“Stretch your fingers, Elian. Like this.” I watched my older sister as she easily moved her fingers along the fret board. Music flying from the tips. Melody filled my ears.
I loved listening to her play. She was someone else when she picked up a guitar. She wasn’t so mean. She didn’t yell or scream. She didn’t tell my parents that she hated them. She didn’t cry and say she wished she were dead.
And she didn’t scare me with her threats to leave.
All of the tumultuous, angry things disappeared when she sat the guitar in her lap and played.
And when she played for me and tried to teach me the notes that to her were as natural as breathing, we could pretend we were content with the lives we had been given.
“I’m trying, but I don’t have freakishly long fingers,” I threw back at her, no sting.
Amelia rolled her eyes and ignored me. Forgetting to teach me. Lost in her own world.
And I was happy to let her go.
This time.
She was pulling farther and farther away. One day she’d be so far gone I would never be able to reach her.
But for now, she was here, playing her music. This moment was all we had.
I hadn’t played a guitar since I was twelve. Not a note. But I made them for her.
For Amelia.
Slashed throat.
Missing hands.
A face barely recognizable after weeks of decomposition.
Amelia had been left—alone—out in a field. Far, far away from our home.
On the outskirts of a tiny town in Maryland. I couldn’t remember the name.
A piece of hair. That was it.
That’s all it took to link my sister’s murder to the man who had terrorized a nation.
The Nautical Killer.
Her name was added to a list. Just another lost woman he was accused of killing.
His face, impassive, unconcerned in that courtroom, never registering the name of the girl that had broken my family’s heart.
She wasn’t a name. She wasn’t a person.
Not to him.
She was body parts severed.
She was blood spilled.
She was easy prey.
To Cain Langley she was nothing.
To me she was everything.
I didn’t want to remember.
But my mind wouldn’t let me forget.
I had seen him.
Not so much his face.
But the tattoo.
And the car that he had driven that day. The day he had taken my sister.
Far.
Far.
Away.
The star. Etched on my brain.
A part of me.
I wanted to forget.
I had to.
That’s why I ran.
Away.
But not far enough.
Fuck the universe.
Fuck fate.
Fuck whatever gods threw that beautiful, beautiful woman in my path and made me love her. She was everything I longed for. She was everything I had ever desired. She was complicated. She was a mystery. She was depth and intensity behind coal black eyes. I was drawn to her from that first day.
Of course I was.
She was the type I had always made sure to stay away from.
The type of woman I had always known, instinctually, would obliterate me. And obliterate me she had. Smashed, cracked pieces and twisted, shredded promises. She was my all.
She. Was. My. All.
But she could never belong to me. How could I lay claim to a soul that was connected to him?
My head was too full, and my heart was too empty. Fading. Fading. Falling away. I was losing Elian Beyer. He was slipping into the mire, and I couldn’t catch him.
Gone. Going. Lost.
How could I be with her knowing what I did?
How could I stay away?
Knowing what I did.
I had left Layna’s house last night with no answers. No idea of how we were going to deal with this hand we were dealt. No answers. No clues.
How could I stay?
How could I leave?
The call came late as expected. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. How could I tell her about what had happened? How could I ever explain the mess I had gotten myself into? She’d be so disappointed. She’d be angry and disgusted. But I also knew that maybe, just maybe, she’d understand.
She wanted me to love.
And love I did. I loved an illusion. I loved a nightmare.
I’m Here. Always.
The text had come just as it did every night before. And I felt the comfort in her consistency. The reassurance in her affection.