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“So long as your version of getting by doesn’t result in name-dropping or throwing your old friends under the bus, we’re golden,” he replied, handing me a baggie of pills. “But the minute you even consider crossing me, it’ll be over for you, kid. I’ll come down harder on you than your daddy ever did. You remember that.”
______________________
By the time I managed to make it back to the house, every wall in my world felt like it was closing in on me and I was suffocating from the pressure.
Mam.
Dad.
Darren.
Molloy.
Shane.
The baby.
The Kavanaghs.
The kids.
Shannon’s bullies.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
With my body in pieces and my mind reeling, I barely managed to get my key out of the front door when Shannon came barreling toward me. “You’re back!” She threw her arms around me as her small body trembled. “Thank God.”
I was tired. I was so fucking weary, and my sister’s arms felt like concrete boulders weighing down on me, pushing me deeper into the darkness.
“It’s okay, Shan. It’s all good,” I tried to soothe, because I had a love in my heart for this little girl that no volume of drugs or depths of depression could kill.
Except that she wasn’t a little girl anymore.
She was a young woman, and it gave me hope.
Hope that she’d survive what I couldn’t.
What I failed to do.
There was a family waiting to take her in.
To take all of them in.
Because something deep inside of me, in the parts that still worked, assured me that I could trust the Kavanaghs. It was the same part of me that had locked on tight to Aoife Molloy. If I did nothing else in this world, I would see this through. I would get these kids the fuck out of this hellhole, I would.
“Wait!” Catching ahold of my arm when I tried to step around her, Shannon pulled me back to face her. “Look at me.”
Having nothing left to give or lose, I did as she asked.
“Joe.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Why?”
“Just get off my back, Shan,” I replied, too damn weary to go another round with anyone, much less her. I knew what she was upset about, but I couldn’t hide it anymore. “I’m fine.”
“Joey,” Mam cried out when I walked into the kitchen with my sister hot on my heels. “Oh, thank God.”
Thank God?
Yeah fucking right.
