Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,113

could take a bullet out of my leg.”

“It’s weird you know my whole family and I don’t know you at all,” she said.

There’s time, I thought. There’s plenty of time for that.

“What else she tell you?” she asked, her eyes narrowed like she wanted to catch me out in a lie. Like she was giving me some kind of test to pass to get into their secret club.

I understood that, too.

“She told me you were the smart one.”

“She always says that. Olivia’s not dumb.”

“I know that.”

Again, she paced back to the TV. “What else?”

“She told me about your father.”

That made her stop in her tracks. “All of it?”

“The junkyard. Ice fishing. The year you guys spent alone. Trying to get you into that school.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “She doesn’t…she doesn’t talk about that stuff. Ever.”

“Yeah. I know.”

She paced a little more and I could feel the tension getting dialed down. Like the fact that Joan told me that unlocked something in her. I took a breath that wasn’t shallow in the back of my throat.

“What did you tell her?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like what secrets did you tell her?”

“That’s between her and me.”

For some reason that made her laugh. “Dude, you’re crazy if you think she’s not going to tell me everything. We’re sisters.”

I remembered quite clearly the days when I told my brother everything.

They’d been good days. And I was glad Joan had someone like that. I wished…I wished I had my brother back like that again.

“I told her about my brother,” I finally said.

“What’s his name?”

“Dylan.”

“Where is he?”

“We’ve…we haven’t been close for a while.”

“That sucks.”

I laughed, a painful harrumph. “It does.”

“What else?”

“I told her I wanted a boat.”

“That doesn’t seem like a secret.”

I leaned forward, my hands on my knees. “Listen, Jennifer. I’ve spent the last six months of my life preparing to die. I didn’t make a plan for anything past the next day, because I knew it was only a matter of time before someone put a bullet in the back of my head.”

Jennifer blinked at me and I could see her understanding it. She’d been an FBI informant inside a cult for fuck’s sake. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

Her eyes were filling with tears but she ducked her head and wiped them away on the shoulder of her cupcake scrubs. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I know what you’re talking about.”

“I didn’t trust anyone. I didn’t expect anything but the worst from anyone. And then your sister came along—”

“Yeah?” Oh, the hope in her voice. It told me everything I needed to know about how much she loved her sister.

“She saved my life. Like all the way. Not just the bullet in my leg.”

But also my soul. She saved my soul. I didn’t say that, but I could tell she saw it in my face.

Oh fuck, the tension was suddenly in me. The endless torture of waiting. Jesus.

I got to my feet, needing to move. Needing my blood to pump this useless adrenaline out of my heart.

“What the fuck is taking them so long in there?” I asked.

“Hey, man,” Jennifer sat down under the television, her legs stretched out in front of her. She’d stolen my cool somehow, and I scowled at her as I paced. But she only gave me this cocky half-grin. “Take a deep breath.”

Oh man, I was going to like this girl. I could tell already.

“Tell me about this brother of yours.”

I glared at her because I knew what she was doing and I resented it.

And at the same time, I appreciated the fuck out of it.

“Come on, one story. It won’t kill you.”

I’d put away the stories for so long. I’d banished them and tried to forget them, but they’d been there waiting for me. Waiting for the day when it was safe to bring them out. Waiting for the day when missing him wouldn’t rip me apart. A day when the weakness of love wouldn’t be the end of me.

I had all the stories. And I was fucking flush with love. And it didn’t make me weak. Just like trust didn’t make me weak.

“Jennifer Matthews?” The surgeon’s voice had both of us whirling toward the door. Jennifer got out of her chair.

“Yes,” she said.

“Your sister is out of surgery. We stopped the bleeding. Repaired the spleen. She lost a lot of blood and she’s not out of the woods yet, but she’s doing well.”

With a huge exhale of air, like she’d been holding her breath forever, Jennifer folded