I looked up at Liam, who scaled the balustrade with quite a bit more finesse. He held a hand down to me, that warm smile of his playing at the corner of his mouth as he looked at my splayedform.
I groaned and took his hand, letting him carry most of my weight as he pulled me to myfeet.
It wasbreathtaking.
London’s skyline stretched out before us with its many lights. There were taller buildings to be sure, but none close to us. It was just us and the open sky, and the city with all its stress and rules far below. And I felt…free.
Something pressed against the insides of my chest, as if fighting against the confines of my ribcage. I breathed deeply, big gulps of air, filling my lungs until I thought they mightburst.
Free.
Only riding a horse at a full gallop across the meadows when I was a kid had ever compared tothis.
“How did you know what was up here?” I whispered, not looking at the young man by my side who’d shown me what I’d been missing all along without knowing it. I wasn’t sure I could, because if I looked at him right now, I knew I’d never be able to hold back the flood of emotion bubbling up inside of me and threatening to burstout.
“Me and my brother, we always used to climb the trees in our garden to get away when things got too rough at home. Every problem seems so small when you’re up high. It’s only your own strength that matters then. When… when things got worse, we climbed higher. I’ve been scaling buildings since before I hitpuberty.”
“When your mother got shot,” I said softly, grabbing his large hand in mine. I knew what he meant from the emotion in his voice—it was the same as when he’d first told me about how shedied.
Something in the small gasp of air that escaped him made me finally look up at him. He was staring at me with pure shock, and I frowned inconfusion.
“What?”
“He told you?” he said, his voice not much more than awhisper.
21
Louis
“Who told me what?”she asked, her flushed face pulling into a confusedfrown.
He’d told her. She knew about our mother and how shedied.
For the longest moment I couldn’t do anything but stare down at the small by my side, who knew about my most painful loss because my twin had shared it with her. We never spoke about her, with anyone. Hardly even each other. The loss had been too painful to ever fully process, even if we’d been too young to understand at thetime.
But Audreyknew.
And for some reason, it shook me to mycore.
“Liam?” she asked, clearly worried by my sudden shocked silence. “Who told mewhat?”
“Sorry, I… forgot you knew about that,” I said, shaking my head to dismiss my oddoutburst.
“I guess you haven’t told that many people,” she said, giving my hand a gentlesqueeze.
“No one,” I said. “No one beforeyou.”
She bit her lip and gave my hand another squeeze. “Do you want to tell me how ithappened?”
I opened my mouth to tell her no, but something about the way she looked at me made me hesitate before I could get the words out. There was so much emotion in those beautiful brown eyes of hers, so much trust, and for reasons I could never explain, right then I wanted nothing more than to tell her everything. With a certainty that shook my very foundation, I suddenly knew that I wanted her to see all the pain of my mother’s death and everything that’d happened aroundit.
But if I did that, I would have to explain about my Family. What we were. WhatIwas.
“I can’t,” I said softly before I reached for her cheek with my free hand and brushed a stray lock of hairaway.
She smiled up at me, a sad little tilt of her lips, and pressed her cheek against my hand, like a cat looking for affection. “Whenever you’re ready, I’mhere.”
I finally got it, then. What Liam saw inher.