was keeping her safe, so sure she’d tell me if anything was the matter.
I’d been so wrong.
I thought for a second I might vomit. But I couldn’t. I had to be strong right now. Right now, I had to be the brother Katie actually deserved, instead of the one she’d gotten all these years.
I turned to my dad. “I’m taking her to the hospital now. And when we’re done, I’m taking her home with me.”
The words came out cold. Emotionless. Which was probably for the best, because I was a hair’s breadth from losing it completely.
My dad’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“You’ve been hurting her, for God knows how long, and there’s no way I’m letting her go back to your house.”
“You can’t keep her,” he rumbled. “She’s my daughter.”
“And she’s my sister. I care about her as much as you do. More, I’d say, given the way you’ve been treating her.”
“Everything I’ve done has been in service of God, and teaching my children to follow His laws. To love Him. Just as I love my children.”
“You think you love us? The only thing you ever taught us was to be afraid of you. You didn’t love us, you abused us.”
“Abused,” my dad scoffed. “Hardly.”
“Julian,” Kinley said softly. “I know you’re trying to help, but that word has a very specific meaning. You can’t just—”
“I know what it means,” I said, cutting her off. My voice was so icy I barely recognized it. “And every word I’m saying is true.”
“You’re not taking her,” my dad said, his voice growing louder. “I won’t allow it. It’s not right.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not right. What’s right would have been me stepping in years ago. Instead of being so afraid of the consequences that I let this continue. I should have taken Katie with me when I moved out.”
“She’s seventeen. She can’t just leave.”
“She can if she’s in danger if she remains in her home. She can if she files a report about it,” I replied. “She can absolutely do that if she wants.”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” my dad hissed. “What she needs is guidance. And discipline.”
I didn’t even dignify that with a response. I just turned back to Katie and squeezed her hand.
“Katorade, it’s up to you. I’m not going to make you do anything. You don’t have to come stay with me. But do you want to?”
Slowly, she nodded, a tear trickling down her cheek.
“Yes,” she whispered, in a voice that cut right through me. “Yes, can I please stay with you?”
Katie didn’t speak again until we were on the ferry heading home.
I mean, she answered the doctors at the ER. Sort of. It turned out that the EMT was right. She had two cracked ribs that could have done internal-organ damage if she’d landed on them wrong. I’d shuddered to think of how close she might have come to that, but Katie just nodded and whispered that she’d be careful as they healed.
She was dehydrated and in need of food, too, so they’d pumped her full of electrolytes, jello, and juice, along with painkillers, before discharging her. She took all the food they gave her and ate it silently, leaving me to do most of the talking.
No, she hadn’t known how dangerous it was to let her body get into this state. Yes, she’d take better care of herself now. Yes, we’d make sure an accident like this didn’t happen again.
An accident. That’s what I called it, when Katie gripped my hand and sent me a silent, pleading look after the doctors asked what had happened. Overtraining and stress, we agreed. Could have happened to anyone. Just an accident.
The hardest part of all of it had come at the beginning, actually. A nurse had wanted to measure Katie’s weight as they took the rest of her vitals, and Katie shot me a panicked look, tears springing to her eyes again. I asked the nurse, while squeezing Katie’s hand, if there were any other alternative. In the end, they just took her height and estimated.
The paperwork was a little confusing, too. I listed my house as Katie’s address, and asked them to send all correspondence to me. Her insurance was a bit of a nightmare as well. But we could work that out later. At the moment, I just wanted to get her home.
The wind had picked up by the time we reached the ferry landing in Brunswick. It wasn’t that late, but the dark sky and