Kane finished for me.

I nodded glumly. A few moments of silence went by, and Maddox picked up my chair. The only noise in the whole kitchen was the ticking of the cheap plastic wall clock. I really should’ve bought a better one.

“Was there a note when he sent it?” asked Kane. “A card or something?”

I sniffed again. The tears were still coming. “No.”

“Bro,” Maddox stepped in. “Enough with the Connor questions, huh? She’s upset. She’s—”

Kane hal

ted his friend’s sentence with a hard, scary look. Reluctantly but definitively, Maddox backed off.

“No note, no card,” I answered, thinking back. “Just the pendant.”

Come to think of it, it was something I’d thought was weird at the time. Connor always sent me birthday cards. He liked to write notes too, hinting at where he was, or what he might be doing.

“A pendant…” Kane asked, squinting. “or a locket?”