Walk With Me

46. White Flag

She laughs, eyebrows knitting together as she looks at me like I'm crazy. "I'm baking with your mom... are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I clear my throat. "Just missed you."

Sadie stifles a laugh beside me and Amber puts on an adorable pout.

"Aww." She leans down, drops a kiss on my cheek before bringing her mouth to my ear. "I'm here if you need anything. Just say the word," she whispers before wandering back to the kitchen.

My body relaxes into the couch, a rush of relief coursing through my veins at the sincerity of her words. I'm here if you need anything. Man, that's a nice thought.

"Gross," Sadie pretend gags before her mouth turns up into an evil grin. "Look what you've become."

I shoot her an eyeful of irritation. "Leave me alone," I say, watching her fingers as she fastens an elastic to the end of June's braid.

Inspecting her work, I'm sort of shocked. Never thought I'd be caught dead thinking anything like this but the braid looks really cool, like a piece of hair art that starts at the top of June's head and goes all the way down. I wonder how Mia's hair would look with one of those. I feel like I've only ever seen it down or in a ponytail.

"How did you learn to do that?" I ask my sister.

"A French braid?"

"Yeah."

She shrugs. "Mom taught me years ago. It's how I always did Evie's hair," she says, eyeing me with suspicion and for good reason. Braiding hair definitely isn't one of our usual conversation topics. But all at once, she smiles and adds, "You can find videos on YouTube."

My head tilts with interest, trying to get a better look at June's hair. "Can you teach me?"

Sadie's smile grows. June goes to hop off her lap but she's stopped by a tap on her shoulder. "Stay here, kiddo. Let me take that out so Uncle Tommy can try."

._._._.

Sixteen years ago, on the day of Harper's tenth birthday at approximately quarter to five in the morning, the DEA kicked in the door of my childhood home and raided the place. They'd been watching my dad for a while and by some streak of unfortunate fate, chose Harper's birthday, of all the fucking days, to invade our lives and turn everything upside down. Literally.

A late model sky blue sedan. Random, unsuspecting. Nothing like the stereotypical black SUVs you see in the movies and on TV shows. It was parked across the street and two houses over, right in front of Raef Stillwater's house. We thought the blue car belonged to his Uncle Fred because he and the car seemed to show up in the neighborhood around the same time.

We only found out later that Uncle Fred arrived by taxi. The blue car was the feds.

It was loud when they came in. That's the thing I remember most. How fucking loud it was.

"Police! Search warrant!"

"Police! Search warrant!"

There were five of them and they all shouted the same thing at the same time.

"Police! Search warrant!"

Evelyn was seven years old. I think she cried for five solid days in a row from the trauma of it all and Harper's birthday had a black cloud over it for the next five years, until we finally hit a new stride as a family.

They found a little over 300 grams of heroin, a shitload of weed, and a smattering of other things in the house. Along with that, there was a scale, money counter, and two firearms, both illegal.