Page 150 of Catch the Sun

But I don’t.

I head inside my house instead.

Slamming the door behind me, I growl my pain into the quiet void as I tug at my hair and crouch down, my weight too heavy to bear. I take a few minutes to calm myself, collect my strength, and then I pull up to unsteady feet and make my way to my bedroom to decompress.

I stand in the center of the room and stare out the rain-glazed window, listening as the storm brews on the other side of the glass.

Seconds pass until I feel a presence behind me.

I jump in place, a yelp dislodging from my throat when my bedroom door slams shut.

McKay?

But when I whip around, my eyes land on Jonah leaning back against the doorframe, his every muscle taut and flexing. My chest fizzes, thrumming with relief when recognition settles in. I press a hand over my heart to calm the beats. “What are you doing here? I–I thought you wouldn’t be home until dinnertime.” I glance down at his hand clamped around a screwdriver.

I frown, confused.

His jaw is tight like a steel trap, green eyes wild and feral. “I got back early.” Jonah traipses across the room, sits down on my bed, and sets the screwdriver beside him on my nightstand.

“What’s that for?” I wonder, squeezing the front of my shirt, still trying to soothe my heartbeats.

“Fixing something for Mom,” he says.

Darkness lurks within his tone. His eyes are pinned on me, burning hot. I feel the heat from a few feet away. Swallowing, I clench my jaw. “Did you need something?” I ask casually, despite the dread kissing the back of my neck.

“Tell me more about the fall.” His words from the lake echo back at me, this time swirling with something sinister.

It doesn’t take me long to figure it out.

My heart drops out of me. It plummets to the ugly beige carpeting.

I stare at him, unblinking, anxiety carving out my chest. “What…what did you hear?”

He heard us. He heard me talking to McKay outside the house.

He knows.

“I heard enough.”

I crack on my inhale. “Jonah…”

“I need to hear it again,” he says, tone steady but menacing. “Did he do all that to you?”

All I do is shake my head.

“Say it, Ella. Tell me.”

My eyelids slam shut, my throat burning. “Jonah, please.”

“Did he try to rape you? Attack you? Put you in a goddamn coma for a month?” Shadows curl around him. His eyes are like the devil’s, his body flickering with suppressed fury. “Did he leave my little sister for dead at the bottom of afucking cliff?”

I can’t lie to him. I can’t lie anymore.

He already knows.

I cover my face with both palms and nod, breaking apart as the truth finally spills free and slices every piece of me on the way out. “Yes.”

Jonah jolts upright from the bed and stalks toward me, looking absolutely nothing like the brother I know. He looks like…

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