Edge of Anarchy (Edge of Collapse, #4)

by Kyla Stone

Hannah slid closer to him. She slipped her thin arms around his chest and held him. She didn’t say anything. She just held him.

He kept going. He had to. He had to get it all out. It was like a poison eating him from the inside out. If he didn’t do it now, he never would.

All that love with nowhere to go but inward to scrape out an ever-widening hole in the center of himself.

Hannah squeezed his shoulders. He let himself melt into her. She was warmth and softness and comfort, all the things he hadn’t believed he’d deserved.

They were two wounded people. So different and so much the same. Both of them survivors. Both of them suffering from trauma and loss. Mirrors to each other’s suffering and struggles.

she couldn’t save him. Just like he couldn’t save her. Not really. The hard work had to be done yourself.

But that didn’t mean you had to make the ...

That's right.

Love brought pain. It brought suffering. It was worth it.

His heart swelled, filling with emotions he couldn’t name. The things he’d tried to deny even to himself. He couldn’t deny them anymore. He didn’t want to. His world had been dark and meaningless. But Hannah had given it meaning. Hannah had given him hope.

He could have kissed her. He longed to.

Hannah smiled at him. His whole chest cracked open.

Liam was in love with Hannah Sheridan.

Liam was on his feet again, but his bout with hypothermia and his back injury had taken a lot out of him. He’d endured too much.

He wasn’t a robot, much as he wanted to pretend he was. His body weakened, just like anyone’s. It could fail. It could break.

She’d left Liam resting with Charlotte snuggled on his broad chest, his hand resting protectively across her back. The sight of them together had done something to her, warmi...

She felt honored to be trusted with his secrets, his fears, and his vulnerabilities. Just as she’d trusted him. She would not betray that trust, not for anything.

It was a strange thing to step inside another person’s loneliness. It was like entering a darkened cave, feeling along the walls, bumping into sharp edges, learning the contours of a foreign yet familiar place.

They were making their way out of it, slowly, halting and tentative, but together.

“Holy mother of—Hannah? Hannah Sheridan?” Her blood rushed in her ears. Her whole body tingled from her toes to her scalp. She felt like crying, screaming, and laughing, all at the same time. Too many emotions to name washed over her like a tsunami.

Mine too! I got goosebumps! Yeeeeeesssss

She thought she would hate it, that she’d instinctively recoil from a stranger’s touch, but he didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt like the old friend that he was.

“I bet it is!” He grinned, his white teeth gleaming, his whole face beaming. “But we’re not the ones you want to tell, I bet. Not yet.”

“Look at me!” he shouted. “I’m happy as a kid on Christmas morning. What a gift! Praise God! He brings joy even in the midst of sorrow. And what a joy this is. Noah will be—he’ll be ecstatic!”

“There’s more,” Hannah said, soft but steady. She went to the basement door. “The man who kidnapped me five years ago. His body is down there. You should probably see it.”

“I’ll do you one better!” Bishop bellowed. “Get your son. Get Milo. We’ll be at your house in thirty minutes. We’re bringing Hannah home.”

The infant was swaddled against Liam’s chest, tied with strips of a sheet beneath his coat. He’d offered to carry her so that Hannah would have her arms free to hold her son, to hug her husband.

They had fit together so easily before. Now they didn’t know where to put their arms. It was awkward, like they were pieces of a puzzle that didn’t quite fit.

“Noah, this is Liam Coleman. After I escaped, he found me in the woods. He saved my life. Three or four times, actually. I wouldn’t be here without him.”

“She held her own.”

Noah stepped forward. He clasped Liam’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Thank you, Liam. Thank you so much. We can never repay ...

Hannah sank to her knees. She couldn’t take her eyes off her son. He was so beautiful. He’d grown so much, more than she could have imagined.

He was everything she’d dreamt of, everything she’d held on to so fiercely during those dark, miserable years. The only splinter of hope in a hopeless existence.

In that moment, with her husband a stranger and her son almost unrecognizable, she feared their broken pieces might never fit back together.

Noah looked reluctant, like he wanted to come closer but was holding himself back. Because of Ghost, but also something else. She recognized the torn look in his eyes.

She waited for him to ask what had happened to her. Where she’d been for the last five years. He didn’t. Maybe he was waiting for her to work up the courage to bring it up. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

“You aren’t beholden to me. I don’t…I don’t hold you to anything. I want you to know that. I’m broken, Noah. I’m not the girl you knew. The one you married. I’m not her anymore. I’m not sure who I am yet, but what happened to me—” “I don’t care,” he said in a rush. “We’ll get over it. We’ll get through it. It will be okay.”

“I know we had problems before. I know we weren’t perfect. But we loved Milo. We loved him with all our hearts, and that has to count for something, doesn’t it? We can start again. Start over. I loved you. I love you.” “And Charlotte?” He hesitated. She saw it in his face—a flash of doubt. Her stomach dropped to her toes. She looked away. “I’ll—I’ll try,” he said, faltering. “I’ll learn to. I will.”

An image flashed through her mind—big, strong Liam cradling tiny Charlotte in his arms, his hand cupped around her soft skull, a light in his eyes. Pride and affection. A fierce devotion.

“It’ll be okay, Hannah. Everything will be okay. We’re together now. You’re back. Like Bishop said, it’s a miracle. This will work. I know it will.”

It's like he's forcing himself to believe it. To pick up where they left off but better. Poor Hannah.

He didn’t want to see the cracks. He didn’t want to see the ugliness. He didn’t want to acknowledge the difficult terrain that lay before them.

Hannah’s heart squeezed. He was still her son. Still her Milo.

“I never liked him. Never. There was always something… off about him. Like he despised you even as he smiled at you. But I never thought…we never suspected him. No

one did. He was here, this whole time. I spoke to him. I had meals with him at Rosamond’s house…”

“I killed him. Me and Ghost together.” She hesitated. “Liam told Reynoso that he did it.”

“She’ll never believe it. Not of her precious son.”

Hannah stiffened. “I don’t care what she believes.”

Thank you. They can kick bricks. To hell with them.

“Your soldier friend was smart. I don’t want her blaming you for this. Julian has a hot temper. You remember how he is. Rosamond…she’s not going to take this news well. It will be better if it wasn’t you.” “But it was.” “I know that. You know that. That’s all that matters...

Killing Gavin Pike might have ended one nightmare—only to begin the genesis of another.

His mind raced. It was difficult to believe. But was it, really? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Not where his brother was concerned.

The more he thought about it, the more everything began to fall into place, to finally make sense. Gavin’s obsession with those weekend camping trips. That throwaway phone he didn’t want anyone to know about, that he would furtively check during council meetings or at family dinners at their mother’s house.

A shiver raced up his spine. Instinctively, his right hand strayed to the two fingers of his left hand, broken in childhood. An accident, his mother had always insisted.