I trap his hand into mine and squeeze. I want him to know that I’m here. I’m here for whatever he’s about to say to me, for the lows and the highs, for the good and the bad. I’m here for whatever comes next. And I’ll still be here after he says it.
“I’m sorry. I know this doesn’t mean anything to you.” He runs a trembling hand through his hair and sucks in a breath. “I… I had a sister.”
He has such a hard time pronouncing these three words that I almost tell him to stop right there. I hate seeing him like this, but part of me feels like this might actually be good for him. He could use talking about it. He hasn’t in years.
“Desiree. That was her name. Des for short.”
I don’t speak, the hundred shattered pieces in my mind falling back together. She’s the one whose picture they removed from the frame. She’s the one who was cut out of the family photo. They cut her out. Their own kid. What kind of monsters are they?
“She was five.”
I catch myself holding my breath when his blue eyes singe mine. I’m impatient, yet reluctant, to learn why he said “had.”
“Tanner got involved in the street fighting mess long before I did. Our parents were never around. I mean, they were but… not for the stuff that mattered. Tanner started acting out, and he was the first of both of us to try and break free of the cage they put us in. We had to be perfect boys who would eventually take over Daddy’s business and make some more money when the time came, but we didn’t care. Tanner more than me.”
The bomb’s about to drop. I’m about to discover what turned Haze Adams’s heart into a block of ice. What stole his smile away between the picture of him at twelve and the one at fifteen.
“I was babysitting her. Tanner was out selling God knows what drug to some sicko, and my parents were at a fancy-people cocktail party for the night.” He stops and looks at me. Like he’s afraid that I can’t handle what’s coming. Li
ke he wouldn’t blame me if I walked out the door right now and never returned. So, before the walls come down and the mask comes off, I hold on to him. I intertwine our fingers and hope to bring him the comfort he needs. He smiles through the resentment…
And tells me the story I will never forget.
25
Revelation
F L A S H B A C K
Haze Adams woke up with a start, unusual noises he couldn’t identify pulling him out of brief but much-needed slumber. The clock on the wall read 2:00 a.m. The young boy frowned as he eyed the flat-screen TV in front of him. It was nowhere near loud enough to bother him, let alone wake him when he was this exhausted. His mind wandered to his sister sleeping upstairs.
He’d been watching her almost every single night that week. His parents loved to confuse their youngest son for a babysitter whenever it was convenient for them, but, as opposed to the majority of fourteen-year-old boys, Haze didn’t mind. Desiree was easy to babysit. She always had been. All she wanted was for her brother to read stories with happy endings to her. Haze didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wasn’t born into the right family to get one.
Since Desiree had officially entered her “monsters under my bed” phase, Haze had learned to sleep with one eye open to be ready whenever she called. Heaven knew he was the only one who’d come running if she did. Indeed, Haze had been like a parent to his sister for as long as he could remember. He couldn’t possibly count the amount of times she’d accidentally called him “Dad” or snuck into his room after she’d had nightmares. It was nothing new. It was an everyday thing at this point. Desiree’s father constantly promised his daughter that he’d play with her, only to back out and leave her big brother to comfort her. She pretended that she didn’t mind, but she held back tears every time her dad closed his office door in her face with the promise to play tomorrow.
The noises hit again, interrupting Haze’s foggy thoughts.
He cursed. This had to be Tanner trying to get in through a window again. This was the fourth time this week. It sometimes seemed like Haze’s older brother’s mission in life was to forget his keys. Like it was on his everyday to-do list. Or maybe his parents had changed their minds and decided to come home from their snobby friend’s reception instead of spending the night at the hotel.
When the noises sounded once more, this time louder, Haze got up. Something was wrong. He knew it, but he still tried to keep the whirlwind that was his mind from jumping to conclusions. Surely, if someone was breaking in, the high-tech and expensive security system his parents had installed on the house would’ve gone off. They’d paid a fortune for it. If something was going on, he would’ve known, right?
His heart jolted in his rib cage when the power went out, soaking the teenage boy and the Adams mansion in complete darkness. No power equals no high-tech security system, a voice in the back of his head reminded him.
Something was definitely wrong.
His pulse quickening, the boy grabbed the first thing he could find that somehow resembled a weapon—which, in this case, turned out to be a large marble vase his mother kept in the living room—and started walking to the kitchen where he hoped to find a knife. With trembling hands, he got his phone out of his pocket with the intention to dial 911.
Little did he know he’d never get a chance to press Call.
Someone launched at him from behind, spinning him around and punching him in the face with a strength Haze couldn’t match. His mother’s vase shattered into a million pieces as his cell phone fell a few feet away from him. The pain was nothing compared to the fear he felt when he looked up.
There they were.
Standing in his kitchen.
The silhouettes.
They were masked, dressed in black, tall, broad-shouldered, and very probably armed.