Page 41 of Weight of Guilt

Nora looked at her as if she’d expected better. “That’s what we said yesterday.”

Nobody had an answer for that.

Nora let out a breath and stared out at the stretch of yard. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you both. Before he’s up.”

Wren’s stomach tightened at the ominous sound of her voice. “Okay.”

“I didn’t sleep last night,” Nora said. “I heard a noise around three, so I went to check on Christian. His door was cracked, but he wasn’t in bed.”

“Where was he?” Marlowe asked.

“He was standing on the desk chair. Barefoot. Facing the window.” Nora’s hands finally went still around the mug. “He wasn’t looking outside. Not really. He was just standing there as if he’d been called to attention and forgot to stand down.”

Wren’s blood chilled. “Did you wake him?”

“I said his name. Twice. He didn’t answer, didn’t blink, didn’t move at all—and that’s the part I can’t shake, how long it took before anything in his face changed.” Nora set the mug down on the step beside her. “Then all at once, he came back. He looked down at himself like he had no idea how he’d gotten up there. Then he asked me what happened.”

Wren’s chill grew even frostier. “He didn’t remember?”

Nora shook her head. “Not any of it.”

Wren wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to place the feeling crawling up the back of her neck.

It wasn’t exactly fear. It was something colder than that.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Chills continued to race through Wren. “What do you think it means? That he was standing there like that.”

“I don’t know what it means. I know what it looks like.” Marlowe pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “It looks like someone programmed him to do it or something, like maybe a punishment his subconscious is reliving.”

“Or it could be trauma,” Nora said. “PTSD does strange things to people. Night terrors. Dissociation. If something happened to him—happened to him over and over, for years—his body might just keep doing it whether he’s aware of it or not.”

“That’s not better, Nora.” Marlowe gave her a look.

“I didn’t say it was better. I said it’s possible.” Nora’s jaw tightened. “I’m not trying to make this into something worse than it already is.”

“Standing at attention in the middle of the night is already something worse than it already is.” Marlowe’s voice climbed again, thin at the edges. “You said he didn’t even blink. That’s not a nightmare. That’s—I don’t know what that is. But it’s not normal.”

“None of this is normal.” Wren kept her voice even, though her pulse hammered in her ears. “That’s not the question. The question is whether it’s something he can’t help, or something someone brainwashed him into doing. We have no idea still what he’s been through.”

“Either way it means somebody had him long enough to do it.” Marlowe’s pitch lilted higher.

No one answered.

Wren watched Mason chase Bo, his laugh free and easy. She wanted to keep it that way—that innocent—for as long as she could. But right now that felt impossible.

“If someone trained that into him,” Nora said, “trained him to go still like that, silent, for who knows how long—that’s not something you do to a kid you’re keeping safe.”

“What do you think he went through?” Marlowe whispered.

“Part of me doesn’t want to think about it.” Nora pressed her lips together.

Inside, the phone rang, and Wren was up before either of her sisters could move. “I’ll get that.”

She went inside, crossed to the kitchen, and lifted the receiver off the wall. “Hello?”