“She’s no longer a baby,” I murmur as I watch her park, climb out of her car, and arrow straight to the middle swing in the set.
Her head is lowered as she rocks back and forth, eyes focused down on her sandals as they cut lines below her in the dirt. The pull I feel for her in my chest is too strong to stay in the truck and stare at her from a distance. Without conscious thought, I’m out of the truck and settling into the swing beside her.
“It’s not safe out here alone,” I chastise with no fire in my voice.
I want to drag her home and wash every inch of her, scrub her clean until no part of the vet, including his memory, is around.
“I knew you were close,” she whispers without pulling her eyes from her feet.
“Do you like him?”
Yep, masochist, through and through.
She doesn’t answer immediately, and I don’t know if she’s trying not to hurt me with her answer, or if she’s going to say something to manipulate me into responding the way she thinks I should.
“I like the idea of him,” she replies. “A man who isn’t afraid to hold my hand in public or doesn’t fear death when he flirts with me.”
He should fear death. He came really fucking close to disappearing tonight, and if I’m honest, the night isn’t over yet.
“He’s good for you,” I tell her even though the reality of it settles in my gut like a cancer that’s going to eat me from the inside out.
She grunts in response.
“He can give you the world,” I continue.
If the research Virus supplied me with is true, and the man doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet, he’s the ideal man, the type of man that if I had a little sister, I would want her to end up with.
“His world,” she clarifies. “I’m terrified of his world. Things out here are nothing like they are back home.”
I can’t help the chuckle that slips out. “You make it sound like a different planet.”
“Might as well be.”
I hate that her eyes are down and not on me, but it gives me the chance to watch her facial expressions. I hate the way her throat works, and her eyes flutter as if she’s trying to force down emotions she doesn’t want me to see.
“You deserve better than the world the Ravens Ruin has to offer.”
Her eyes finally leave her feet to look into mine. They glisten with unshed tears, and the tiny drops clinging to her lashes might as well be the ocean because I’m drowning in her.
“We deserve better than having to stay away from each other.”
The pleading in her voice is excruciating. “Molly, don’t.”
“We can run away together, get new identities. I’d live on the other side of the world if it meant we could be together. They’ll stop looking for us eventually,” she bargains.
She knows that’s a lie as much as I do. Lynch would burn the world to the ground if he thought his sister was in danger, and that’s exactly where she’d be if we got any time alone.
“Lynch and the MC aren’t the only reasons we can’t be together.”
I wait, knowing she’s going to want me to give her specifics, but even a list created in bullet form for easy reading won’t be enough to deter her from thinking we could be happy together.
“What else is it? Is there someone else? Do you not love me?”
Jesus. The tears are flowing now, flooding her cheeks in streaks that she doesn’t even bother to wipe away.
“There’s no one,” I vow. I don’t go so far as to answer her last question. Uttering those words, even to myself when I’m alone, isn’t a chance I’m willing to take. “There’s a darkness inside of me, Mols. When I—”
I clear my throat, looking off in the distance, unable to see the pain playing on her beautiful face.
“I know you do bad things, but you do those to bad people. You don’t hurt innocent people. I know you won’t hurt me.”
“The last woman I fucked, died.”
She gasps, and my heart skips several beats before pounding out an uneven staccato so loud in my ears, I miss the first part of her next words.
“—loved her then? Was it a car crash? Did you make someone mad and they hurt her to get back at you?”
“I’ve said too much.” I climb to my feet, ignoring the hard plastic of the swing as it rocks back, hitting me in the legs. “You don’t need that shit in your head. It doesn’t serve a purpose other than proof that we can’t be more than what we are. We can’t sneak away. We can’t live some happy life on the other side of the world. My demons won’t allow it.”