Walking Wounded by Lauren Gilley

Author:Lauren Gilley [Gilley, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781540701916
Publisher: HP Press
Published: 2016-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

~*~

He was sixteen when his sister died, and her death was a depth charge in the midst of their family. It had always just been the three of them, if you didn’t count the Rycrofts downstairs. Dad long gone, before Sadie was even born, but Mom strong enough to work fulltime and fill both roles. A quietly strong woman; with Luke’s mouth and eyes, and a gentle hand when it came to punishment. Handstitched Halloween costumes and homemade birthday cakes, always. Soft forehead kisses at night, and elaborate bedtime stories. Her imagination had inspired Luke’s, made him want to be a writer.

Luke was always the dour kid, the grumpy one, picked on at school. He’d always preferred his own company, or Hal’s, to anyone else’s.

Sadie was the sweet one, the vivacious one. The one who thought the sun coming up each morning was a miracle. Beautiful like their mother had been as a girl, with the kind of smile that attracted inappropriate glances from grown men. By the time she was thirteen, Luke had started putting himself between his sister and crowds, trying to keep her hidden, keep her innocent.

Safe.

But then…

Then.

He wished, in those first terrible weeks after it happened, that he hadn’t been sixteen, that he hadn’t understood words like sexual assault, asphyxiation, spermicide.

The perp wore a condom. The DNA beneath Sadie’s fingernails didn’t match anyone questioned. Luke had opened his mouth for the swab willingly, not caring the cops looked at him like he might be a suspect. He just wanted the fucker caught, whatever it took.

But he never was. And there was no closure. Someone snatched his baby sister from the bus stop, raped her, and killed her. Threw her down on the side of the road like garbage. And he got away with it.

Mom was never the same after that. Nothing was.

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