Page 62 of Ember's Heart

Five years.

Five years since I’d been honorably discharged from the Army, one of the facts my family didn’t know. They thought I was still serving, still deployed. The truth was, I’d been doing something else entirely. Contract work. Off the book. The kind of work that stripped away any sense of humanity you might have, leaving you hollow inside.

My last assignment was why they’d sent me home. Told me to “recharge.” To get my shit together. There was no amount of time in this damn town that would erase the blood on my hands, the screams in my head.

And now, Ember was married. To Colton. My best friend. A knot of conflicting emotions twisted in my gut. I was happy for her, genuinely. Ember deserved happiness, deserved a man who would cherish her. But another part of me, a dark, bitter part, was pissed. Pissed at Colton. Pissed at me.

I remembered graduation day, sitting on Colton’s old truck, the excitement of us leaving. How we talked about everything, about leaving this town, about the future. I remembered how I’d mentioned Ember, and Colton had gone stiff, acted weird. I didn’tthink anything of it at the time, not really. We were both excited and nervous about leaving the following day for bootcamp. But I had always wondered, even then, if my best friend harbored feelings for my little sister. If Colton had just said something that day, if he’d been honest, I would have given them my blessing without a second thought.

Colton was my best friend and I knew the kind of guy he was. He’d treat my sister like the princess she is.

But then the attack happened. And Colton cut out. I hadn’t been around to witness Ember fall apart, to see the happiness fade from her eyes, to watch her struggle through the wreckage of what Colton created. But I’d heard about it. When I called home, Owen and Garrett, told me every agonizing detail. I’d heard about the sleepless nights, the withdrawn silence, the way she’d closed herself off for a while. And for that, for the pain Colton had inflicted, for the years Ember had lost, I was still pissed. It may have been years and it’s obvious my little sister got her happily ever after, but it didn’t stop me from being angry at my best friend for hurting her in the first place. The only thing that would ease my mind and the anger would be a conversation.

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white. The road ahead was dark and winding, leading me away from the warmth of the farm, away from my family.