The Stronghold. Lisa Carter

got to go.” Byron’s voice changed. “I’ll call next chance I get. There’s more I need to talk to you about. But you need to have made your decision about Manny by then, Pilar. Do you hear me?”

      Alex’s offer drifted past her mind.

      With her brother so far away, perhaps another male influence wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Even if that influence meant Alex Torres. Wasn’t like she had that many options.

      She’d never had many options. And that stark reality only fueled the anger she kept stashed deep inside herself.

      “I hear you, Byron. Be safe.”

      “Tell Manny goodnight for me. Fee sends her love. I’ll—”

      Static filled the airwaves between them as the connection ended.

      Pilar scrounged around the kitchen, cleaning the mess Manny left of dinner. She took one look at the taco salad she’d ordered and hurled it into the trash.

      She drifted through the rooms and turned off the lights as she went. Double-checking the locks. She hesitated outside Manny’s door. No light shone underneath its frame.

      Pilar rested her forehead against the wood. It hadn’t been that long ago Manny wouldn’t go to bed without her goodnight kiss and a bedtime story.

      How she missed those days. Now Manny preferred to follow his own interests. He couldn’t be bothered to turn his homework in on time, but he made sure those dry, scholarly tomes on Apache history returned to interlibrary loan.

      “Good night, Manny,” she whispered through the door.

      For a moment, she imagined Manny whispering back to her. Byron wasn’t wrong about the fortress she’d built around herself. She’d tear down those walls and more if it meant keeping Manny from making irreparable choices. Even if it meant making Alex a temporary fixture in their lives.

      She secured her firearm in the safety box on the top shelf of her closet. Her skull pounded. Sleep or the other thing she shamefully did were the only things that ever helped.

      It’d been a long, long time since she’d endured one of these migraines. Probably brought on by the stress of seeing the girl in the shallow grave. Triggered by the shock of finding Alex on the rez.

      Flicking off the light, she changed into her pajamas. Releasing the pins that bound her hair in the tight bun at the nape of her neck, she shook her hair free. Giving in to the urge to lie down, she slid underneath the comforter. Laying her head on the pillow, she massaged her temples.

      What she wanted to do was scream every obscenity at Alex she’d rehearsed in her mind over a dozen years in the off chance they ever met again.

      She wanted to rail and beat her fists into his too-handsome-to-live face. She wanted to hurt him as deeply and as irreversibly as he’d hurt her. A hurt far deeper than anything done before or since Alex came into her life.

      And that—she closed her eyes, wishing for oblivion—was saying a lot.

      Instead, she dreamed of his fingers tangled in her hair and his breath on her cheek. Of the distant strains of a mariachi band. Of the fiesta revelry. And of the fluttery anticipation in her stomach as his mouth moved closer.

      But just as suddenly her dream switched to the first time Alex Torres told her he loved her. At the top of the mesa behind the ranch. With the wind blowing the tresses of her hair, he’d taken her face between the palms of his hands. She basked in the sensation of his lips touching hers. Then, it was no longer Alex.

      An implacable shadow took control of her mouth. Recoiling, she ran. If It caught her, she’d be lost forever. But no matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t outrun the suffocating, oppressive darkness.

      She screamed for Alex. For God. But the Wicked One gained. Arms held her down. Hurting her. Dragging her against her will to the pit, to the hole in the earth from which she’d never emerge—

      “Auntie! Wake up, Auntie!”

      Choking off a sob, she jerked upright.

      The sheets entwined around her limbs, she forced the terror into the dark place where she held it at bay during her waking hours. Her eyes darted around the familiar confines of her bedroom as the night gave way to molten streaks of light. A cool breeze from the open window blew against her face. Had she left a window—?

      “Auntie?” At Manny’s frightened voice, her gaze flitted to where he stood beside her bed.

      “It’s me, Auntie. Manny. It was only a dream. Like the others.”

      Barefoot in his pajamas, he displayed his hands before smoothing a hunk of hair from her face. Careful because last time, she’d not recognized him at first and lashed out in her confusion.

      “M-Manny?”

      “It’s okay, Auntie. You want to tell me about your dream?”

      She inched farther onto the pillows. “No.”

      Manny shouldn’t have to play the adult. And she had no intention of ever befouling his life with the horror of her nightmares.

      “I-I’m okay. I’m sorry I woke you, honey.”

      Manny frowned. “It’d been so long I hoped the dream wouldn’t return.”

      She swung her legs off the bed. “You and me both. Thank you for—for . . .”

      Apaches don’t cry. Apaches don’t cry.

      She swallowed. “For being here.”

      “How about I fix pancakes?”

      She eyed him. “I meant what I said about grounding you.”

      A smile played at the corners of his lips. “Yeah, I know. But a guy’s got to eat, right? And I won’t forget to put chocolate chips on yours.”

      Their special Saturday breakfast ritual. Hers and the old Manny’s. She almost sent out a prayer of thanksgiving before she remembered she didn’t believe any of the stuff Abuela peddled.

      Promising to be out of the shower in five minutes, Pilar grabbed the water glass on her bedside table. She probably looked like a wreck. Stretching, she plodded into the adjoining bathroom and yawned. Reaching for the faucet, she shot a glance at her reflection in the mirror.

      Her hand spasmed. The glass struck the porcelain sink. Shards of broken fragments ricocheted everywhere.

      She covered her mouth with both hands and fought the primal scream rising in her throat.

      He’d been here. He’d found her. Despite her efforts to fly under the radar.

      Yesterday at the canyon somehow she’d known. She’d felt him there. Staring. Waiting to devour her again.

      This couldn’t be happening.

      Pilar moaned, her knees buckling.

      She wouldn’t let this happen again. She wasn’t the same girl he’d taken. She’d never allow herself to be taken again.

      Pilar squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. Hoping against hope her eyes deceived her. But in vain. He was back.

      He’d written one word in soap on the mirror. The word forever carved into her soul.

      Mia. Mia. Mia.

      The loathsome word he’d whispered over and over into her ear.

      Mine.

      Chapter 8

      8

      Before

      Pilar liked living at Abuela’s ranch—better than any place she and Byron ever lived. They’d moved around a lot after her mama died. She couldn’t remember her real father. Byron said sometimes he thought he remembered—though more shadowy figure than the substance of an actual human being.

      Abuela