Diel froze, his heart stuttering to a standstill as that name began to penetrate his flesh.
“Finn,” Diel said, his lips wrapping awkwardly around the name. But he said it again. He said it again and again until it was no longer foreign, no longer strange, until it began to sound familiar, until his heart lobbed back into a steady beat—until it recognized the name.
“Finn,” Diel said again, and the air he breathed in afterwards sat purer in his lungs. “Finn,” he repeated, the last of the pain and aches in his head fleeing, leaving him comfortably numb, leaving his blood flowing freely though his veins, streams not rapids. “Finn.” His hands began to shake. “Finn Nolan.” Recognition fired down his spine, and the boy’s eyes shone in his mind.
Eyes just like Diel’s. No, not just like Diel’s …
Diel gasped as he remembered the boy’s hair … hair just like his. His inner monster, the darkness, the head tics, the blinking … the—
“Cara.” Once the name slipped from his mouth, he knew. Tears flooded his eyes and spilled over his cheeks. “Cara,” he rasped again. The little girl. The little girl with the birthmark, with one blind eye … Cara, Finn’s little sister.
A fist plowed through his chest.
Diel’s sister.
“Three,” the voice said, and Diel was ripped from his subconscious. His eyes snapped open to reveal his bedroom in the manor. But his heart was a heavy-metal drum thrash. He breathed and breathed like he’d just run around the perimeter of the manor’s grounds at breakneck speed.
Finn Nolan. He was Finn Nolan. And Cara …
“Cara!” Diel jumped from the bed, fury energizing his muscles. His body was alert and ready to fight, to search the fucking earth for his sister, his little sister who they had taken, who that Brethren fuck had said was evil!
“Diel.” Someone was calling his name, but he didn’t know who.
He was coming out of his skin, all the memories he had lost as a kid slamming into him like a hurricane, swirling around him as they filled every cavern of his too-long numbed mind.
The Brethren had taken them away, sent Diel straight to Purgatory. Sela was the first brother he’d met in the dorm. Then the monster took its hold of him. The monster had roared as they abused him, exorcised him, and it had jumped to the forefront of who Diel was. It had pushed Diel back to protect him, taking away the pain … taking away any memory of his former life so he could simply survive. Memories of her. Of his little sister. Where the fuck was his little sister? What had the Brethren done with her? Had they killed her?
Grief, instant and strong, gutted him.
Diel’s arms fell to his sides, and suddenly Noa was there, hands on his cheeks and tears in her brown eyes. “I have a sister,” he whispered, lips shaking and voice raw.
Noa nodded. “I know, baby. We heard it. You talked us through it all while you were under the hypnosis. You told us everything.” Diel lifted his head. All his family were gathered around him. He met the eyes of his brothers. He could see the fury in their faces, the tension in their bodies. Gabriel came toward him, pale, sadness in his every step.
“Brother.” He pulled Diel to his chest. Diel closed his eyes, but all he could see was Cara’s face. Her arm stretched out, trying to reach for him. But he hadn’t saved her. He hadn’t protected her.
Diel drew back, shame and guilt replacing any confusion he had felt over the past two months. He’d failed her. He’d spent all his days up to that point protecting her, but in the end, he had failed her, and they had fucking taken her away.
“They took her.” Diel backed toward the door to his bedroom. “The Brethren took her.” He met Sela’s eyes.
“Brother,” he said, sympathy flooding his expression. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Diel laughed but there was no humor in it, just shame. Pure shame. His feet shifted faster toward the door.
“Baby.” Noa tried to approach him. But Diel needed to leave. He needed to get away from the bedroom, from the memories that were still slamming into his brain like kamikaze planes, one after the other bringing another missing puzzle piece of his life that felt like napalm to his shredded black soul.
Diel grabbed the doorknob and started running. He ran down the stairs and out into the grounds and just let