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ChapterThirty-One
Eden
I stepped on the gas and blew through every yellow light that got in my way. I rolled through stop signs as if it were my full-time job and I didn’t stop moving until I started down the hill that led straight toward my parents’ driveway.
I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even realize my sister’s car was also parked in front of their house until I pulled up beside it. She’d had her rusty hatchback for years, and as I parked my shiny new Tesla beside her vehicle, I sat for a moment to catch my breath.
And it wasn’t until my sister ripped my car door open that I ripped myself out of the fog of my own confusion.
“Jesus, I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said breathlessly.
I barely got myself unbuckled before she tugged at my hands. She pulled me in for a massive hug, and I buried my face into the crook of her neck. My entire body shook with fear and fury. Someone had violated my space. The one place where I felt safe and tucked away from the rest of the world. I wasn’t sure if I could ever go back. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel safe there again.
“They didn’t take anything of yours, either?” Emily asked.
I paused at her question. “What?”
She held me out, her hands squeezing my shoulders. “My place was ransacked as well. They didn’t take anything?”
I tilted my head. “You were robbed?”
Dad ripped my bag out from the backseat. “Come on, girls. Inside. Now.”
The urgency in his voice pulled me back to the present, but it was the way his eyes kept darting around that told me he knew something. He knew what was happening. Or, at the very least, he had an idea as to what was happening. I gazed into my sister’s eyes and watched as the watery fear dripped down her cheeks. I brushed her tears away. I kissed her forehead and pulled her in for one last hug. Then, with the both of us wrapped up in each other’s arms, we made our way into our childhood home.
Before Mom quickly closed—and locked—the door behind us.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Dad set my bag down at the bottom of the steps. “Your room is ready upstairs. We just helped Em get settled and--”
“Dad,” my sister said. “Stop.”
“I’ll go check the windows, too,” Mom said breathlessly.
Dad nodded. “Thanks, beautiful.”
I pulled away from Em’s embrace. “You know what’s happening, don’t you?”
His gaze searched my stare. “Why don’t you and your sister go get showered and changed? I’m sure you are both still rattled from--”
“Dad!” Em exclaimed.
As Mom rushed around us, locking windows and pulling curtains, I held his gaze. There was something in his features that set me on edge. Something that I’d never seen before. My father had always been the calm one. The cool one. The collected one. He always had a word of encouragement and a way to pull you out of your own worries.
I’d never once seen him scared in all my life.
But, as I gazed into his eyes, the fear that dripped over his features stopped my heart in my chest.
“Dad, you’re shaking,” I said softly.
He clenched his jaw before jamming his hands into his pockets. “You two should really go get a shower. A hot shower would do you some good.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder and furrowed my brow. “Dad, look at me.”
“I am looking at you.”
“Don’t look through me, look at me.”
