Brick after brutal brick.
Deflecting and avoiding and protecting a mashed-up heart I’d learned kept so much hidden good. I knew it was there. Lurking in his ominous shadows.
That didn’t mean his savage heart didn’t hold the power to decimate.
I was still reeling from the fact he’d chosen to decimate me.
I’d thought we’d been so close…so close to finding who we were supposed to be. Together. But I guessed that was the problem.
Lyrik had gotten too close and it was too much.
This boy who didn’t have his heart to give.
But he held mine, anyway.
My mother squeezed my hand again. “We need to go inside.”
“I know,” I whispered, still unmoving.
She turned to me, her expression pure and understanding as she tenderly brushed back the long locks of my hair that whipped around my head, stirred by the wind.
Hair now so dark brown it was nearly black.
Red gone.
I should have known when Lyrik forced his way into my life she could never stay.
I’d dyed it back to my natural color. The color it’d been before I’d run. Before I’d masked and cloaked and camouflaged.
The same way it’d be when I climbed the stand and stood against Cameron Lucan.
No.
I’d realized since I’d come home I wasn’t ashamed of the tattoos that covered my scars or the way I’d dyed my hair.
But when he saw me sitting there, it wouldn’t be under veil or disguise.
It would be me.
Tamar Gibson.
The girl he’d so nearly destroyed.
In all those years of running, I’d never realized by hiding, I was allowing him to keep her that way.
Broken.
Hidden.
Submissive.
And as scared as I was to face him, he would no longer hold me down or hold me back.
“You can do this, Tamar,” my mother said. Emphatic. “I know you can, and I know it has to be one of the most terrifying feelings you’ve ever had to contend with. But you’re already more than halfway there. You’re here. You came.”
Tears welled, and I trembled a smile. In the two weeks since I’d knocked on their door at dawn, my mother had been my constant support. There for me when I’d needed someone to talk to and there for me in the silence when she’d known I’d needed to be left alone.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and wiped away the single tear that slid down my cheek. “I’m so proud of you. Have I told you that?”
I laughed a soggy laugh. “Only about a thousand times.”
She smiled. “Then I’ll gladly tell you a thousand more.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, more grateful to her than she could ever know.
“Oh, sweet girl. I’m your mother. No matter how far you go, I will always be right here. Waiting for you. You are a gift, not a burden. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
Her saying that just made me want to grab onto her, hug her and thank her again and again. Instead, I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
We headed into the building and through security. I’d declined sitting through other testimonies and questioning. Declined putting myself through the presentation of evidence. I was here to tell my story. And I was here to stand in the place of Madeline since Cameron had robbed her of telling her own.
That didn’t mean my stride didn’t slow as we approached the courtroom. That I couldn’t feel my heart pounding in my chest, so hard I was sure it was visible beneath my white blouse, each step inciting a panic that quickened through my veins.
It only amplified when I was led through the double wooden doors.
Tingles flashed across my skin.
Evil and vile.
Oh God.
I gulped down the bile that threatened to rise in my throat, the fear that threatened to bring me to my knees.
Run.
But I’d done it for so long and I was so tired of hiding. So tired of pretending.
Just like I’d known I would, I’d reached a crossroads.
Decision made.
I’d turned in the direction of my past.
An anxious energy trembled in the room, voices muted and subdued as they awaited my arrival. Paneled wood lined the walls, even darker where it gleamed from the judge’s and jurors’ boxes, the same wood making up the benches where people were squeezed shoulder to shoulder.
It made everything appear dark.
Sinister.
Cold.
A shiver skidded down my spine, and I forced up my chin, searched for the strength and courage that had set me on this path in the first place.
Brave, beautiful Blue.
I clung to her, that girl Lyrik had exposed, even though I felt so weak, so scared as I tentatively made my way down the narrow aisle. Heads swiveled and eyes gawked as this restless energy crawled across the floor and clawed at the walls. It pressed at the domed ceiling that only seemed to echo it back.
Amplified.
It was suffocating.
But it was nothing compared to the moment when he turned to look at me.
I felt as if I literally might die as I got trapped in the vile glare of Cameron Lucan.