“Oh…” She gasped for breath, the painful memories twisting inside her and wrenching the air from her lungs. Oh gods, how had she even survived that moment? If it had been possible to die of a broken heart, her life would have ended right then. But no, she’d been forced to go on living. To go on hurting, wondering what could have been.
To suffer this wretched half-life…without her sweet, innocent baby. Knowing she might have been able to save her, had she acted differently. Had she been the mother Sara needed.
“Aw shit, Lina.” Thorne made another move toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“No.” Now that she’d begun, she wanted to finish. “I didn’t know who to call, so I called Betta. She told me she’d seen you at our dealer’s house.”
Thorne stiffened and very real confusion marred his features. “I…”
“You’d spent every last dime on score, Thorne,” Lina sobbed. “While our daughter was dying in my arms, you were getting high on the money that could have saved her life.”
His fists clenched at his sides, and a muscle in his jaw ticked. “I did that?”
When Lina’s knees buckled, she gave in to the impulse to sink down onto the couch and bury her head in her hands. “She was just a baby, Thorne. Our baby. Not even one year old, and we let her down, the both of us, when we were supposed to be the ones to protect her. We were too fucked up to even help her when she needed it.”
“Lina.” Thorne sat beside her and rested a hand on her back.
“The child of two druggie parents.” She let out the bitter laugh that clogged her throat. “Who am I kidding? She didn’t even stand a chance.”
“Lina.” Thorne wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. It was surprisingly familiar. He had always smelled like earth…and cigarettes. That hadn’t changed.
“We should forget the past.”
She stiffened and pulled back to meet his gaze. “What?”
“We’ve always been great together. We can do that again.”
Her mouth dropped open as her brain tried to process Thorne’s astounding leap from achieving closure to somehow getting back together. “What are you talking about?”
Thorne smiled, and she was once again struck by the familiarity of it. He’d always gotten that shit-eating grin on his face when he was working on his next scam. “Think about it. I’m sure you’ve made some great money as a mercenary, and I’m working on something that’s gonna pay out huge. We put that together and we can get an amazing place, on any world we want.”
“A…place?”
“We can go into business together.” He paused hesitantly before continuing, “I know a guy who could use some cash inflow. He’d give us a huge cut of his profits.”
She froze, beginning to catch his drift. “You mean a drug dealer.”
His skin reddened. “I don’t do the stuff anymore, but you have to admit, there’s a lot of money to be made in that line of work.”
When she remained speechless, Thorne’s fingers tightened on her arms, and he spoke more animatedly. “Just think, we could have everything we’ve ever dreamed of. We can even have another child.”
Lina blinked at him. “Another child?”
“You know,” he prodded. “To replace Sara.”
His words penetrated through her haze of shock and confusion.
Replace Sara.
Like she was some piece of furniture they had worn out and tossed in the dump. Like she was nothing.
Lina shrugged out of Thorne’s grasp. To her surprise, her voice sounded steady when she said, “You forgot one thing, Thorne.”
He scratched his head. “What?”
“We’re not the same people we were back then. Case in point.” She did the one thing she’d dreamt about doing for the past two years. She cocked her fist back and let it fly toward his face.
“Ow!” Thorne went zooming off the couch, landing in a heap by the far wall. He clutched his nose, and when he took his hands away, they were covered in blood. His wide-eyed gaze lifted to hers. “What the fuck?”
Lina rose and stalked over to him, crouching down so they were eye-to-eye. When he instinctively flinched, she didn’t bother to hide the smile that crept to her face. “See, after I left you, I managed to grow a backbone.”
“But—”
“You can’t replace a daughter, just like you can’t bring back a love that’s died a fiery, drug-fueled death.” She reached out a hand and patted his cheek. “So I hope you found your closure, Thorne, because the devil knows I got mine.”