Page 121 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)

I reach my hand out and exhale when his fingers find mine.

33

Liam

Trust is an odd concept—one I should’ve paid more attention to learning in school. It’s fragile and ironclad at the same time. What I once thought might shatter it only proved its endurance.

And now this.

This could be it. Sky could remember, realize what happened, and turn her back on me forever. Because it’s me. I’m the one who urged her into the woods to explore. The girl I barely knew.

And it was out of the woods that we dragged ourselves, although it may as well have been Hell.

I carry Sky back to my house. Her head lolls against my shoulder, and I suppress the urge to shake her awake. There’s another part of me that wants to brush the hair away from her face, then keep her hidden from the world. From her overprotective mother and my hovering parents.

She’s light as a bird, as if her bones are hollow. How delicate, how fragile does that make her? Why hasn’t she shattered under my pressure already?

Why did I think pushing her to remember was a good fucking idea?

I slip in through the back door and down to the basement. It was converted into a game room for me and Jake a few years back. We secretly agreed that our parents created it because it was somewhere easy to put us when Mom had reached her limit.

It’s changed slightly in the years that Jake and I have been out of the house, and I consider that to be a good thing. My parents aren’t holding on to the past or wishing their sons would return to the nest. This is the sort of progress the television show therapists talk about. Moving forward, plowing ahead.

There’s a corner with Mom’s exercise equipment, a treadmill and inflated ball, some weights, and a large mat. The TV, which we used to play videogames on, is now slightly angled toward the treadmill.

The couch has been pushed against the wall, and a desk in the corner with a computer—and three monitors—belies Dad’s work ethic. I wonder how often they sneak down here to work, alone or together.

I carefully set Sky on the couch, pulling the blanket from the back of it over her. She doesn’t so much as stir, so I sit back on my heels. She still has a pulse. She’s still breathing.

But a scowl is set between her brows now.

She’s fighting something in her head.

“Honey?”

I twist toward the stairs, where Mom hovers.

“Is she okay?”

“I…” I glance back at Sky’s face. Was she happy before I brought her here? Before her roommate went missing, and the girl before that turned up dead? “I think I broke her.”

“Oh, darling,” Mom whispers, coming closer.

The top of my head barely reaches her collarbone in this position, but she bends down and hugs me like she used to when I was a kid.

A lump forms in my throat.

I sit perfectly still, not wanting to dislodge it. But… it feels nice.

I close my eyes.

“I’m proud of who you’re becoming,” she says in my ear. “A fine young man. You’ll find your place in the world, and so will Skylar.”

“Perhaps,” I mutter.

“No, Liam, you will. Things will fall into place like they always do. So the sports didn’t work out—you’re a fighter.” She cracks a smile. “Literally and figuratively. You’ve never let go of what you wanted, so now you just need to figure out what you want. And go get it.”

My gaze automatically flips to Sky.