Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(59)

I didn’t speak, didn’t breathe. All I could imagine was a boy not much older than Owen wondering where his mother had gone.

“Some people wanted us to think we were the spawn of Satan. Others wanted to jerk us around with reports of seeing Mom alive or dead. And I think some genuinely thought they were helping.”

God, I couldn’t imagine living through all that. The weight of it. The torment.

“You were twelve when they found out about your father?” I asked softly.

Dex’s throat worked as he struggled to swallow. “Yeah. Sixth grade. Before that, my biggest problem was Leigh Friedman breaking up with me on the playground in front of all my friends.”

“That bitch,” I muttered.

He let out a soft chuckle that didn’t quite ring true but said he appreciated my efforts to lighten his load. “Everything changed. It wasn’t just that we all suddenly wondered if our dad had something to do with our mom’s disappearance—”

“Did he?” My stomach cramped just thinking about the possibility.

Dex shrugged, the movement making me all the more aware of his hand over mine. The steady pressure. The heat. He looked out at the water, at Owen and Yeti racing in circles in front of it. “We still don’t know. He either killed her, or she knew what she was doing when she disappeared. All we know is investigators never found her body with the others.”

Everything in me twisted like a tight coil of rope that might explode outward with one wrong move. I wasn’t sure which was worse: knowing your mother had been killed and stolen from you or knowing she chose to walk away, leaving you with a monster.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, then shook my head. “No. I hate when people say that. I am sorry, but I’m also pissed off and sad and grieving for the twelve-year-old boy who never should’ve been leveled with all of this.”

Dex’s fingers moved then, curling around mine and squeezing. “I’m partial to your anger, Hellion. Makes your eyes burn with gold fire.”

My breath hitched. “I find my mad pretty damn easily.”

His mouth curved the barest amount. “Means something, you lighting that righteous fury for me. But I made it through. I’m okay.”

“Are you?” The question spilled out before I could stop it.

Surprise and a hint of admiration lit Dex’s expression. “I’m okay, and I’m not. It changed me. Changed all of us. And we’ve each dealt in our own way.”

“And your way?”

Dex’s jaw moved back and forth, locking and unlocking. Somehow, I knew answering this would cost him. “I needed to understand how he hid. How all the monsters hid. I needed to put together the pieces. So I started looking.”

“On the internet,” I surmised.

“In the dark places the internet hides.”

My stomach roiled, knowing just from my bits of research what all the dark web housed. Graphic pornography and things that couldn’t be classified with a word that constituted consent. Illegal offerings of every kind. Human trafficking. The worst humanity had to offer.

“When did you start?” Because I needed to know that piece, too.

“Started dabbling around age thirteen, knew what I was doing by sixteen, arrested by twenty-one for hacking into the FBI’s files to help a friend look into their missing brother.”

“Too young to know about that kind of darkness.”

Dex’s eyes found mine again. “Brae, I lived with that kind of darkness. It raised me. I may not have known it at the time, but it doesn’t change the truth.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. Not at first. “Makes it even more of a miracle that you turned out like you did.”

“You don’t know—”

It was my turn to squeeze Dex’s hand. I flipped mine over so we were palm-to-palm and put all my strength behind the motion. “I know. I know that you decided to help me, even though it puts you at risk, even though it pisses off at least one of your brothers.”

“Two,” he admitted.

“Even though it pisses off two of your brothers. I know that you held me together when I was shattering like that glass on the floor. I know you made me pancakes because you saw how tired I was. And I know that you answered every single one of my kid’s questions, even though he had fifty million. I know you’re good, Dex.”

His hand spasmed around mine as if my words were a physical blow. “People can hide their true natures.”

“They can,” I agreed. I’d seen it up close and personal with Vincent.

“Maybe I’m hiding who I really am from you.”

He didn’t know how much that terrified me. Not that he’d turn out to be a serial killer but that he would stop showing up. “You could be. And that’s why I don’t lean. But it won’t change that I believe in your good.”

“You not leaning is why I had to force my pancakes on you,” Dex teased, the slightest lightness entering his tone.

“It’s not easy for me to accept help when I’ve had it yanked out from under me so many times.”

“But you’re doing it.”

“I’m doing it.” I let out a long breath. “We all have a choice.”

“I guess we do.” Dex’s gaze traced my face. “You’re braver than me.”