My mother squeezed my hand. It was a silent show of encouragement as she stood at my side. The world rushed around us, people traversing the busy downtown streets, while I stood stock still right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the short stack of steps leading to the court building.

Sweat slicked my hands and beaded at the back of my neck.

Run. Run. Run.

It was that small, terrified voice that whispered the tortured plea within the confines of my muddled head.

Begging me to go.

To spare myself the torture waiting behind those doors.

Brave.

But it was the memory of that deep, haunting voice that convinced me to stay. The lingering warmth of his presence.

Funny how Lyrik had been the one to reveal my inner courage, to embrace it, to show me I no longer had to live behind walls when he’d just kept building his own.

Brick after brutal brick.

Deflecting and avoiding and protecting a mashed-up heart I’d learned kept so much hidden good. I knew it was there. Lurking in his ominous shadows.

That didn’t mean his savage heart didn’t hold the power to decimate.

I was still reeling from the fact he’d chosen to decimate me.

I’d thought we’d been so close…so close to finding who we were supposed to be. Together. But I guessed that was the problem.

Lyrik had gotten too close and it was too much.

This boy who didn’t have his heart to give.

But he held mine, anyway.

My mother squeezed my hand again. “We need to go inside.”

“I know,” I whispered, still unmoving.

She turned to me, her expression pure and understanding as she tenderly brushed back the long locks of my hair that whipped around my head, stirred by the wind.

Hair now so dark brown it was nearly black.

Red gone.

I should have known when Lyrik forced his way into my life she could never stay.

I’d dyed it back to my natural color. The color it’d been before I’d run. Before I’d masked and cloaked and camouflaged.

The same way it’d be when I climbed the stand and stood against Cameron Lucan.

No.

I’d realized since I’d come home I wasn’t ashamed of the tattoos that covered my scars or the way I’d dyed my hair.

But when he saw me sitting there, it wouldn’t be under veil or disguise.

It would be me.

Tamar Gibson.

The girl he’d so nearly destroyed.

In all those years of running, I’d never realized by hiding, I was allowing him to keep her that way.

Broken.

Hidden.

Submissive.

And as scared as I was to face him, he would no longer hold me down or hold me back.

“You can do this, Tamar,” my mother said. Emphatic. “I know you can, and I know it has to be one of the most terrifying feelings you’ve ever had to contend with. But you’re already more than halfway there. You’re here. You came.”

Tears welled, and I trembled a smile. In the two weeks since I’d knocked on their door at dawn, my mother had been my constant support. There for me when I’d needed someone to talk to and there for me in the silence when she’d known I’d needed to be left alone.

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and wiped away the single tear that slid down my cheek. “I’m so proud of you. Have I told you that?”

I laughed a soggy laugh. “Only about a thousand times.”

She smiled. “Then I’ll gladly tell you a thousand more.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, more grateful to her than she could ever know.

“Oh, sweet girl. I’m your mother. No matter how far you go, I will always be right here. Waiting for you. You are a gift, not a burden. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Her saying that just made me want to grab onto her, hug her and thank her again and again. Instead, I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

We headed into the building and through security. I’d declined sitting through other testimonies and questioning. Declined putting myself through the presentation of evidence. I was here to tell my story. And I was here to stand in the place of Madeline since Cameron had robbed her of telling her own.

That didn’t mean my stride didn’t slow as we approached the courtroom. That I couldn’t feel my heart pounding in my chest, so hard I was sure it was visible beneath my white blouse, each step inciting a panic that quickened through my veins.

It only amplified when I was led through the double wooden doors.

Tingles flashed across my skin.

Evil and vile.

Oh God.

I gulped down the bile that threatened to rise in my throat, the fear that threatened to bring me to my knees.

Run.

But I’d done it for so long and I was so tired of hiding. So tired of pretending.

Just like I’d known I would, I’d reached a crossroads.

Decision made.

I’d turned in the direction of my past.

An anxious energy trembled in the room, voices muted and subdued as they awaited my arrival. Paneled wood lined the walls, even darker where it gleamed from the judge’s and jurors’ boxes, the same wood making up the benches where people were squeezed shoulder to shoulder.

It made everything appear dark.

Sinister.

Cold.

A shiver skidded down my spine, and I forced up my chin, searched for the strength and courage that had set me on this path in the first place.

Brave, beautiful Blue.

I clung to her, that girl Lyrik had exposed, even though I felt so weak, so scared as I tentatively made my way down the narrow aisle. Heads swiveled and eyes gawked as this restless energy crawled across the floor and clawed at the walls. It pressed at the domed ceiling that only seemed to echo it back.

Amplified.

It was suffocating.

But it was nothing compared to the moment when he turned to look at me.

I felt as if I literally might die as I got trapped in the vile glare of Cameron Lucan.

Those dark eyes held no warmth and that heart held no capacity to care.

Reeling back, I ran into my father who was following close behind. He held me up while I wanted to crumble to the floor, his support always staunch and stoic.

How had I ever compared the two?

Lyrik and Cameron.

Because I recognized the difference. The difference between broken and depraved.

I was sworn in and took the stand. I could feel the weight of those terrorizing eyes locked on me. As if with just a look, he could back me into another corner. Hold me hostage in that dirty, disgusting room.

Memories spun.

Pain.

I couldn’t look up. Couldn’t bring myself to meet his eye.

Trembling, I gripped the edge of the chair to keep myself from fleeing. Feet aching to move.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t do this.

Sickness clawed at my spirit, breath locked in my throat.

Panic welled.

But I had to stay.

For me.

For Madeline.

For the shame. For the guilt I had born. To put away this man who had belittled and oppressed and abused. To ensure he could never do it again.

I just didn’t know how to lift my head.

“Ms. Gibson, can you tell us when you first met Cameron Lucan?” The female prosecutor stood a couple feet away from me, prodding me with sympathy woven through her voice.

“Ms. Gibson?”

Run.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Tighter than before.

Trembles rolled as awareness spread, my heart rate kicking up a notch, this disoriented comfort soothing across my skin.

I puffed out a breath and slowly lifted my head.

Drawn.

That magnet that wouldn’t let me go.

Inky eyes stared back at me, that intimidating, confusing boy like a vision where he stood just inside the courtroom door. My pulse hammered and sped, my mind and heart at war, fighting the stark relief in his presence and the echo of his cutting words.

Silently, he took two steps forward, his gaze unwavering as he slid into the very back bench. Still, he may as well have been under a spotlight, all that wicked beauty a lure, tattoos standing out against his crisp, dark gray suit.

Gritty and straight-laced.

Hard and so unbearably soft.

Edged in hostility and bleeding calm.

A blatant, bold contradiction.

So destructive and compelling it was impossible to look away, the man poised to strike and set you aflame.

But I was already on fire.

Burned by this man.

And I ached beneath his stare that filled with sorrow, that pouty mouth tipped down at the corners.

Why?

I blinked, and tears streaked down my face.

Why?

Why are you here?

Why do you keep doing this to me?

My tongue darted out to wet my bottom lip as I tried to get myself together. To focus on the reason I was here.

“Ms. Gibson,” the prosecutor said again, this time a prod.

Lyrik tipped his head. Gently.

Brave, beautiful Blue.

Promising me I had the strength.

Reminding me I’d had it all along.

I blinked myself away from that comforting face and turned my attention back to the prosecutor. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She shook her head. “It’s okay. I understand this is difficult for you. Let’s start again. Can you tell us when you first met Cameron Lucan?”

I cleared the lump from my throat, though the words trembled. “I was nineteen. It was summer and I was working at a diner when he first came in…”

Throat raw. Mouth dry. Fingers twisted in knots. That’s how I delivered my testimony, the memories brought to life with the power of a projection on a 3-D movie screen. Bile churned in my stomach as I relived every moment, the way he’d twisted and manipulated until my will was no longer my own. How the physical scars ran almost as deep as the emotional. The confession slid like venom from my tongue. Sharp as a dagger and heavy as a stone.

Horror and hate.

“Thank you, Ms. Gibson,” she said quietly. As quiet as the rest of the room that seemed to hold a collective breath, for a moment also prisoners to the atrocities meted at Cameron’s hand.

Caution laced her tone. “Ms. Gibson, do you recognize the person you just described in your testimony to be seated in this courtroom?”

“Yes,” I whispered, even though up to that point, I’d still refused to look that way.

“Can you please point to where that person is seated?”

My eyes dropped closed and the pressure built. So strong and intense. Because even after all the words that had flowed from my mouth, this felt like the culmination of it all.

The moment I finally took a stand.

The moment I stood against Cameron Lucan.

My eyes fluttered open, landing on the boy. My boy. Even if he would never truly belong to me. His jaw was rigid, anger rippling from him in waves that touched me like soft encouragement.

And I didn’t give myself time to question the reason Lyrik West was here. To question his motives or desires or needs.

Because right then, I knew he was there for me.

I lifted my chin, my gaze, and my hand.

Cameron sat across the room unmoving in his chair. As if he sensed the end and willed me to be the one to end it. With so much evidence stacked against him, there was virtually no chance of acquittal. I doubted aiming my attention at him would make a difference either way.

But it didn’t matter.

Because I would no longer remain silent.

I would no longer hide or mask or run.

I pointed a finger at Cameron Lucan.

The rest of her questions were a blur. “Can you please describe what that person is wearing for the court?”

I mumbled the answer and slumped forward when I did.

Gasping.

Reeling.

Free.

“Let the court record reflect that the witness has just identified the defendant, Cameron Lucan.”

I was completely shaking when I was excused from the stand, the cross-examination nothing but a muted whir at the fringes of my mind.

From the back of the room, Lyrik West smiled at me.

So damned soft and filled with understanding.

And I saw it there.

Written all over the edges of that convoluted man.

Pride.

I stumbled into my seat where my mother pulled me into her embrace, pressing wet kisses into my hair, her face soaked in tears. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you.”

And when I looked back over my shoulder, Lyrik was gone.

Mom edged out onto the back porch and handed me a hot cup of tea.

“Thank you.” I blew at the cup as I sat on a wooden rocking chair watching the sun melt against the mountains, a reflection of its passing as it dropped down the horizon at the opposite end of the sky.

These mountains had always been one of my favorite parts of home. Watching the storms build above them, witnessing a beauty unlike anything I’d ever seen. So strong and powerful and dangerous.

Mom settled in the seat next to me and propped up her feet on the railing. “How are you holding up?”

Two days had passed since my testimony. One day since Cameron Lucan’s conviction.

I took a sip and let it soothe my aching throat. “It feels…good.”

I eyed her with a half-smile. “Weird. The day I escaped, I’d accepted the fact it would be something that chased me forever. That I’d have to look behind at every turn. Always be ready to run again. It feels so odd to put it to rest.”

“Yet you’re not settled.” When it came to me, she’d always been this way. Intuitive.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Where do you go from here?”

I hefted a single shoulder. “I don’t know, Mom. I just feel so…lost. I’m not sure where I belong anymore.”

“I’d keep you here forever if you’d let me.” It came out almost a tease, although I recognized the honesty behind it.

“I know you would. And you know I love it here, but—”

“I know, Tamar. I know. You’ll find your place.”

Her smile was knowing. “Are you about ready to tell me about this boy who broke my baby’s heart?” She lifted a brow. “I want to know whose ass I have to kick.”

Wistful laughter fumbled from me and my smile trembled. “Maybe that’s the hardest part of it all. He broke it in the best way. He found me when I didn’t know I was lost. Turned me in the right direction. It was him who pointed me home.”

“You’re here because of him?”

I gave a small shrug. “No…but in some ways, yes. He forced me to see myself. To hear where I was being called.”

“It takes someone brave to listen.”

I choked over the swell of emotion. “He used to call me that… Brave.”

Sympathy clouded her blue eyes that were the same color as mine, her voice soft as she reached out to play with a few stray strands of my hair. “You love him?”

My insides shuddered and screamed and flailed.

Searching for a way to fill up the hole he’d left behind. Carved out and bleeding.

Hollow.

Every time he barged into my life, he took a little more when he left me behind.

“So much,” I whispered as I released the tears Lyrik had taken the time to show me weren’t a weakness.

They were ones I deserved to shed.

And God. I missed him so much it reminded me of death. His name equating to loss and grief and sorrow. And still, his touch had been my resurrection.

This beautiful, tormented boy.

He’d both wrecked me and breathed the life back into me.

The conflicting emotions got locked up in my chest. Because the deepest part of me knew where I belonged was with him.

And I remembered.

I remembered.

Even after he was gone.

He was worth every second of the pain.

Light tapping at my door roused me from sleep. It was the drifting kind, where I hovered just above full coherency, as if watching my life suspended above it all.

It felt so strange, this broken heart up against the overwhelming feeling of being free. Missing him and being so thankful to be home.

The door creaked open. “Hey,” my mother said as she slipped into my room. Late afternoon light bled in through the parted drapes, shadows playing on the vista, dancing up and down the peaks and ridges of the mountains.

“Hi,” I said as I tried to establish my bearings. I blinked through the daze as I sat up.

She sank down on the bed next to me, ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

“No…it’s fine.”

She hesitated. “I thought you might want this.”

My attention traveled to the small yellow mailer she held in her hands.

Dread and hope.

They slammed me.

God, what was wrong with me?

She glanced at me from the side. “It’s for you…I think.”

Unease rustled through my dim room, and I pulled in a deep breath as I gathered the courage to peek at what was written across the front. Somehow already knowing what would be there.

There was no address.

No first or last name.

It simply said Blue.

That statement was written in his bold script. As if he were reaching out. Touching me. This boy who chased me in my dreams and haunted my nights.

“Where did you find this?” I managed.

Her lips thinned. “It was sitting at the front door. I’m guessing it’s from him?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She touched my chin. “Okay…I’ll give you some time.”

“Thank you,” I whispered as I accepted the padded envelope. I held it against my chest until she snapped the door closed behind her. Silence stole over the room, my breaths increasing to a pant.

Anxiety. Emotions running wild.

Was I really going to allow him to do this to me again? Pull and pull and pull until he pushed me away?

Swallowing, I ripped open the seal. A disk fell out. Blue was again scripted across it.

Warily, I stood, paced, wondered. Before I gave and sat down at the small desk and lifted my laptop lid, shaking as I slid the disk inside.

There was one file on it.

A video.

Fumbling, I pressed my headphones into my ears, my pulse at a sprint and my spirit in a frenzy, while the rational, logical side screamed at me to toss the disk in the trash. To protect. To find some semblance of those walls.

But I couldn’t stop myself from pressing play.

The screen filled with Lyrik.

So big and bold and beautiful.

My breath caught and my heart skipped.

He was sitting on a hotel bed with an acoustic guitar balanced on his lap. Those eyes were sad and brimming with remorse, his mouth vacant of that smirk. He scratched at his temple, as if this menacing, malicious man didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Blue.”

My insides quaked with it falling like a plea from his tongue.

Eyes dropping closed, he looked away, before he turned his attention to the camera. “I’ve written a lot of songs in my life. For a long damn time, they were the only real joy I had. And this one…it’s the most important one I’ve ever written, even though I could never bring myself to get to the end.”

He strummed a single chord and cleared his throat. “You know a song says more than any words I could ever speak. Listen, Blue. Fuck…” He raked a hand through his hair. “Please…just…listen.”

Quietly, he plucked through another chord, and when he opened that pretty mouth, the words were raw. Rough. Coarse and bleeding emotion.

Trembles rolled when I recognized the haunting cadence of the music.

He was playing the unsung song. The song coiling his arm, wrapping him in mystery and unseen misery.

Tears blurred my eyes.

The intensity of the song increased as he drove into the chorus.

Tears poured free, and my chest ached and throbbed while my shaky world spun.

I’d once thought he’d laugh when he watched me fall.

But I knew now. There was a huge part of Lyrik that wanted to hold me up.

I just wasn’t sure he knew how.

His fingers stumbled across the frets, and a pained breath left him. “Blue.” He leaned forward, as if he could get to me from across the space. “Blue…I wrote the beginning of that song a long damn time ago. But it’s not finished. I know it now. Let me end it with you.”

The screen went blank.

A sob shot from my mouth.

Let me end it with you.

I climbed from the chair and paced the quiet of my room. I gripped my hair, feeling like I had to be insane. Completely, entirely insane.

Because that’s the way this boy made me.

Weak.

But I refused to be a fool.

Not because I was rigid and forging walls.

No.

Because I wanted to be loved. Loved the way I deserved to be.

So confused, I fumbled from my room and down the hall, hand darting out to the wall to keep myself from falling.

That intensity swelled. I nearly choked over it.

Thick.

Heavy.

Dense.

Needing a breath, clarity, I flew out the front door and down the steps to the thatch of grass lining the front.

I faltered to a staggered stop.

That dark, foreboding boy stood at the edge of the graveled drive. Tattooed hands stuffed in his pockets. Hair wild as it whipped around his head.

My mouth went dry and I took a single step back.

He took a pleading one forward. “Blue.”

My head shook as another gust of wind blasted through.

Those dark eyes swallowed me whole, his voice hard. “Been sittin’ in that hotel room for the last three days, since the moment I saw you on the stand. Being brave.”

My face pinched. As if it could protect me from his words. From this boy who held the power to desolate and destroy.

To build me up or break me.

“All these months…” His head shook, as if he were trying to make sense of it. “The way I felt? Feeling like I wanted to wrap you up and protect you? Hunt down that bastard and make him pay for what he did to you? Didn’t get it, Blue. Didn’t get what it meant. Not until that night back at my place in L.A.”

I took another step back. Wanting to run. To him. Or away. I didn’t know.

“I can’t let you do this to me, Lyrik. Not again.” I fisted my hand at my chest. “I can’t take it…you drawing me closer before you push me away. I don’t know what you want from me.”

He laughed this bemused sound, mouth pulling up at the side. “You know…when I first met you…thought that was what I liked about you most. The push and the pull. All that attracting and repelling. That crazy contradiction I felt around you. Was something I just couldn’t resist.”

His expression turned somber. “But it was so much more than that. And as much as I wanted to launch myself across that courtroom and tear that piece of shit to shreds, I knew you sitting up there on that stand, doing it yourself? It’s what you needed. Even when I knew I wanted to be the one there if you needed me. To catch you if you fell, even when I knew my girl was gonna stand.”

My girl.

The air whipped into a frenzy.

And that feeling blazed.

The thrill.

I shivered as it rolled over me.

Wave after wave.

“I need to tell you something, Blue.”

“You can’t—” I attempted.

He edged forward, so damned tall and strong and so ridiculously soft. Those dark eyes were tormented as he reached out and grabbed both my wrists, hauling me forward.

And I felt so small and vulnerable.

Caged.

“Please…listen to me.”

I struggled and he held tighter though his tone softened. “Listen to me, Blue…I need you to hear this.”

I gave. So fucking weak. Because that’s the way this boy made me.

He gathered me closer and his voice dropped to a whisper as he uttered the confession at my ear. “I have a son.”

His words slammed into me like a freight train that had no time to slow.

They just blew straight through me.

Impacting everything.

“Brendon.” It scraped from my throat as that awareness took hold. The name woven through his song. The heart of his story.

The word was reverent when he murmured it back. “Brendon.”

He shifted, still holding me tight as he stared down at me. “Told you I fuck everything up, Blue. I take the good things I’m given then crush them. First day I met him? That was the day I had to tell him goodbye.”

Pain radiated from him. A crestless wave. Endless. “I got to hold him once. Once, Blue. I didn’t get to keep him. Fuck, I wanted to so bad…but I had to give him up because it was the only thing I could do. The best thing I could do for him.”

Tears soaked my face as he kept talking, “I made him a promise…I promised him he’d be the last person I ever fell in love with. In some twisted way, I thought it’d make up for something, condemning myself to my own personal hell.”

I was shaking. Shaking all over.

My heart breaking.

For him.

For the child.

For the girl in the photo.

Just the same as it swelled with jealousy.

“You have a son,” I whimpered.

He tried to draw me closer, as if that might be the only way he could get me to understand. “How could I go and find happiness after I’d left him? How could I, Blue?”

Edging back, his brow twisted and pinched, gaze relentless. “But then there was you. This beautiful, bold, brave girl. Think I knew from the get go you were off limits. That I shouldn’t touch you. That I should stay away. Because I knew if I did, I wasn’t ever gonna be the same. And I’m not, Blue. I’m not. Because you changed everything.”

My spirit thrashed, stirred by a sudden gust of wind. Tension winding fast.

His expression locked in sorrow. “Look at you…”

He brushed his knuckles across my cheeks, sending a rush of chills spiraling through my senses.

Body and soul.

“All I fuckin’ do is make you cry. Hurt you more. But I’m done, Blue. So fucking done with that. I know you think my apologies don’t count for anything, but this one…this one is all I have to give. I’m so fucking sorry for the things I said. For the things I did. I won’t try to make excuses or pretend the way I treated you was right…but I need you to know I was trying to protect my heart because I thought it could only belong to my son.”

My chest heaved and he drew in a ragged breath. “And there you were, breaking up all the broken, brittle parts and making room for something different. For something better. Waking me up from the dead. Making me realize what it’s like to feel again. Making me feel things I’ve never felt before. You were making room for you.”

“Lyrik.” It was so soft. Broken like this boy.

Energy swelled. The storm gained speed.

The buzz before the strike.

My entire body shook, all my hopes floating to the surface, clashing with my fears. With that image branded in my memory, the picture of him and the girl, the words he’d said when I found it.

Not you.

“If you still love her—”

He gripped my jaw, forcing me to stop talking and to look up at him. “No, Blue. I don’t. It’s you. It’s you.”

Lyrik suddenly dropped to his knees on the grass.

An offering.

“Do you hear me?”

And for the first time, I was the one towering above this intimidating man.

Wind whipped through. Gathering strength.

It was as if nitrogen and oxygen had come alive.

Every element in the dense air combustible.

Explosive.

Chills raced up my spine.

“I don’t know how to trust you.”

But God, I wanted to.

I wanted this boy as much as I wanted breath.

But more than that, I wanted love. The real kind. I wouldn’t settle for anything less.

His words were hoarse. “Let me prove it, Blue. Let me show you that every night, I want to be the one making love to you, and when you wake up in the morning, I want it to be me who has their arms wrapped around you.”

His tongue darted out. Nervous but sure. “And when you wear a ring on your finger, I want to be the one who put it there.”

Emotion swam in those eyes the color of pitch. Twilight and the sunrise. “And when you become a mother, I want you to be holding my child.”

I panted.

Overwhelmed by this man.

This time it was my turn to drop to my knees.

Floored.

Gone.

His.

He gathered my face in his hands. Thumbs brushed the tears from my cheeks. “I’m in love with you, Tamar Gibson. Do you hear me?”

I hear you.

I hear you.

“Be with me, Blue. Tell me you’re mine. Because I don’t think I can let you go. And there’s a good chance my son’s gonna be a part of my life. Because it was you who taught me what it’s like to be brave. That if I was gonna move on, I had to face my past. Share it with me, Blue. My past and my future.”

He buried his face in my hair, mouth at my ear. “Please…don’t tell me no.”

My voice was a rasp. “I couldn’t.”

With Lyrik, I never could.

He gasped out in relief, and he pressed a thick lock of my dark hair against his nose and laughed out this disbelieving sound. Breathed me in. Then he inched back so those unyielding eyes could take me in. The softest smirk lifted at one side of his mouth. But it lacked the threat. Warmed me through.

This intimidating, malicious man who was so utterly soft.

His words twisted with awe. “You’re so damned pretty.”

Then that mouth was on mine.

Kissing me in a way that was wholly profound.

Soft and deep.

Slow and hard.

With a promise he would never let me go.

The air crackled with energy.

Light lit up at the edges of my eyes.

Intense and alive.

With the force of a thunderbolt.

Where lightning strikes.

And I felt so small. Scared. Yet strong at the same time. Witnessing this beauty unseen. Touching on an experience I only thought I’d observe from afar.

Love.

It was blinding.

Powerful.

It turned out this boy was the perfect storm.

“Say it again,” I whispered at his mouth.

Lyrik pulled back. I watched the heavy bob of his throat. The heave of his chest. The severity in those pitch-black eyes.

“Blue, you sing my soul.”