Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗧he rubber of Blake's shoes halted centimeters from the first step.
She absentmindedly rocked her arms back and forth, gently soothing the still-sleeping bundle of joy collected in them as she stared upon a structure that had once meant so much to her.
Home.
Safety.
A light in the darkness.
A place she'd spent two years loving her best friend, and a place where she'd learned how to accept the love she deserved, and not the kind she thought she had to.
Triangle-shaped shingles gleamed under the dawning of the August morning. Worn, weather-berated stairs welcomed her like a hello—like she'd never looked at them and said goodbye.
Blake curled her fingers into the blanket wrapped around her daughter, trying to will her legs to move. Trying to beat her mind at a game it had always outdone her in. More than anything, she wished to leave the past where it belonged. She wished to live in the now, in the present before it passed her eyes and became something she regretted rather than cherished.
But the more she cooed her child, the more the memories of almost losing her took control.
The more she hesitated, the more the soles of her shoes hovered just above those derelict steps, the more she remembered that she had taken a life for the first time just beyond the threshold. The more she remembered that the women she loved more than she loved herself had been just as second away from asphyxiating at the hand of a person they deemed a villain.
He was just another human doing his job.
She hated that she couldn't see past that minor fact.
But what she hated more was raising her daughter to believe that taking another person's life was a normal thing—raising her to become desensitized to an act so vile.
"We don't have to go in if you can't do it."
Blake blinked the sunrays out from the corners of her eyelashes and turned her head, instantly warmed by the sight of her girlfriend's face, and the way the wind blew pieces of her curls around it, coating her in shadows so delighting. Emiko's eyes were a whirlpool of anxiety and unease, but all Blake saw was the melted brownie batter brewing underneath the world's most natural lighting.
Emiko placed the car seat filled with a tired Tripp on the ground between them and stepped around it. Her arms made a home wrapped around her lower spine as she squished their bodies just close enough that Andi was enveloped within both of her mother's cordiality.
"Did you hear me, love?"
Emiko tucked a loose strand of Blake's hair behind her ear and allowed her touch to linger. Her delicate fingertips grazed the smoothness of her cheeks in a slow, lethargic motion—like going any faster would surely be the death of her. Blake rolled her neck on her shoulders, releasing tension as Emiko leaned in and placed a few kisses just under her jaw.
