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ALANA
“The bath is ready,” I say, walking back into the bedroom to find Kristie sitting up in bed with a mug of coffee in her hands.
Sure, those hands are trembling, and she looks awful, but she’s here, she’s alive and she’s awake.
It could be worse.
So much worse.
“Can you take this?” she asks, passing the mug over.
With the hot coffee warming my fingers, I’m forced to watch as my frail sister lifts the sheets from her body and attempts to get to her feet.
She’s wearing an old, dirty men’s t-shirt. Fuck knows who it belongs to, honestly, I’m too scared to ask.
No sooner has she stood up, do her knees buckle.
I practically throw the coffee on the nightstand so I can catch her.
“I’m okay. It just takes a while to find my balance,” she explains.
I bite back a million and one questions that range from asking how long she’s been living this life to how much she’s using.
But none of them are going to help either of us right now.
She clearly has a job—a fucking awful one—so she must be functioning, to a point.
I can only assume her drug addiction is to help numb the pain of what she was being forced to endure. But I’m not stupid enough to think that just because we’ve pulled her out of that environment, her withdrawals are going to be easy.
“I’m here, KK. Let me help, yeah.”
She nods once, conceding, and wraps her arm around me as I snake mine around her waist.
The second my fingers grip her, I feel her ribs.
I’m not sure what it is, maternal instinct or something, but I’m hit with a wave of possessiveness so strong that it almost takes me down too.
The need to fix her, to protect her, and to kill every motherfucker who had a hand in hurting her is almost too much to bear as I feel exactly what they’ve done to her.
Seeing it is one thing, but feeling how frail she is is another entirely.
We make it to the bathroom surprisingly quick, and the second we step through the door, Kristie breathes, “Wow.”
I get it. It’s seriously impressive in here.
“It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” I say as we approach the tub. “A far cry to what we’re used to.”
“Is this kind of luxury in your life now?”
“Uh… I mean, Reid’s house is pretty impressive but?—”
She tenses in my arms and cuts me off. “Reid. As in Reid Harris?”
“Uh…”
“Alana,” she gasps in faux horror. “Do you even realize the kind of life you are living right now? Who is the third?”
She might have recognized Mav, but that’s not really a surprise. She might have been young back then, but he was the one who paid the most attention to us. Reid and JD might have been around, but they didn’t care about what we were doing. They were too busy looking up to the men they thought were gods.
