Page 125 of After All The Wreckage
“Thank you,” Monte said.
Tears welled in Rory’s eyes, and I gently punched my brother in the shoulder. “Don’t make her cry.”
He stepped back, a gentle smile on his face as he looked from me to her and back. “Does this mean you two are a thing now?”
“A thing?” I joked, just as Rory said, “Yes.”
It was almost comical the way both Kora’s and Monte’s faces lit up. If I’d had any reservations left about Rory coming into our lives—which I didn’t—that would have removed them. Rory belonged with us. We belonged to her.
Life together might be rocky at times. Seeing her leave and come back while she went to FLETC and shipped off to some unknown location might be the hardest thing I’d ever do, but I’d do it because we were meant to be together. I knew it with the same confidence I knew that the storms ravaging D.C. were gone.
? ? ?
Afternoon had drifted into evening by the time one of the nurses came and told us Demi was awake and had asked to see me. Monte’s face flashed with hurt, but it was better if I talked to Demi alone first. I didn’t know what she had to say, and it might not be anything I wanted my brother to hear. He was only thirteen even though it was hard to remember that sometimes.
I made my way to Demi’s room only to be shocked all over again at the sight of her. Frail was almost too kind of a word. Her eyes flooded with tears at seeing me. She reached up a shakyhand to pull a tissue from the box on a bedside tray. She wiped at her eyes as I made my way to the chair next to her.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“Monte had a vision, but it was actually Rory who found you.” I told her everything about Monte being kidnapped and how Dunn and West were tied up with the Lovatos and how they’d had Hallie Marlowe killed. Demi closed her eyes several times, slow tears leaking from the corners.
When I was finished, she somehow looked even worse than when I’d walked into the room. I wasn’t sure if I felt guilty about it or not. Maybe she wasn’t in the right condition to hear the full truth of what she’d tangled herself in, but years of anger and hurt made it almost impossible to shield her from it either.
“I knew Monte was there, Gage… I sensed him. Saw him… I begged Roland to let him go…” Her voice cracked. “At first, he said he couldn’t. But I told him I’d kill myself before giving him any more answers if he didn’t release him.”
Her words piled more emotions onto the heap I was already feeling. Gratitude I’d never felt for her mixed in with frustration because she was the reason my brother had been in danger in the first place. I leaned in, elbows on my knees. “How did you get mixed up with Dunn? How did he even learn the truth about your abilities?”
“I met him at a party.” Her focus was far away, as if looking backward through time and memories. “He was so… jovial… charming. Happy. I needed that. I needed that because I was feeling the pull to go home again, and I knew I couldn’t.”
My chest ached, and my voice was deep as I growled, “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
Her hand, which was all skin and bone, shook as she ripped at the tissue. The action was so like Monte’s when he was tearing the sandwich wrapper in the police station interrogation roomthat it was almost painful. Of all of us, Monte was the most like Demi.
“Everything I did was to protect you. It was the only way for you to become who you were supposed to be. To find joy.”
“Joy!” I growled, and then took a deep breath, trying to control my anger. “Don’t start that bullshit again about how leaving was good for me. Like you were just feeding me broccoli. Every time you left, it cut deep grooves in Dad. In me. In Monte.
“Ivy doesn’t even know you! How on earth was that for the best? Do you know she has abilities too? She can feel when we’re hurting. She’s linked to us. And I don’t know how to help her with that any more than I know how to help Monte with his visions. And you—the one person who could help them, who’d lived through your own experiences with these fucked-up abilities—you left. Over and over again.”
For the first time since seeing her in the warehouse, I saw a bit of spirit come back into her face. She dropped the tissue pieces and reached a hand toward me. I pushed back, not wanting her to touch me. If she did, I’d be dragged right in again to whatever bullshit she wanted to spout.
I wouldn’t become Dad. I wouldn’t put Ivy through what Monte and I had been through. A repeated cycle of love and loss.
I was glad Demi hadn’t died. I was sad she’d gone through this horrific experience, but I was damn sure I didn’t want her destroying my siblings like she had me.
“How did you feel when Monte was missing, Gage?” she asked softly.
“How do you think I felt? Terrified! Out of my mind. But then again, maybe you wouldn’t know because you’ve never cared about anyone but yourself.”
“Would you have doneanythingto make sure he lived?”
My stomach turned as I relived the moment I realized Monte was actually not with India. And then, the god-awful pain I’d feltwatching him on the video being shoved into a trunk by masked men. I’d been filled with agony and desperation.
“Yes. I would have done whatever it took.”
“Even walk away?”
I didn’t want to think about the scenario she’d laid out. If the kidnappers had said they’d hand Monte back, send him home if I’d walked out of their life forever, would I have done it? Nausea rolled through me.
