Page 105 of Dance for Me
Yet she’d had the strength, the sheer fucking willpower, to bring an end to her suffering by pulling a gun and putting a bullet between Abraham’s eyes. Another through her mother’s abdomen.
Yeah, she and Bodie were more alike than they knew.
Fighters, both of them.
Connie and Liam flanked either side of the wheelchair. Liam seemed rather taken by his new charge, and Braun wondered if his friend had an unspoken crush spanning back across the years. After all, Liam had grown up with Bodie, which in turn meant he knew Alicia. If that was true, how much pain had the boy suffered to side with Bodie when Alicia was hurt?
Too much. Enough to tear a heart down the center.
Bodie stiffened as Alicia rolled forward slowly, her attention riveted on her sister’s face. Around them, everyone was silent, absorbing the emotions ricocheting between the siblings. Waiting for the tension to explode.
“Bodie?”
Braun felt it rip through her. Just her name spoken in a soft, unassuming voice sliced through whatever held Bodie back. She stumbled forward, hindered by her cast, and he saved her from faceplanting with an arm around her waist.
With her crutches nowhere in sight—maybe shouldn’t have left them unattended when he hauled Bodie away for their scene earlier, he mused—he picked her up and carried her from the pit, hearing her breath catch in her throat.
He knew that sound, too well.
She was crying by the time he stopped in front of Alicia. Big, fat tears sliding down her cheeks. He lowered her to her feet, noting neither Connie nor Liam were unaffected by the storm buffeting around them. Such keen and powerful emotions, sucking them all in and spitting them out.
Anarchy appeared by his side, silently offering Bodie’s crutches before she retreated back behind the bar. His heart ached as he guided Bodie’s arms through the supports, wrapping her fingers around the handles.
Braun stepped back and let nature go to work.
*
She’s not a little girl anymore.
Bodie couldn’t stop the tears, didn’t know how. For years, she’d lived with the knowledge her family hated her. She’d never understand the why of her parents’ loathing, would never have the opportunity to find out, but she’d dealt with that a long time ago. Paying them off had been easier than confronting them.
Money was easier to part with than pieces of her heart.
But Alicia...as annoying as little sisters were, Alicia hadn’t been the worst. Bodie had memories of them from...before. Before the accident. Before the guilt and the blame. Before Abraham and Diane used what happened as a permanent weapon against her.
There’d been scuffles and tears, laughter and hours of fun. Screaming matches and the occasional hair-pulling, nose-bloodying antics their parents encouraged...until Bodie reached an age where she understood she and Alicia were doing nothing but fueling the bloodlust that lived in their rotten veins.
She remembered hiding under her bed when she was eight. Pulling Alicia in with her and keeping her quiet when men burst into the house, looking for Abraham. She’d known they would take her, take Alicia, if the men found them. Because that’s what people who ran with Abraham, who lived in his circle, did.
Bodie had stopped thinking about Alicia. After almost a decade, she’d been able to get through a day without wondering how she was, where she was, how much her parents were fucking up her life and warping her mind. Helpless to do anything to help her, it was torture to hold her close.
So, she’d let Alicia go.
Now, here she was. Trapped in the chair Bodie’s actions had put her in—that was the truth, even if her motivations had been to save Alicia, not maim her—and looking at Bodie as though her world had just realigned with its favorite star.
No hatred, no malice.
Just love.
“Alicia.” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t care. They’d survived. They were goddamn survivors of the nightmare they were born into. They’d both gone through hell at their parents’ hands and yet she and Alicia were here. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Tentatively, Alicia’s arms rose, spread wide. Forgiveness offered in a simple gesture. Bodie’s crutches clattered to the floor and she fell forward into her sister’s arms, weeping as they came around her and drew her in.
“We shouldn’t be the sorry ones.” Alicia’s voice was tight, on the verge of tears but somehow keeping them at bay. “They were horrible to you, Bodie. I didn’t understand how horrible until you went away. We were dollar signs in their eyes, quick cash when they had a lull in business. They blamed you for what happened to me, made you think I was something special to them, their favorite, but that wasn’t true.”
“I don’t care about them; they can rot in hell together. I’m sorry for leaving you there, leaving you with them, when I knew what they were capable of. I know you hated me for what I did, but I should have gotten you away from them.”
The scent of lilacs was strong where Bodie pressed her face into her sister’s delicate shoulder. She knew the signs of starvation—she’d been damn close to displaying most of them herself when she met Braun—but couldn’t understand Alicia’s condition when she was under Connie’s expert care.