Page 4 of Where He Ended

- Chapter 2 -

Laiken

Iwatch the ceilingof the sunroom melt from bruise-blue, to a gentle grapefruit pink. I've never actually seen the sunrise in this house. My bedroom has no windows, but the sunroom is made up of so much glass I can see the reddish hue from every which way I turn.

It's gorgeous.

It breaks my heart.

How can the world create such beauty in the wake of the ugly thing I learned last night? I couldn't sleep because I was stuck in a loop, constantly reliving Kara's warning.

Dominic is a murderer.

I know what betrayal feels like. I still wasn't ready for this . . . this wretched sensation of a pair of hands gripping my ribcage, splitting me open, emptying me until I was a hollow cavity. Ikissedthat man. I slept with him. I gave him everything he asked, and then I gave him even more. I knew he was hiding a dark secret. I caught it creeping in his pupils many times. But I never expected this.

How could I have?

Everything Kara said haunts me as I stare blankly at the feathery sunlight.

“That man killed his own flesh and blood. He murdered his cousin.”

My heart parades until I expect it to collapse. I didn't hear her correctly, I couldn't have. “He didn't,” I whisper, my reply hollow in my ears. “He wouldn't.”

Kara's eyebrows lift a hair, her pink lips pushing outward. This is what pity looks like. She realizes that Dominic's hooks are so deep in my heart that I want to deny what she tells me because it will taint me.

It will taint him.

And if what she says is true, my life is going to change.

“Dominic killed Bernard,” she says. “Murdered him while they were alone on a ski trip.”

“How can you know this?” I ask, reeling.

Her soft features are marred by a sorrow I can't fully grasp. Her fingers come up, brushing through her hair, moving farther like she's brushing the phantoms of longer pieces. “Because Dominic was the only one with him that night.” Then her anger returns ten-fold. “He denied it just enough to not get arrested, but he told his uncle he was responsible. He got away, free as a bird, while Bernard . . .” she trails off.

I reach for her, wanting to hug her and heal her pain. Her eyes go dull, unfocused, as she leans forward towards my touch like she has so many times when we were kids. At the last second she stops herself. I don't think there's room in me for more pain, but she proves me wrong. “Kara, what am I supposed to do?”

“Are you joking?” she hisses. “Laiken! He's a MURDERER! The only thing you should do is keep away from him. Nothing about him is good. It's all tricks and lies. All of it.”

All of it,I think now, blinking at the ceiling. Is that possible? Can someone fake the tender way he held me as we slept on the storm-soaked grass? Could he fool me into believing he wanted to save me from worse torture when he interrogated me?

Did he trick me into loving him?

I shake that word out of my head like it's a pound of fire ants. I'm dizzy when I'm done, the room so bright that I know the rest of the house will be waking up. I wonder if Kara is awake yet. When she informed me she'd be living here from now on, I was elated. I wanted to stay with her last night, but she gave me the cold shoulder, said she'd done her part by warning me about Dominic. She wanted to be alone.

She never wanted to be alone before.She's changed more than I even realize,I think, swimming in a new flood of grief. I wasn't able to guess Dominic's inner demons, and he'd let me get close. My own sister wants to avoid me. How can I hope to figure out what's transformed her into brittle steel?

“Here you are.”

I sit up so quick it gives me vertigo. Sliding to the opposite end of the wicker couch, I stare nervously at the one person I'm not ready to see yet. Dominic watches me from the doorway, his eyes gold in the early sunlight. He's studying my expression, reading me with ease.

He knows what Kara told me. He has to.

Pretending I'm not uneasy is impossible. At the same time, my heart hasn't pried all of his claws free. My cells vibrate with him near. The buds on my tongue become more rigid, eager to feel his teeth, to be pressed on the roof of his mouth in a furious kiss.

He's wearing a pair of navy jeans and a ribbed, white long sleeved sweater. He traces me with his stare. “You didn't undress last night.”

I touch a hand to the front of my sequined dress. “No. I . . . I didn't even sleep.”

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