Page 117 of Fallen Hero

Every kiss, every touch, every sweet word a lie rolling off his forked tongue.

Did she fight? Did she try to run? Did he tie her up, drug her, did he hurt her before he’d handed her over to his father?

The answers wouldn’t bring Lili back. Knowing would only give my brain more information to torment me with, yet that’s where my mind went.

My trauma response was the need to revive the trauma—keep it alive. Endure more pain so I never forgot Lili.

I couldn’t stop the cycle.

I now associated my big sister with suffering—hers, my family’s, my mother’s drinking. Any memories of happiness had been lost to me. My sole focus had been on her final years.

My need for revenge.

I’d convinced myself the only way I’d find peace was if I killed Jason.

Then I met Mason . . . and within a few days, he’d proved me wrong.

Could I give up a twenty-year vendetta for a man who I’d known for a handful of days?

This doesn’t feel like friends.

Um. What does it feel like?

Like you’re mine.

Was I Mason’s? He sure made me feel like I was.

I looked away from Jason, out the hangar, and took in nothing but brown sand as far as the eye could see, with a makeshift air traffic tower next to the runway.

Was it too late? If I managed to slip out, there were only a handful of buildings I could hide in or behind. My white T-shirt and jeans would do me no favors blending into the wasteland. I had no weapon. Both Jason and Bodhi were armed.

Shit odds.

However slim the possibility, I had to try to run.

“You always win!” Lili yelled from behind me.

“Not always,” I huffed, and bent double to rest my hands on my thighs.

I glanced over at the Atlantic and tried to catch my breath while Lili caught up to me, standing on the finish line we’d drawn in the sand.

“I wish we could move here,” Lili said when she made it to me.

“You just want to tell people you live in Kill Devil Hills.”

My sister’s laughter drowned out the sound of the ocean.

“Not true. I want to build sandcastles and skim board and twirl in the ocean.”

I watched Lili spin on the wet sand, and the white foamy seawater danced around her ankles.

“I want that too,” I told her.

Lili stopped spinning and smiled at me. “You don’t always have to want what I want, CeCe.”

Her declaration felt like a punch to my stomach. Did she not want me to like the same things as her? “But you’re my sister.”

Lili skipped back to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the water until it lapped at our knees.