Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,91

around the locked door handle. I could break through it with ease—but I won’t. “Kell, it’s me! It’s Barrett.”

“No shit! Go away!”

The tightness in my chest loosens, and I can feel the blood rush through my heart. So he’s pissed. Of course he is.

I swallow. “Please? I want to talk.”

The thick, wood door behind the screened one opens slightly and I smell old house and…some sort of food.

“Kellan—hey…” I press my forehead against the screen door. “Please.” My voice cracks there. “I need to see you.”

He laughs richly. “Oh—I bet.”

The door opens so slowly I don’t notice until I can see him standing maybe a foot back, in shadows.

I blink twice, quickly, and my eyes adjust. I blink again. I just…don’t believe that’s him. I don’t believe that’s Kellan. He looks…tall. So tall and pale and thin. Goddamn, he’s thin under that shirt that’s hanging off him. I’ve seen better-looking POWs. The pants he’s wearing lead to socked feet. He’s got on a beanie. A few more blinks and I can see his face. His fragile, bony, unfamiliar face. And hollow eyes.

I feel a tremble move through my shoulders. “Let me in. Please let me in, man. I’m your brother. I just want to hug you.”

I grip the screen door’s handle, feeling like the world is tilting under me.

“I don’t want to see you.”

My throat swells, until I feel like I can’t breathe. “Please?”

Kellan looks down at his feet.

I could break the door down. Easily.

Then his pale blue eyes bore into mine. In a low voice—in a man’s voice—he says, “I don’t want to see you, asshole. I don’t even know you. You’re just some military robot. You’re not my brother.”

I swallow—try to. “I’m sorry.” I want to tell him what happened that day—about the liver shot. How badly I wanted to be here. But there are no excuses. I inhale and exhale, filled with icy-cold regret.

His face twists. “Lyon wondered why you didn’t come. I didn’t, but he did. Chew on that.”

The door slams in my face, shaking snow loose from the roof.

THIRTEEN

GWENNA

November 6, 2015

“Don’t be a quitter, motherfucker!”

I push my face into my pillow, distantly troubled, eager to sink back into dreamland. Something claws at the door of my mind. I should know…or do something important. Too tired…

Later.

For now, I curl into a ball and pull the blankets up, and as I shut my eyes, I feel the bed shake slightly. Hmm? Somewhere nearby, I hear panting, and that pulls me upward into consciousness. I blink a few times, feeling…off. There’s something cold and heavy in my belly: dread. Alarm nips at its heels.

What’s wrong? I roll from my side onto my back, and as my senses come online, I hear the panting clearly. Male. The sound is low and raspy, unmistakably a man… For half a second, I feel frozen in the center of the sound. Struggling. Winded. Someone running.

…In my room?

I roll onto my side and— Barrett.

I blink, but I don’t see him. The only thing that stands out in the darkness is the gray light seeping around the blockade of the curtains on the other side of his bed.

Then his weight rocks the mattress. I realize the shape blotting the bottom of the curtain is the wide plane of his back; the triangle at the top of the blob: one of his elbows. He’s lying on his side, facing away from me. He’s got his arm over his head.

I hear a moan, the kind that people make when something’s hurting them. Then his breath catches.

“Fuck you, Breck! FUCK YOU!” His voice breaks. Then he’s breathing hard again, like he’s been running for a long time.

I scoot toward him, agonized by empathy. My hand freezes as his back shakes, and I hear a soft sob.

Oh my God.

I can’t move, can’t even seem to breathe as I watch one of his hands clutch the back of his head, and another low, strangled cry breaks from his throat.

His big back jerks once more, and then he’s sobbing: low bellows that punch out of him like drum beats. Then his throat tightens, his body coils, and the dam breaks on his grief. It’s loud and unhinged, frantic in the way that anguish always is. He holds his head and tugs his hair and sobs so hard and uncontrollably, the headboard bumps the wall. He sobs like a child, overwhelmed and helpless, desperate in his pain.

And I just lie beside him, frozen though my every atom urges me to go