He’s not like us. He doesn’t have that burning ache inside him … that vicious need to kill.
I do, and Chase knows it all too well.
We’re both monsters hiding in plain sight.
But we gravitate toward each other because no one else in society will accept us. We don’t belong anywhere or with anyone. So where else am I supposed to go?
Dixie?
No. She’d probably never accept me back. Not after all the suffering I put her through.
Still, I can’t help wonder how she’s doing. If she’s taking care of herself. If she’s finding her way back in her old life. If that’s even possible anymore.
I swallow away the lump in my throat.
Maybe I should go visit her and see how she’s doing.
It wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?
* * *
Dixie
A week later
It almost never rains, but today the sky broke open. Ironic, considering today’s the day I bury my father. I can’t cry, so the clouds will force the water to roll down my face anyway. How poetic.
I stare at the dug up soil in front of me and watch the men lower his casket into the ground. I don’t feel anything except bitterness when I look at the wood under which his body rests.
Did he ever really love me?
All my life, I only wanted him to be proud of me. I was his only little girl. The one who always tried her hardest but never seemed to succeed in his eyes. I pushed myself past every limit for his love, and it got me nothing in return except a dead dad.
A dad who didn’t care for his daughter.
He cared so little that he just … died.
With a darkened face, I stare at the casket as the men leave me alone. There’s no one else here grieving for him, and I’m not even sure I am.
All I feel is the loneliness slithering through my veins, eating me up from the inside.
I have no one left.
Murdered brothers.
A mom who died of a heart attack a few days after.
And a dad who couldn’t be bothered to care about his own life enough to keep his daughter from becoming the only member of the Burrell family left standing.
Fuck.
“I fucking hate this family. I fucking hate you all,” I mutter under my breath.
It feels good to let it all out. Like a forbidden sin spoken out loud, finally released, but in a place no one will hear them. No one except me.
I will remember.
My family was all I had, and I thought it was important because my dad always said it was … and where did he end up? Under the ground. Just like my brothers and just like my mother.
No one who gives a shit about this family survives.
So I’m making it a point now to stop caring.
I’m no longer part of this family.
All I am is Dixie … a girl who so desperately wanted something better. Something worthwhile. Something she could be proud of.
I take a deep breath and lick my lips. The rain tastes like freshly mown grass and new beginnings.
Maybe it’s time to finally move on.
So I look up from the dull ground and focus on the sunlight breaking through the gray clouds. That’s when I notice him …
A man in a black suit, holding an umbrella in one hand and a crutch in the other as he stands behind a tree beyond the graveyard. When our eyes meet, he knows I know he’s there, but he doesn’t seem to care. Maybe he wants me to see that he’s here for me.
Always watching over me. Never too close to get in my way, but always near to remind me I’m not alone.
And even on this bleak, shrouded day, I smile.
He smiles back.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Brandon
In her knee-length black dress, she walks down the gravel path, exiting the graveyard. I can’t stop looking at her. She’s just as beautiful as she was when I first met her all those years ago, if not more beautiful now that we’ve both grown up.
Our eyes connect again, and I feel inclined to look away, but I don’t. Something about her perfect face forces me to engage. It doesn’t allow me to walk away.
So I stand and wait as she walks to me with soft steps, almost as if she’s tentatively waiting for me to approach her too. But I stay put. It’s not my place to decide when the time is right.
She swallows, and I do too. My body feels jittery as though I’m supposed to run or do some stupid push-ups against the tree even though I have a fucking crutch. Does it look dumb? It probably does, but I need it to be able to stand although I wish I could chuck it in the bushes right now and make it disappear.
Damn, just looking at her smile makes me feel like a goddamn teenager again. The last time I felt this way was when she stepped into my papa’s shop for the first time and bought that awful shirt.