Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,54

fight-or-flight response exploded—and it was all fight. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

His lips thinned and his jaw muscles flexed, making his features nearly murderous. “You seem like a sweet kid, so I put my ass on the line and did you a solid by letting you talk to him. Now, I’m not playing games anymore. You’ve got two seconds to get your ass out of here before you end up in a cell beside him.”

“Screw you,” I spat as if this were his fault and not my own.

“Nora,” Ramsey seethed, catching my attention. “You have to go, but promise me first.”

The cop grabbed me again, dragging me toward the door, and I dug my heels in, desperate to stay with my brother even if it meant living inside that tiny room for the rest of my life. “Please don’t make me do this. Please, Ramsey! This isn’t your fault.”

“Promise me,” he ordered, emotion pooling in his eyes. “I need to hear it. I need to know you two will be okay.” Tears rolled down his cheeks and they branded my soul in ways time would never heal.

I'd spend every single day he was behind bars rotting away, miserable, the seed of guilt growing and winding until its vines eventually choked the life out of me, but if my promise was what he needed, no matter how much I hated it, I would have given it to him a million times over.

“Okay. I promise!” I choked out between sobs.

“Swear?” he asked, opening his hand flat on the table and lifting his pinky in the air.

Looking back on that day, it would seem stupid. Lives had been lost, taken, and altered forever and he was asking for a pinky promise. But we were kids who had relied on each other for everything. A pinky promise was the most solemn, unbreakable swear we had.

I dove forward, breaking the officer’s hold on me, and hooked my pinky with his. The second our fingers touched, Ramsey’s entire body sagged with relief so palpable it stabbed me in the heart.

The cop caught my arm again, cussing and making threats as he yanked me away, but through it all, I held my brother’s stare, making silent promises I had no idea if I could keep.

“I love you!” he called out. “It’s going to be okay.”

It wasn’t.

I was confused and beyond devastated, but I knew to the marrow of my bones it was never going to be okay again.

“I love you too.”

And then he smiled because he was Ramsey—facing life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and smiling because he knew his girls would hopefully be okay.

I had no idea what I was going to do with my life without him. Ramsey leaving, even if it wasn’t necessarily his choice, had never even crossed my mind.

Not long after that day, the blistering grief only raged hotter when he signed a plea deal downgrading his charges to manslaughter, however sentencing him to sixteen years in prison.

I’d never forget the wails of my aunt and uncle as Josh was lowered into the ground. It wasn’t because they affected me with such a profound sadness that the emotion would forever be ingrained into my subconscious.

Rather, I’d never be able to forget because it was the first time I realized how sweet vengeance could feel.

The day I realized Nora wasn’t coming back to the creek, I called my parents and asked them to come pick me up. They refused, but I was belligerent enough on the phone for them to at least drive the three hours so they could ground me.

When they arrived, I pulled them both into my room and carefully tiptoed around what Josh had done without specifically naming Nora. She’d trusted me with her secrets, and I’d never betray her. But somebody had to know. Josh couldn’t get away with what he’d done while my Nora suffered in silence.

Not surprisingly, my tiptoeing wasn’t nearly good enough, because Nora’s name came up almost immediately. She was, after all, the only girl I knew.

My mom hugged me and said it was okay to be jealous of my cousin.

My dad lectured me on beating up a family member over a girl—then winked.

I did enough yelling for my grandparents to get involved.

My grandpa said something about boys being boys.

And my grandma asked me who else I’d told.

My aunt and uncle showed up about an hour later, and after a hushed conversation, they berated me for making up such a heinous