Page 10 of The Piece You Stole

He said something about your mom, Saige. And so did Nathan.

“What did you do, Rylan?” I ask, wishing justonceI could get a straight answer from him.

Mom died in a hospital. It happened right in front of Dad and me, so I know they couldn’t have done anything toher. She’d been fading for a long time so we—or at least Dad—knew it was coming.

Sometimes she’d be well enough the hospital would let us take her home for a day or two. Before she got too sick, we’d always go to the cabin in the forests because that was what she wanted. But then it didn’t matter what she wanted because we knew what could happen to her if we were too far away from a hospital, so we stopped going to the forest on the good days she came home with us.

Weeks later, she was dead.

Rylan doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to. I can guess. Most days with Dad were pure fuckinghell. But he wasmydad.

Slowly, I rise from the bed. My nakedness would bother me at any other time, but not this time. I take a step toward him, my hands clenched into fists, lips tight, and a slow rhythmic pounding in my head that pulses in time to each heartbeat. “What did you do to my dad?”

Rylan crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against the window. “Tell me about your mother.”

“Tell me what you did to my dad.” I make my voice a weapon I lash him with.

His lips curve in a smile, and his eyes flicker. Clear blue to silvery gray and then back again. His wolf likes it when I fight back. Always has. The man? Not so much.

“Your mother had no history, no past. Nothing.” Straightening from his lean, he unfolds his arms, footsteps silent as he prowls across the pale oak hardwood floor, head cocked a little to the right in naked curiosity. “She moved to the city and lived in it just long enough to marry, have a child, raise it, and die. What was your mother that the city killed her?”

I force away memories of Mom. Of her brushing my hair and reading to me in bed. Of her love.

Love makes you weak, and now is not the time to be weak, Saige. Not when you’re staring down a predator.

I clench my fists even tighter, raise my chin, and stare him right in the eye. “You sent Nathan to do something. Didn’t you?”

We meet in the middle of the room, his cold gaze staring impassively into mine, the heat of my anger stabbing into him.

I thought about going to Dad. Of running from the hospital and back to the man who I believed was the worst thing that could happen in my life.

What would I have found? A destroyed apartment swarmed by rats? A new family with stories about a man who had died alone?

A body of a man?

My eyes fill with tears, but they don’t fall. What would be the point of that?

The memory of the cabin strikes without warning. Mine, Mom, and Dad’s last summer filled with cook-outs on a disposable BBQ beside a sparkling lake, of the sun bearing down on me, and of Dad tossing me high in the air as our laughter weaved all around us like bright, colorful ribbons.

I fly at Rylan. Fingers hooked, shaped into claws, aimed for his eyes. I move before I even knew I would.

He steps aside as if he read my intent the second I thought it. “Hold her.”

Hands grab my arms and drag me back, pinning me against a hard, male body in a grip I have never been able to break.

Like his science experiment is finally behaving the way it should, Rylan nods. “Lay her down. On the floor.”

The flare of silver in his eyes warns me of what’s coming.

No.

Anger vanishes. Desperation makes me forget everything but the need to escape.

Only, escape has always been impossible. It’s why I hide in my head.

I struggle, but it’s like Nathan doesn’t even feel it.

With painful ease, Nathan lays down on the floor with me on top of him. One arm locks around my middle, trapping my arms by my side.

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