Smother (22 page)

“Do you know him? Do you know who he is? You have to tell the cops if you do. He’s dangerous.”

Reese stared at the bruises lining Josie’s skin like a necklace of abuse, finding that statement oddly funny, especially about Sawyer. “No. I don’t know him.” She met Josie’s eyes. “Why are you here, really?”

“That man—he could hurt me too, and my . . .” Josie’s voice faltered and her eyes lowered.

“He would
never
hurt you,” Reese denied vehemently.

Josie frowned at her, her arms dropping from her stomach. “You do know him.”

“He would never hurt you like Sawyer hurts you. And like he hurt me. You should be thanking him, not crying over the man that hits you.” Reese moved for the door. “I don’t know him, no, but if I did, I would be grateful to him.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the girl she’d once considered her friend, and because of that, Reese told Josie, “Get out now, before it’s too late.”

She heard her whisper something that sounded like: “It’s already too late.”

Reese looked at her one last time before crossing the street to Leo’s, and saw Josie’s hands protectively cover her belly. The image that implied turned her stomach. She faced forward and shut out that part of her past as she strode to the stairwell she never wanted to climb.

It was too much of a coincidence. The two events happening within supposed days or weeks of each other didn’t make any other sense, especially with her recent meltdown—not to mention the physical condition Leo had been in too many times lately. She didn’t know how she felt about that.

Frightened, definitely, but for what reasons?

Leo’s vehicle was gone, and that made her move faster. She flew up the stairs, knowing if any door was unlocked, it would be this one. No one with even a hint of brain cells would climb these steps, no matter how desperate they were to rob a place. Proof of that was when a gusty wind picked up and the whole thing swayed with it. Terror screeched over her back like the claws of doom and she quickened her pace.

The door was unlocked and Reese blew out a noisy breath of relief as she stepped inside and quietly closed it behind her. She took in the walls painted in gray with white trim and ceilings high enough for someone of Leo’s height to walk comfortably under. She hadn’t paid much attention to details the other two times she was inside and was surprised that the layout of the living area was welcoming despite the limited space.

The aroma of coffee lingered in the apartment, and his scent clung to the walls as well, telling anyone who didn’t know that this was a man’s place. Her skin heated up and she swallowed, turning her attention away from the response even the hint of his presence provoked in her.

She didn’t know what breaking and entering was going to accomplish, other than jail time, but Reese thought there might be clues to the strange coincidence of her past and its connection to his present lying around the apartment somewhere. Reese started in the living room. The pristineness of it was enough to make her roll her eyes. Paintings hung centered on the walls, brown leather furniture was strategically placed for optimal evenness, and not a smidge of dust coated a vent.

Curiosity took her to his bedroom and she leaned against the doorframe as she studied it, visually drinking in Leo’s personal space and in no way ashamed about it. This was forbidden, a place she’d thought about so often that seeing it in person took away some of the thrill. This was where he slept, vulnerable and peaceful.

The walls were painted the same as the other rooms, and the room was sparsely furnished with a bed, dresser, and a rickety desk and chair under a window. She stepped into the room, parted the curtains of the window, and her pulse picked up. He had a perfect view of the roof. Reese placed her palm to the cool glass, envisioning him doing the same as he watched her in the dark. Always watching over her.

She turned to leave the room and her gaze went to the bed. It was king-sized with dark blue bedding. She imagined him sprawled out across the bed, hands behind his head, bottomless gray eyes momentarily resting as he slept. Reese forced herself to turn and go back to the desk she’d seen in the living room. Made of dark wood and antique-looking with rounded edges, it had a roll top with a lock. She bent down and studied it, wondering if a paper clip would work to unlock it.

First, she put her hands on it and pushed upward to see if it actually was locked or if it was an illusion. The top slid up with a faint clacking sound and her heartbeat went into hiatus. A frown pinched her eyebrows at the contents. It looked like folders and files. Then she noticed the yearbooks. She took one out, recognizing the school. The thin book dropped from her hands and she took a step back.

Reese stared at it like it was venom and if she touched it, her fatality was imminent. Dread swam through her limbs, made them heavy. She wanted to step away, leave the apartment, and forget she ever wanted to know anything about Leo.

After she counted to sixty and let curiosity take over the fear, Reese picked it back up with fingers that shook. She scrolled through the names and pictures, glancing back at the front cover. She would have been a freshman this year. There she was—somber Reese with her sad, jaded eyes.

She hadn’t been able to hide it as well back then, but she’d learned. Her stomach clenched and she let the book fall from her fingers, swiping the other books from the desk and noting the year on them as well before she threw them to the floor. Reese didn’t want to look at that version of herself. She kicked at one and watched it skid across the floor. She couldn’t compute in her head what this meant, so she stepped away from it.

Reese opened a folder next, swaying on her feet at the first picture. The walls around her shrank and a hum started in her ears. It was a picture of the dark-haired stranger that stopped at the tattoo shop weeks ago, standing with a younger Leo. Neither wore smiles, though their stances spoke of closeness. What the fuck? Was he his father or something?

The next picture made the walls spin, or maybe that was her. It was the same dark-haired man, holding a baby girl. She recognized that picture. She knew that picture. Reese’s mouth went dry and her head pounded with disbelief. She stared at the man, the blood in her veins pumping the truth at her. She found another picture of him, holding a different baby girl. And yet another of the man with a blond-haired toddler sporting a happy smile on her face. Her throat tightened and tears stung her eyes.

The pictures continued, showing merged worlds she hadn’t known existed, giving her more questions than answers. She yanked the remaining folders from the desk and flung them across the room, photographs and papers of lies and truths raining down on the room. Reese fell to her knees among them, sickness and fear whittling a hole inside her.

One picture caught her eye, and she crawled over to it, sobs breaking from her in pitiful gasps of air and anguish. It was of a blond girl holding a newborn, bright grin stretching her face. Another of the same blond girl, this time taken from far away. The child was unaware, standing on a sidewalk with her head down as she waited for the bus. Reese remembered that day, remembered wanting to get on that bus and stay there. She wanted to let it take her away to anywhere. Reese imagined riding the bus to newer places, better places, where dads didn’t leave and moms didn’t let their daughters be hurt the way she was.

This was her life. Her sad, miserable life, captured in photographs.

Answers formed in her head, too insane to be true. She saw her adoptive father in some of the photos, always from a distance. She was glad of that. Looking into his face pointblank would have severed her in two. Seeing him at all made her skin clammy and her pulse threaten to go so fast it had no choice but to stop. She heard his voice, remembered his blue eyes staring into her and not really seeing her. Reese put a hand to her mouth, forced the bile down.

Reese cried at the pictures of her sister. She still smiled when Reese stopped. The older she got, the emptier it became. Morgan was gone long before that car wreck. Reese clutched a photograph to her chest, tears falling onto it, washing it with her grief.

She should have taken her with her.

She should have gone back sooner.

Reese had lied to herself, told herself he wouldn’t touch her. Told herself Morgan would be okay. She’d escaped while leaving her sister to be her replacement. Nausea hijacked her stomach and she raced for the bathroom, vomiting forcefully. Acid laced her tongue and she rinsed her mouth out, staring at the pale image looking back through the mirror. When she looked at herself, all she saw was something ugly.

The longer she stared at herself, the more she saw her sister’s pretty face in the reflection instead of hers. Reese saw into her past, fingers clenching the porcelain of the sink as memories stripped away the present without apology.

Reese sat on the curb outside the brick building for over an hour, gnawing on her fingernails and smoking cigarettes. She now had a dry mouth and stubs for nails. The cool spring day made her wish she’d brought a warmer jacket with her, even as the sun deceptively shone with the promise of heat. She hated this town, hated this school. Her skin crawled with the need to get out of here, but she wasn’t going, not without Morgan.

She knew her the instant she saw her, even with space and kids between them.

“Morgan,” Reese called as she jogged after her.

She pushed past people, so many people, and kept her eyes locked on a pale head. This was a school where people were just a number. Not really a person, not really something that mattered. Reese was out of breath, nerves on fire and anxiety propelling her forward. She had to get to her, she had to get to her.

“Morgan. Morgan, wait!”

Morgan turned to look at her and her pulse careened. Dressed in a cream top with roses and a knee-length pink skirt, she was innocence and sweetness. Soft skin and pretty edges of blond hair and blue eyes with golden skin. Even as awe struck her, dismay followed. She was too pretty, much too pretty for him to leave alone.

A brown-haired girl looked at Morgan and said, “I’ll see you inside.” She walked away.

Her sister absently nodded, eyes on Reese.

“Morgan,” she whispered. Reese wanted to pull her into her arms and never let her go. She wanted to be the sister she should have been all these years and hadn’t been able.

She wanted to save her.

Morgan looked at her, her smile plastic and her eyes not really focused on her. “Hello.”

“Morgan, it’s me.” She swallowed, took a step closer. “It’s Reese. Your—your sister.”

She blinked, fingers tightening around her backpack strap. “No.”

Reese lifted her hands, aware that teenagers were hurrying into the school before the bell sounded, knowing a few even watched them. “Yes. I’m here. Don’t you recognize me? I came back . . . I came back for you.”

“How?” She wasn’t looking at her, focusing on something over her shoulder.

Confusion pulled her eyebrows down and Reese told her, “I took a bus. Another one leaves in an hour. I want you on it with me. I want you to come with me.”

She tried to touch her and Morgan carefully stepped back. Reese let her hand fall, feeling helpless. Her heart was painfully squeezing, her pulse in beat with a growing sense of loss. This was all wrong.

“Come with you?” Morgan repeated softly, finally looking at Reese.

“Yes.” She tried to smile, but it felt tight and forced. “I told you I would come back for you. It just—it took longer than I thought. Please, come with me. I can take you away from here. We can start over, just you and me.” She beckoned with her hand again, offering it and all of her. Morgan only had to take it.

“Why would I want to do that?”

Reese swallowed, slowly lowering her hand. She studied her sister’s blank, porcelain features, and felt like she was looking at a doll. There was no emotion, no life. A cool breeze picked up, blowing silken strands of hair into Morgan’s eyes. She didn’t move them away, all of her frozen like a statue.

“Morgan,” she pleaded, clasping her hands together beneath her chin. “What did he do to you?”

“He’s my dad and he loves me,” she said tonelessly.

Reese shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. She was crying for her sister, the real one, the one that wasn’t here. “No. That isn’t love.”

Life sparked into Morgan’s eyes, changed them from pale blue to dark. “You left me.”

“I had to. I’m sorry. I had to.” Guilt shredded her heart, burned a hole through her.

She could have stayed. She could have refused to leave when her mom told her to. She could have saved her sister from this. Reese could have made Morgan’s life better at the cost of her own. She was selfish. She’d picked herself. Now Reese was staring at what she would have been, if she’d stayed, and what was her sister staring at? Nothing better.

The bell sounded, a shriek of noise that caused her to flinch.

“Goodbye, Reese,” her sister said with finality, walking past her.

She whirled around, panic telling her not to let her go. If she let her go, she’d never see her again. Reese sprinted for her, grabbing her backpack and spinning her around. “You have to come with me, Morgan.” She gripped her frail arms, squeezing, never wanting to leave her again. “I’m serious. You have to.”

Morgan looked at her, her expression calm. “Let me go.”

“No.” The word was choked, her hands trembling around her sister’s arms. “I can’t let you go again.”

Morgan dipped her head forward and rested her forehead against Reese’s. She put her mouth close to her ear and whispered, “I’m already gone. You’re holding nothing.”

Reese dropped her hands as though burned and took a step back. She tried to speak, but her throat was closed. Incomprehension blazed through her eyes, and just as quickly, inarguable foreboding so intense and factual, there was nothing she could say. The truth stared back at her with dim blue eyes and the faint smile that didn’t touch any other part of her face. The pretty face that housed a broken mind and a dead heart.