“Okay,”
“Good girl.”
I wait until she disappears through thefront door before turning back toward the road, every instinct I’d spent years working on slipping effortlessly back into place. Whatever peace I’d found over the past fortnight or so evaporates with the sound of the approaching engine. Whatever is coming… I’ll make damn sure it never reaches her.
The dark truck rounds the final bend before rolling to a stop outside the cemetery gates, the engine idling for only a moment before falling silent. I don’t move.
The driver’s door opens, and the first thing I see is a familiar black boot hitting the ground. Then, dark hair.
I could fucking kill her.
Katia looks up, spots me standing beside the trench, and immediately breaks into a smile before lifting one hand into an overly enthusiastic wave.
“Hey, brother!”
I don’t wave back. I’m too busy glaring at her through the cemetery gates, hoping she slips on a piece of fucking ice for almost giving me a damn heart attack.
“Well, fuck,” she says dramatically. “Who shat all over your bagel?” she says, noticing my obvious annoyance at her unannounced arrival.
“You.”
She clutches a hand to her chest, stopping in her tracks as though I’ve mortally wounded her beforebeginning her walk up the path that leads to where I stand.
“What can I do for you, Katia?” I sigh, shoving my hands into the pockets of my baggy sweats. Her eyes slowly roll over me, taking in the dirt covering my clothes, then shrugging it off. Good thing I dig graves for a living.
“You look like shit.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“No.” She narrows her brown eyes at me, giving me one of her famous looks that have most people sweating. But she’s the last person on the planet that can rattle me. “You look…happy.”
I don’t answer. Katia has always been annoyingly good at reading people. Something we usually have in common. Unfortunately for me, she’s reading me now. And I actually have something to hide for once. She lets the silence drag on just long enough to make things feel ten times more uncomfortable then they need to be before glancing around the cemetery. Her eyes fall to the trench I dug earlier.
“Are you gardening?”
I shrug, watching as her gaze drifts over the headstones and the remnants of broken stone and discarded debris I’m yet to dispose of that had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the woman hiding inside my house.
“Something like that.”
She follows the fresh line carved through the snow, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as it disappears toward the side of the house. My stomach sinks when her gaze lifts. Mine follows it. Standing in the window, peaking through the lace curtains is my little ghost, one hand curled around the timber frame, watching us with quiet curiosity.
Fuck.
The second she realizes Katia is looking straight at her, her eyes widen, panic flashing across her face before she disappears, the curtain swaying gently behind her, and my heart damn near stops.
Slowly, Katia turns back to me, her eyes impossibly wide.
“I hope you know what you’re doing there,” she says carefully, and I don’t miss the worry in her tone. Katia has always been protective over me. She’s a little older, but not by much, yet she’s been like a mother figure for most of my life. I hold her stare.
“You saw nothing.”
A beat passes between us and I watch as her brows knit together, confusion giving way to concern, then something far more dangerous. Understanding.
“Got it?”
She doesn’t answer straight away, instead, she studies me, looking for some sort of explanation that she knows I will not give her, then her eyes flick back up to the window. Piecing together a puzzle she hasno business knowing about. Slowly, she lets out a quiet breath through her nose.
“I got it,” she says at last. “But this…” Her eyes linger on mine as her expression changes to one I’ve only seen a handful of times before. Fear. “I hope you know what you’re doing, little brother.”
