Page 58 of Bound By Blood and Lies

I reach for my phone and glance at the screen, noting immediately that Dad still hasn’t messaged me back. The absence shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, but lately his behaviour has started to feel… off.

Mum says he’s been keeping strange hours, disappearing into the city for late nights without offering much of an explanation when she asks where he’s been. When I talk to him, he’s evasive in a way that feels wrong, like he’s measuring every word before he says it. He even completely lost his temper with me the other day when I asked who he had at gunpoint over the phone.

“Fuck this,” I mutter, pushing away from the counter.

It’s barely eight thirty but I’m done for the night. The music alone is enough to send a sane man crazy, and I don’t have the energy to sit here pretending I’m fine. My chair scrapes harshly against the floor as I start toward the kitchen doorway. The sound is loud enough that I see the guys’ heads snap up and their own chairs shift slightly as they register the sudden movement. I ignore them and keep walking.

I barely make it halfway to the door before the front door swings open. The sound stops me mid-step. A rush of cold night air spills through the hallway and I frown at the simple fact that everyone who lives here is already inside the house. No one should be coming through that door right now.

Then I see her.

Mum stands just inside the doorway, framed by the dim light of the hall. I find myself cataloguing her features. Her shoulders are drawn tight, her breathing is slightly uneven like she’s been moving quickly, and the look on her face sends a sharp thread of unease through my chest. She looks unhinged in a way I’ve never seen before. There’s anger simmering under her eyes, but it’s tangled up with something else too… fear.

“Mum?” I step towards her as my chest tightens with worry. “Mum—what’s wrong?”

Chairs scrape loudly behind me as the boys start moving too, everyone pushing back from the table at once as they walk to where I’m standing to take her in. Mum doesn’t answer straight away. Instead, she gives us all a small, soft smile and then steps into the hallway, leaving the front door open. My frown deepens as I step closer to hug her.

“I bring gifts,” she says before nodding back toward the open door.

I turn to look, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush. My brain refuses to process what I’m seeing because standing there, framed by the cold night air, with huge green eyes darting uncertainly around the room, is Fae. My entire body goes still as the world seems to tilt slightly on its axis. She looks different. Skinnier than I’ve ever seen her. The soft fullness of her cheeks is gone. It’s been replaced by sharper edges that make a painful twist pull through my chest. Her shoulders are drawn to her ears, and the way she stands there frozen in the doorway watching me carefully splinters something deep inside my ribs.

My vision blurs suddenly. I realise distantly that my eyes are filling with tears, but I can’t seem to move. For weeks she has existed as a ghost in my head. A memory. A voice. A promise I kept chasing through empty buildings and dead ends.

And now she’s standing right in front of me.

Alive.

I take a step forward, finally breaking out of the frozen state I’d been trapped in, and the movement seems to trigger something in her. Her entire body starts shaking. The sight of it hits me so hard my chest physically aches. Instinct takes over and I move faster, closing the distance between us with my eyes locked on hers. By the time I reach her, my chest feels like it’s about to split open.

I pull her fragile body into my arms as she goes rigid against me. Her muscles tighten like she doesn’t quite know what’s happening, but I don’t let go. I hold on like I’ve been drowning for weeks and she’s the only thing keeping me above water. Then, slowly… so slowly it almost hurts to wait, her hands clutch the front of my shirt like she’s holding on for dear life.

I bury my face in her hair. She doesn’t smell like vanilla and honey anymore. The warm, familiar scent that has lived somewhere deep in my bones for years is gone. In its place is the sharp, sterile trace of antiseptic soap and the faint bite of the cold night air that still clings to her clothes. The realisation hurts. It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to pull her away from everyone else right now, march her straight upstairs, and scrub every last trace of wherever she’s been off her skin until she smells like herself again.

“Tinkerbell…” I whisper hoarsely, finding my voice for the first time, and she shudders against me.

“Hey Ro…” she whispers back.

Everything inside me gives way at once.

My knees buckle and I sink to the floor, pulling her down with me as my arms wrap around her like I’m terrified she might vanish if I loosen my grip even slightly. A broken sound tears out of my chest, raw enough that I barely recognise it as my own.

I’m crying. Properly crying.

My forehead presses into her shoulder as I rock slightly where we’ve collapsed and my hands grip the back of her shirt at the same time her body trembles against mine with silent sobs of her own.

She’s here.

My hands move over her back, her arms, her hair, the curve of her shoulder, cataloguing every part of her like I’m afraid I’ll wake up and discover this is a cruel dream. She’s here. She’s actually here. I pull her closer, trying to soothe the tremors running through her body even though my own are just as bad. I lose track of time, lost in the simple reality of having her in my arms again.

“Share!” Felix suddenly barks from somewhere behind us.

The word cuts straight through the moment like a blade. I drag in a shaky breath and force my arms to loosen enough for Fae to move, even though every instinct in my body screams at me to hold on tighter. She lifts her head slowly and turns toward him, her eyes are still wet as they find her brother across the room. The smile she gives him is small but real enough that another broken sob catches in my throat.

Felix crosses the space in two strides. He doesn’t hesitate; he just reaches down and gently pulls her away from me before wrapping her in his arms. Watching it physically hurts. My hands curl into fists at my sides as I grit my teeth and force myself to breathe through the instinct to pull him off her and take her back. The rational part of my brain knows they both need this moment. The other part, the louder, more primal part, keeps insisting that no one else should ever touch her again.

They both start crying almost immediately as I sit on the floor staring up at them, trying to catch my breath. Through the blur of everything happening in front of me I notice Mum standing in the doorway, watching the scene unfold with that same calm she always has. I push myself back onto my feet andmove toward her, my head spinning with questions that feel too big and tangled to form into proper sentences.

“Where did you find her?” I ask hoarsely.