“Jesus,” Caleb said, running a hand through his hair. “I never even considered . . .”

“I should go,” Ramie said, rising abruptly from her perch on the couch. “It’s obvious I don’t need to be here. I’m doing her harm. I should have never called you. I’m sorry.”

“I disagree,” Beau said bluntly, surprising her with his response. From the way he’d been looking at her ever since Tori’s outburst, Ramie would have thought he couldn’t get rid of her quickly enough. “I think you being here is exactly what Tori needs. You’re right. We don’t know what all she went through. We can’t possibly understand. But you can and do. And no, she won’t like it, but we’ve babied and coddled her for the last year and I think we’ve done her a huge disservice even though our instincts are to do just that. Protect and coddle her. Maybe it’s time that the gloves come off.”

“This family has used Ramie enough,” Caleb said icily. “I won’t have her used anymore. Not as a crutch for Tori. Not for anything. I promised her protection and safety, so yes, she will remain here. But not because we’re going to use her as some kind of healing measure for Tori.”

Beau looked surprised by the vehemence in Caleb’s voice. His gaze narrowed as he glanced back and forth between Ramie and Caleb.

“She’ll hate me,” Ramie said softly. “She won’t be able to bear being in the same room with me. Because every time she looks at me, she’s going to know that I know. That I know things she’s tried to forget. Things she didn’t share with you—or anyone. And she’ll resent me with every breath.”

“Good,” Beau said savagely. “At least then she resembles something of a human. Right now I’d take any emotion from her. Even hatred or anger. Anything but this lifeless apathy that has taken over my sister’s soul for the last year. You don’t deserve her anger, Ramie. But this is the first time I’ve seen so much as a glimmer of life from her. She’s lived in a fog for the last year and me and my brothers have been helpless to do anything but watch her die a little more each day. If having you here makes her feel anything at all then I don’t want you going anywhere.”

Caleb shook his head, his frustration—and grief—palpable in the tension-filled room. “That’s not why I brought her here. We owe her. We all owe her. There’s some maniac out there who’s been stalking her for a year and a half. He almost got to her yesterday. She’s not here to be some punching bag for Tori, goddamn it. We owe her better than that. So you and Quinn keep Tori away from Ramie.”

Beau went silent, his lips stretched into a thin line. Caleb put his hand on Ramie’s shoulder and gently pushed her back down onto the couch. Then he turned back to Beau.

“Ramie doesn’t think it’s safe here. The seclusion worries her. The woods. She thinks we’d never know if someone was out there.”

Ramie could tell Beau was startled by Caleb’s words and then he glanced toward Ramie as if seeking confirmation of Caleb’s assessment.

“So before we show Ramie to her room, where she can get some much-needed rest,” Caleb continued, “you and I are going to show her why she has nothing to worry about.”

TWELVE

RAMIE’S head floated effortlessly down onto the pillow, her eyelids fluttering closed. She felt swallowed up by the bed, wrapped in its comforting embrace, and she purposely shut out everything but the sensation of safety and well-being.

Because if she allowed herself to think of anything else, she’d lose her tenuous grip on her sanity.

Caleb and Beau had taken her into a room on the main floor that housed all kinds of electronics and television monitors. Every angle of the house was displayed in real time. Remote sensors dotted the entire landscape and would sound a warning if anyone ventured near the house. For that matter if anyone entered the wooded area surrounding the house, alarms would be triggered.

There was a safe room on the main floor of the house. Fireproof, impenetrable, stocked with enough food and water to withstand a natural disaster. Or the zombie apocalypse.

She suppressed the sudden burst of laughter that bubbled up from her chest. There was certainly nothing amusing about her situation, nor having absurd thoughts like withstanding a zombie apocalypse. Even if it was appropriate.

The important thing was that this house was bulletproof. Or crazed, homicidal maniac proof. No one could as much as fart in the woods without Caleb and his brothers knowing. That should ease her worry, and yet here she was, lying on one of the most comfortable beds she’d ever lain in, exhausted, and yet unable to relax enough to go to sleep. She simply couldn’t shut off the fear, no matter how much her heart told her she was safe.

Heart and mind were not in accord, which only added to the sensation of her sanity slipping further and further from her reach.

Worse, on the way to the room Caleb had installed her in, they’d passed Tori’s room and the sound of her weeping filled Ramie with sorrow and her chest ached for the emotional upheaval she was causing with her presence. She couldn’t fault Tori’s reaction to coming face-to-face with the unerring truth of what had happened to her. There was nothing wrong with denial. Everyone had their own way of coping. God only knew how Ramie had learned to cope over the years. It may not be the healthiest way to absorb tragedy after tragedy, but being able to compartmentalize each nightmare had been the only way she survived.