Page 29 of Dotted Lines (Runaway 5)

He sighed and took another drink. “No, I haven’t.”

“Are you okay? This thing with your mom . . .”

“I don’t understand why she can’t let me go. She didn’t want me years ago when I actually needed her. Now she comes looking for me? Now? What the fuck? Why?”

“Maybe you need to hear her out.”

He scowled as he took another drink.

Okay. Bad suggestion. I sipped from my own can, the second taste not as bitter and startling as the first. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m being a dick. Sorry. I just don’t want anything to do with her.”

“You never talk about your home with her.”

“You never talk about yours either.” Karson’s hazel gaze locked on mine. In it, the silent plea to trust him broke any resolve I’d had to keep my past hidden.

So I took another drink, and told hi

m the story that only Aria knew.

“Our uncle is a sick son of a bitch. After our parents died, we went into foster care for a while, waiting until they could figure out what to do with us. My parents didn’t have a plan for us.”

Parents did that for their kids, right? Planned for the worst? I’d heard our social worker say a few times that our parents hadn’t had a will. They should have.

“We ended up with our uncle. He was Mom’s stepbrother. I didn’t even know we had an uncle until after Mom and Dad . . .” I didn’t like to say it. Seven years later and I didn’t like to say that they’d died.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this. I don’t want it to hurt you, Clara.”

I met his worried gaze. “If there’s anyone I’d want to tell for the first time, it’s you.”

“Okay.” He nodded toward my beer.

I took another drink, letting the carbonation tickle my tongue. “My grandma had Mom before she married Craig’s dad. I guess that made him my grandpa too, not that I knew him. He died before I met him. My grandma too, when I was a baby. I only remember her face from pictures.”

And even then, the pictures were fading. Some nights I’d wake up in a cold sweat because I couldn’t remember what Mom and Dad had looked like either. What their laughs had sounded like. Aria and I had a few pictures, but even with them, the memories were fuzzy.

“My dad’s parents, my other grandparents, live outside of Phoenix. They have a pool we played in whenever we visited. Before.”

“Why didn’t you go live with them?” Karson asked.

“They didn’t want us. Craig did. I don’t think my grandparents knew about him. What he was.”

Craig had been a different guy then. Kind. Gentle. Fake. I remembered him meeting us, crouching down and shaking our hands. I remembered him saying how pretty we were and how much we reminded him of Mom. He’d given us stuffed teddy bears that day and a pack of M&M’s to split.

“He’d put on a good show for the social workers. They believed it. He was younger than my grandparents, and since he lived here in Temecula, I guess all the adults thought it made sense not to move us.”

“Stupid fuckers.”

“Yeah.” I huffed, taking another drink. Warmth spread through my chest, making it easier to talk. Maybe it was the beer. Or maybe it was just Karson. “He just wanted their money. Mom and Dad’s. He took everything. The house. The furniture. Our toys. If he could sell it, he did. Then he moved us into that shitty trailer and kept the money for himself. By the time we ran away, it was pretty much gone.”

“What did he do with it? Drugs?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. I know he gambled because one night this guy showed up and broke down the front door. He had a gun and told Craig that if he didn’t pay his gambling debt, he was dead.”

Part of me still wished it had ended that night. That Craig had had a roll of cash in his pocket and that guy had fired the gun.

“He used to throw parties while Aria and I hid out in our room. We couldn’t even lock the door because it was broken. And I think . . .” I took in a deep breath, bracing myself for the realization it had taken me a while to understand. “I think there was a reason Mom didn’t let us see Craig. That she didn’t talk about him.”