Page 50 of Thunder

From Dakota, it's practically a hug.

And on the far side of the room, leaning against the wall with a vending machine coffee he isn't drinking, is Shiver.

I don't know when he got here.

But he pushes off the wall when he sees me and crosses over, and for half a second I brace, because I've learned to brace, because family coming toward me lately has mostly meant getting hurt.

Shiver opens his arms. "C'mere, baby sister."

And I go.

God, I go, I walk right into my big brother's arms and he wraps me up, road dust and leather and the faint smell of the whiskey he must've had waiting somewhere.

He holds on tight and says into the top of my head, "You did good today. Heard you drove her in yourself."

"Thunder drove."

"Heard you didn't leave her side." He pulls back and holds me at arm's length, and Shiver's got our father's eyes but none of our father's lies in them, and he looks at me steadily. "I need you to hear somethin', and I need you to actually hear it, not just nod. Are you ready?"

I nod. Then, because he said not to just nod: "Yeah. I'm ready."

"None of this was ever your fault." He says it slow and plain, like he's laying each word down where I can't miss it. "Not one piece of it. You didn't kill anybody. You didn't bury anybody. You didn't spend two years lyin' to your own kids. You found out the same day the rest of us did and you got treated like you held the shovel, and that's not right, and I've been meanin' to say so for weeks."

His jaw works. "I'm sorry it took me this long. Grace and Dakota, they'll get there, they're just hurtin' and you've got the face that reminds 'em. But me? I never once blamed you. I want you to know that. You've still got one sibling who never let go of your hand."

And I lose it.

I cry into my brother's chest in a hospital waiting room, ugly and grateful and a month's worth of held-together finally coming apart at the seams.

He just holds me and lets me, one big hand on the back of my head, rock steady.

"There it is," he murmurs. "Been holdin' that a while, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"I got some idea."

He lets me cry it out, and when I finally pull back and wipe my face he hands me a napkin from his pocket, and he watches me put myself back together with a look I can't quite read.

And then, quiet, just for me. "He treatin' you right?"

Everything in me goes still.

"What?"

"Thunder." Shiver says it easy, like he's commenting on the weather, but his eyes are sharp on my face.

"Saw how he came outta that truck when you got here. Saw how he watched them doors after they took Grace back, like half of him wanted to go through 'em after you. Man watches a woman like that, it means somethin'."

A pause. "So. He treatin' you right?"

I open my mouth to deny it.

It's right there, the reflex, the lie I've been living behind for weeks.

But this is Shiver.

Shiver who just told me he never let go of my hand. Shiver who's got no lies in his eyes.