Page 16 of Break My Fall

I was relieved she seemed so happy and excited, but Edward’s attack had taken its toll on her. She had awoken twice the previous night crying and upset after nightmares. It was something she had never had an issue with before and I knew it was a direct result of what Edward had done to her. I’d already decided to take Hunter up on his offer to find a child psychologist she could talk to as soon as possible.

“Maddie?” Hunter said, and I looked up, realizing, from the look on his face, it wasn’t the first time he had tried to get my attention.

“Sorry,” I apologized with a shake of my head.

“It’s okay. I just asked if you want anything? There’s coffee or sodas and a ton of snacks,” he offered.

“I’m good thanks, but Willow might be hungry.”

“She already had a juice box, crackers and a banana,” he chuckled. “Nothing wrong with her appetite.”

“No there isn’t,” I agreed with a smile. Willow had always been a good eater, not that you’d know it judging by her size. She was small and petite for her age, measuring on the lower end of the percentiles at her checkups since she was a toddler, but her doctor had assured me she was within healthy ranges, so I didn’t worry. She certainly ate enough, and there was very little food she didn’t like.

“So can I get you something? You’re looking pale. Maybe some food would help?” he offered again.

“I’m okay, thanks,” I assured him. “I’m tired. I might just close my eyes for a while, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course. Why don’t you lie down in the back? It’ll be more comfortable and we have about an hour left to go,” he suggested.

“I’m fine here,” I replied. I wasn’t ready to leave Willow for that long. She didn’t know Hunter very well and I wanted her to know I was close after everything she had been through.

When he nodded his agreement, I settled in the seat and lay my head to the side, closing my eyes. I knew I wouldn’t sleep but I just needed some peace to try and work through everything going on in my head. Things were only going to get even crazier when we landed and I needed to brace myself.

KAI

I couldn’t keep still as I sat in Hunter’s SUV on the tarmac at the airstrip, just waiting for the plane to come in. I was excited, desperate to see Maddie after all of these years and anxious she’d take one look at me and see straight to my fucked up parts.

We had been searching for her for the last three years, ever since we got out of the military and found a life for ourselves. Losing Everett had been the kick up the ass we needed to stop wasting time. We all wanted Maddie, and not in the way we’d had her before. We’d been idiots then, all of us denying the feelings we had for her because we felt the need to protect and look out for her. Our fears that she’d reject us of we told her the truth, and that we’d lose her as a result kept us all quiet, and instead we’d kept a distance from her. Then our lives went to shit and we’d left her behind, so sure it was the best thing we could do for her – to keep her out of our bullshit lives.

But we’d been so fucking wrong and losing Everett showed us that. It showed us that life was too God damned short and pushed us to go for what we wanted – her.

Hunter and I had worked hard to try and track her down, even returning to our old neighborhood in the hope she’d be living there, but she wasn’t, and no one had any idea where she had moved on to. There was no trace of her online or on social media either. We were currently in the process of hiring a private detective to find her, but that was unnecessary now. We found her and she was coming home, where she belonged.

I saw the jet coming in to land and instantly jumped from the car, slamming the door closed behind me with a little too much gusto. I was so anxious. I just wanted things between us to be as they were when we were all so much younger and more naïve.

I mean, none of us were very naive back then either, I guess. We were all foster kids who had been given a pretty shitty deal. We had seen and lived way more than other kids our age and we were guarded and suspicious as a result. None of us trusted easily, that was for sure. But we trusted each other. We’d had each other and we’d been happy when we were together. There was so much shit in the world we didn’t yet know about. There was still an edge of childishness to us all back then, that was long gone now.

We were going to be different people, and I knew it, but I didn’t like it. I hated that my years in the military, the things I had seen and been forced to do, had changed who I was irreparably. It had changed all of us, as had losing Everett. Losing our brother had been the biggest blow of all – a blow that had left us all in pieces, and ever since we were all just scrambling around, trying to pick them up and find some way to put them back together in something that resembled who we once were.

Hunter and I had done that in some ways. We could laugh and smile, make jokes and function day to day. We were still broken, but we had found a way to pretend we weren’t. But Cameron, he was still in those pieces and he refused to even try and put them back together without his twin. He spent all of his time holed up in his room, or out woodworking in a large shed we had converted into a workshop for him out back of our house. He barely spoke to us more than necessary and he was dealing with some bad PTSD from the incident that had taken Everett from us all and left the rest of us injured both physically and mentally.

He suffered with nightmares and occasional anxiety attacks. He hadn’t left the property in over a year, and Hunter and I were just at a loss as to how to help him anymore. We had given up on trying to get him to see a therapist. He flat out refused and lost it if we pushed too hard. The workshop was the only thing that seemed to soothe him, so for the most part we left him to work out there and just hoped that one day he would come back to us.

I had hoped that us finding Maddie would get through to him, and it had a little. He had seemed almost relieved when Hunter called to tell us he’d seen her. Then when Hunter had called hours later to tell us Maddie and her kid were in the hospital, put there by her fucking husband, he had gotten mad and had definitely been worried about them. Only Hunter assuring us he was bringing them back with him had calmed Cameron down, and then he had worked his ass off with me last night and all that morning to get Willow’s bedroom prepared just as Hunter had told us she wanted it.

Of course he had refused to go to the store with me, the day before, to buy everything we needed, but I knew it was progress that he had helped me set everything up. I thought I had even seen the hint of a smile when we stood back and admired the finished article before I left. But he still refused to come with me to pick them up, retreating to his room with a grunt when I tried to persuade him.

I just hoped that having Maddie and her daughter in the house with us would somehow work some magic and bring Cameron back to us. Maddie always did have a special way with the twins. She was the only person I had ever seen bring them out of the epic tempers they were both capable of slipping into as teenagers. I prayed she still had that ability.

The plane pulled up to its planned terminal just meters away from where I had parked. I stood back as the ground crew got steps into place, then the door opened and I held my breath, desperate and anxious to see her.

Hunter was the first to emerge, carrying his own carry-on case and a small hold all. He looked tired and his hair was wild, signaling the fact he had been running his hands through it anxiously, as he often did.

“Hey man. Thanks for picking us up,” he sighed as he reached me and handed off the bags.

“How are they?” I asked. He had only been texting me since he got Maddie and Willow out of the hospital, not wanting to leave them long enough to call.

“Willow seems fine, though she had terrible nightmares last night. I’m worried about Maddie though,” he sighed.

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