I had one week of bliss before reality cold-cocked me right in the face.

I was at her place when the nightmare hit, wrapped around her with my fist in her hair and our legs tangled together.

At some point, I started clutching at her like she was an oversize doll, and I know I must have scared her.

The nightmares scared me.

Being the observer couldn’t be any picnic, especially when some guy is holding you prisoner in your own bed and forcing you to go along for the ride.

It was her voice that brought me out. Her voice, calm and soothing…and singing.

She was singing to me.

Sweating like a damn pig, all but shaking with humiliation, I lay there with Emmy curled up against me, her hand over my heart and a voice like honeyed whiskey, singing, of all things, that song from the kid’s play, Annie. I’d never liked the song. At all. But hearing it in Emmy’s smooth, sinful voice turned it into a different song altogether.

But I couldn’t lie there and enjoy it.

The nightmares always twisted me, and tonight was no different. It was actually worse, the twists it had taken—fuck, how had Emmy ended up getting dragged into my nightmares? I had no idea, but it was enough to make me sick.

Untwining myself from her, I sat up and swung my legs off the edge of the bed.

She stopped singing and the two of us sat there in the dark, wrapped up in a silence that became suffocating.

“Sing something else,” I heard myself say.

And she did.

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow” followed by “Rocky Top” followed by “Amazing Grace.” She slid into what sounded like an Irish ballad and damn if I didn’t feel a knot lodge in my throat at that.

“Where did you learn that one?”

“I went to Ireland and Wales with Angel when I was a kid. I heard a lady singing it in a pub and I started singing along.” Her hand came to rest on my back.

That simple connection, there in the dark, did more to steady me than I would’ve thought possible. Her voice had connected me back to the present and her touch reminded me I wasn’t in hell anymore.

“One of the servers heard me singing and asked if I’d like to sing for the people. I had no idea he was serious. But I said yes and he took me up there. The woman singing went over the song with me and we sang it together…” She laughed a little and I looked back at her, seeking her face in the darkness. “Then I sang ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ It was August. But it was the only song I could think of off the top of my head. She started to sing another one. I didn’t know it, but it was a silly little kids’ ballad they sing there and after a verse or two, I had it. The people listening clapped and hooted and hollered. It was the first time I ever sang in front of people and I was hooked.”

“It’s a buzz, performing.”

She scooted closer, curling up around me, a warm curve against the small of my back, along my hips. She slid her arm around my waist. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener, Sly.”

I opened my mouth to brush the comment away.

What came out was a secret I’d kept hidden so long, it felt like it had grown inside me, become a very part of my flesh. “I let my little sister die.”

She had been stroking my back as she talked.

Now, her hand paused, but only for a fraction. “How old were you?”

“What the fuck does that matter?”

“I’d say it matters a lot,” she replied, still stroking.

I focused on the feel of her hand, kept my mind locked on it. “I don’t know how old I was. Shit, I didn’t even know when my real birthday is—I ended up in foster care at some point after a cop found me living on the streets. After nobody ever stepped forward to claim me, the only place for me was foster care. O’Malley isn’t even my real name. They gave me the last name of Smith. I changed it at eighteen.” I stared at her, watching as all the emotions, everything from shock to pity to dismay played across her features. “I don’t know how old I was—I didn’t even know my own fucking birthday until I did some digging a few years back,” I said, all but challenging her now. “I’ve never had a fancy party, never even had a cake until Mac and LeVan got one for me a few years back.” It had been one of the few things that had stunned me into silence. Shit, I’d almost started crying and wouldn’t that have been a laugh.

“You were young. Weren’t you?”

She’d wiggled around until she could look up at me. I met her gaze and nodded reluctantly. “I didn’t know anything about babies. My mom…the old bastard said someone hit her car. I found out the information about her later on. It was a drunk driver. She died instantly. Found out her name, my real last name…. I would’ve been four. The baby was still little. I don’t even know how old.” Unable to look at her, I got up from the bed and started to pace. “My step-father was there… miserable, lazy slob of a bastard didn’t work. I know one day my mother was there, and then she wasn’t and he’d yell at me and the baby like it was our fault. He’d put the little girl in my arms, arms that could hardly hold her, and tell me to take care of her. But I didn’t know how to take care of a baby. I was barely out of toddler stage. Still, I figured out how to change her diaper…” Shame scalded my cheeks and I looked back at her. “I dropped her once. She was so heavy.”

“You were a little boy, Sly.”

Swallowing the bile that threatened to choke me, I shook my head. “She was just a baby. She wouldn’t eat. I didn’t know how to make her eat, didn’t understand she couldn’t eat food like we did, but I remembered seeing her take bottles. I gave her milk in a bottle. She didn’t like it, but she drank it eventually. For a few days, it seemed like maybe I’d be okay with her. Then one day I came back and Rick…” Even saying his name left a bad taste in my mouth, but I forced it out. “That was my stepfather. He was sitting in front of the TV and Addy wasn’t in her crib. She wasn’t big enough to climb out or anything. She was so skinny…”

She’d been starving. I knew that now, but then, all I’d known was she was little.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Little brat’s gone. You weren’t taking good care of her.’”

Gone.

“I didn’t understand and started to cry. He did what he always did…” I grimaced, not wanting to tell her about that.

“He beat you.” The words were delivered in a stark, ugly tone that made me flinch.

I didn’t want her knowing that.

But… “Yeah. At least I was old enough to survive it.” Hitching a shoulder up in a shrug, I shook my head. “Addy was too little to survive neglect. He told me she died and it was all my fault.” Bitter bile tried to choke me. “And it was. I could’ve told one of the people that lived around us that I didn’t know how to take care of a baby, that I needed help. They didn’t like my stepdad, but I don’t think they were bad people. I didn’t know anything about CPS, but someone could’ve called the cops…actually someone did.” Looking away, I blew out a breath. “It was probably only a day later. Maybe someone found out what happened to Addy, or they overhead him telling me. I have no idea. But cops showed up one morning when I was trying to make breakfast. Two cops and this lady in a suit. They took me away. I didn’t ever see Rick again.”

Slim arms came around me.

I covered Emmy’s hands with mine.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, passion pulsing in her voice. “You were just a baby yourself, Sly. You can’t blame that little boy for the fact that your stepdad was a neglectful asshole.”

When I didn’t answer, she circled around me and reached up, cupping my face in her hands. “If a small child saw something bad happening, but didn’t know what to do about it, is it their fault that something bad did happen?”

“Don’t try to make this into something it’s not,” I said, forcing the words out.

“I’m not. You are,” she whispered, tugging my head down to meet hers. “If the situations were reversed, would you want your sister blaming herself?”

“No!” The answer flew out of me before I could stop it.

Emmy gave me a gentle smile. “Then why should you bear the brunt of this?”

Her words didn’t penetrate the layer of ice that had gripped me for so long. Not that night.

But I did hear them.