Page 430 of Lodestar

Deciding to take that as a positive if it meant she’d open up to someone, I said, “I used to have bad dreams when I was your age.”

“What did you dream of?”

“A man who used to hurt me.”

“Why did he hurt you?”

“Because he could.” My throat bobbed. “Did your father hurt you, Kat?”

“No.” She had no idea how goddamn relieved I was. “He used to hurt Leo though. His daddy didn’t protect him. He said he needed to make him into a man but he was only little. How could he make him into a man by hurting him, Conor?”

Leo.

Her cousin.

“My da used to think like that, Kat. When I was your age and I had nightmares, my ma wasn’t allowed to come and help me get back to sleep.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is,” I agreed. “My brothers used to try to help but if they didn’t hear me then how could they?”

“They couldn’t. Which brother?”

“The older ones. Declan, when he understood, used to crawl into bed with me.” I swallowed.

“Did your da stop the man who used to hurt you?”

“No. My brothers did.”

“Which ones?”

“Aidan and Finn. They stopped him.”

I could still remember that day as if it had happened last week.

They’d burst into the church like superheroes to save me. Aidan and Finn, until my dying day, would know my endless gratitude and loyalty for doing what they did.

“How did they stop him?”

“They hurt him,” I said simply, “until he could never hurt me again.” It hit me what I’d said too late. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that?—”

“The Sinners used to think I wasn’t listening but I did. I know they used to hurt people, that they used to kill them,” she whispered, turning onto her side in her PJs that were covered in flying pigs, with her wispy blonde hair floating around her face,both of which were visible because of a nightlight she needed to sleep.

Christ, she was too young to know this shit.

Furious with myself, I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “You shouldn’t have listened, Kat. If you ever hear anything like that, you should walk away and keep your ears closed.”

“How do you close your ears?”

“You hum to cover up the other people’s conversation.”

“Wouldn’t they know I was listening then?”

“They would.” Unless… “Were you eavesdropping?”

“No one tells me anything,” she grumbled with a pout.

“And what you learned, does it feed your bad dreams?”

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