AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I go to her, wrapping her in my arms and holding her. “I’m sorry.”
When I arrived at Nina’s apartment and found Scarlet covered in her blood, as I sat opposite her in the hospital room and watched thoughtlessly as Elliot pulled his sweatshirt over her head to cover NinaandJoey’s blood, my mind wasn’t with her. It was with Nina and whether she’d make it back to me.
I’ve always known my sister is a fighter, but the way she fought for Nina and Joey’s lives isn’t something I’ll ever forget.
I’m not sure it’s something she’ll ever forget either.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again, forcing the barrage of emotion building in my throat back down. “I’m so sorry.”
She cries in my arms, not saying a word and not asking for a single thing from me. After a while, she leans back an inch, finally lifting her eyes to mine. And the raw pain I find in them sends my heart sailing down the centre of my chest.
Lance.
“Did he hurt you?”
She tries to mask the emotion, but it eventually wins out and screws up her face in sadness. She shakes her head and whispers, “God, no.”
I let out a shaky breath, holding her tighter. “What happened, Scar?”
“We didn’t tell you,” she says into my sweater. “I kept asking him to wait, or the time wouldn’t be right, and he’d put it off.”
I frown, piecing together the parts I have. The way Lance looked at her. The way he did what he did for her. “The two of you are together?”
“He saved me, Mase. When there was no one left to pull me out of this place, he saved me.”
He saved her?
“And now he’s not here, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You know, your sister once told me that when you’re carrying all that you can in your hands, you can’t allow yourself to feel guilty about anything that spills over.”
“When did she tell you that?”
“A long time ago.”
I close my eyes, sucking in a breath as realisation dawns. “Lance saved you?”
“In more ways than he’ll ever know.”
“Lance,” I repeat, almost tasting the sound of his name on my tongue as he becomes someone else entirely to me.
“I love him,” Scarlet mutters, her eyes filling again. “I’m pretty sure he’s the only person I’ll ever love.”
As he becomes someone my baby sister loves.
It wasn’t until Scarlet left the hospital that I thought about everything that had unfolded. I kept coming back to the moment Lance’s eyes met hers when the police arrived. The apology. The tears.
It was as if I knew all at once. As if it made sense. And yet it didn’t.
Because why wouldn’t he tell me?
He saved me, Mase.
He saved her… while I saved myself.
If I didn’t owe Lance Sullivan enough already, he made sure I’d owe him the world.
I take my sister’s chin and lift her face up, dropping my forehead to hers. “I never saved you, Scar. When Mum and Dad died. When you were alone after. When a man came at you with a knife.” I screw my eyes tightly together at the memory. “Never in my thirty-four years haveIsavedyou. You deserved to be saved ten times over, and if Lance ends up not being able to save you this time, if he has to go away for a while, I’ll be here in his place.” A tear lines my cheek as she crumbles in my hold, dropping her head to my chest. “You won’t be alone this time, Scar.”
