ELIJAH

As Elijah stood at the fridge, pulling leftovers at random from the shelves, Logan pointed his pen at him. "I was so tempted to tell her you actually left to follow her," he said.

Elijah poked his head out and glared. "You better not have done it," he grumbled. "I told you not to tell her."

"I didn't, I didn't. Chill out. Couldn't let her find out you're secretly a stalker, could I?"

"Well, what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't just let her walk alone with some random kid."

"That random kid fucking kissed her! I almost knocked his brains out for it but Blake threatened to kick me in the balls." Logan threw his pen at Elijah, narrowly missing his head. "I think you really encouraged him unnecessarily. He's getting a huge head for it."

"Am not!" Blake yelled down the hall from his room.

Logan hurled another pen down the hall. "You don't get a say in this!" he hollered back at him.

Elijah raised an eyebrow at Logan. "You seem to be in an awfully good mood."

Logan smirked. "Whenever I get a negative thought, I think about exposing you to Olivia, and it makes me feel better."

Elijah rolled his eyes. "Whatever makes you happy, Logan."

"Does that mean I can tell her?"

"What would you even get out of that?"

"I don't know, but it's going to be fucking hilarious."

Elijah picked up his pen for him and put it back on the dining table. "Pick your stuff up so there's some room for us to sit and eat."

"I'm studying."

"Just dump it in Blake's room until we eat."

"It's not junk that I can just dump."

Elijah gave him a look. "Gently place your very important shit in Blake's room and hurry up about it."

"You're really killing the mood."

"Just channel your good thoughts or whatever."

Grumbling something nasty, Logan picked all of his things up off the table, piled it all into his arms, and staggered down the hall.

Elijah set a dish in the microwave and leaned back against the counter, pressing his hands into the granite to take the pressure off his spine and mind. The FBI officer was coming the following evening, and he had no idea what to expect. He had hardly gotten over the shock that his little sister was possibly running from corrupt cops. Now he had to deal with the aftermath of it too.

If they were relocated, he supposed he would have to find another job. Logan would have to apply to a new university, find a new roommate that might or might not care as much as the last one. Blake would make new friends.

And Olivia - although she'd taken quite a while to get used to living in his house, he suspected that for her, adjusting to a new place wouldn't be the hardest part. Finally letting go of secrets and being willing to let people in would be the biggest obstacle for her.

There was no telling what she had seen the past year. Living in the neighborhood Blake and Logan had described was one thing, but constantly looking over your shoulder was another. Elijah didn't even know where to begin helping her find some peace.

The microwave beeped and he half turned before he heard Olivia's voice behind him.

"Elijah."

Elijah turned back to look at his sister.

His heart dropped like a cold, dead ball into his stomach.

Her cheeks were pale and her puffy eyes were a horrible shade of red. Her bottom lip was quivering. She seemed to notice he was staring and pressed her lips into a straight line.

He immediately left the counter and went to take her hands in his, but she backed a step away.

He flinched at the motion. How could she have switched back to that girl that had first come into his house so fast? Hadn't she just ten minutes ago wrapped her arms around him like she didn't ever want to let go?

He forced his voice to come out steady. "Honey, are you okay?"

Olivia clasped her hands tightly together, her knuckles whiter than her face. She opened her mouth, closed it again, pressing her lips together, before she managed to speak.

In a low, quiet voice she whispered, "Elijah, you have to put me back in foster care."

Something cold clamped down on Elijah's heart. It clamped down on his lungs. It even clamped down on his brain, making it impossible to think.

He shook his muddled head to clear it and said, "Sorry," his tongue like a round of cotton in his mouth, fat and numb and useless. "I thought you said-"

"I did," she said in a bland voice.

"But why would-"

"You just have to Elijah!"

Elijah stared at her. "Is this because of the police? Have they done something?"

"No-"

"Did they threaten you?"

"No!" she insisted. "I just - can't be here anymore. It's just...too much."

Her words - so ridiculously wrong and so much like Logan's that it nearly brought tears to his eyes - made absolutely no sense, and that told Elijah that he was on the right track.

"Olivia, if you need help, if you need me to do something - please," he begged. "Please just tell me what it is."

She was silent for a moment, as if she was going to tell him, but when she spoke, Elijah's heart sank.

"I said you have to put me back in foster care," she demanded more furiously this time. "You promised! Rule number-"

Her mention of her list of rules that Elijah knew from the moment he saw them that they would never be able to keep angered him all of a sudden. They had broken every single of those rules that were impossible from the start, had found out the reason behind all those ridiculous demands, and even made a plan to help her - and she still insisted on sticking to her old habits.

"I know what rule number it is," he interrupted. "But I'm not putting you back."

Her eyebrows came down hard against her eyes in an unmoving line. "Elijah, you can't just-"

"I can," he snapped, heat rising in his face, growing hotter by the second. "And I'm not putting you back. I don't care what you want or what you say. You're my sister, Olivia, and I would never, ever give you up for anything. "

And as he stood there, staring her down, his sudden irritation gave way to the overwhelming fear of losing her. Because he loved her. He loved the way that she glanced furtively at him when she thought he would be mad and he loved the way she grinned when she realized he wasn't even irritated in the slightest. He loved her fearlessness, her determination, her resolve to keep going no matter what.

But she didn't want to trust him with this.

Had he not listened to her problems? Had he not made her feel safe after calling the FBI for her? Had he been too harsh with her? Had he not given her enough love?

Had he not tried hard enough?

He spoke his last hope to her, the only thing he knew for sure would bring her back to reality, make her realize that what she was demanding of him was impossible.

"Please, Olivia, don't say this. I love you."

But he didn't know that those exact words were the ones making her leave.

He thought he saw something like relief flash in her eyes before her expression turned dark. She scowled at him. "Fine," she snapped. 

And she stalked off back to her room.

Elijah stood there, stunned into silence and completely paralyzed. He watched her curly head of hair disappear into her room without a second glance back. The door slammed shut behind her.

Wait, he meant to say, but his mouth refused to move.

He stood there, his heart beating uncomfortably in his chest and throat, his fingers tingling with an uncomfortable burning sensation, completely unable to have another logical thought until Logan marched back into the kitchen.

"What the fuck was that about?" he hissed. "Is she actually crazy?"

Elijah unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth and rasped, "Don't call her crazy."

"She literally hugged you two minutes ago and now she wants you to get rid of her? What does she take us for? Her landlords? What the actual fuck?"

"Something's wrong."

"Gee, who would've thought?"

Blake slowly crept into the kitchen as well. He glanced back at Olivia's closed door and whispered, "Maybe they're onto her. Maybe she's trying to get away."

"If that's all she's trying to do, then why won't she just tell me?" Elijah demanded in a low voice. "We already know - she doesn't have to hide it."

Logan heaved a sigh and in a much calmer tone than before he said, "She's too scared right now. Just wait a while and then go talk to her. She'll probably come around and tell you."

"I can't go off probably."

"Well, that's the best you've got right now."

Elijah tried to calm himself as they all put food in their plates, but trying to do something as normal as eat dinner when his sister was demanding he send her away, when the people whose crimes she was witness to could be closer than he thought was too much for him.

He set his plate down on the dining table and stood up. "I'll be right back."

"Wait, just give her a little bit of time-" Blake started.

"No." Elijah knew that giving people space was Blake's method of fixing things, but that wasn't his. And he had a horrible feeling about all this.

As he got closer to her closed door, the sickening feeling became so much that he had to press his forehead against the wood for a moment before he could find his voice. "Olivia?" he called, knocking on the door.

On the other side, everything was silent.

Elijah chewed his lip. He knocked harder. "Olivia, you okay?" he asked.

Still no response.

From the silent kitchen, he heard Logan call, "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Elijah muttered to himself. He put his hand on the doorknob, but something stuck as he tried to turn it. He yanked harder, but it didn't budge.

She had locked it.

Panic stabbed him through the heart like a hot wire, horrible memories from four years ago making his chest ache. He had stood just like this outside the bathroom door four years ago, only to find Logan lying near dead on the other side.

Elijah took a step back and kicked his heel down against the doorknob, breaking the lock from the door. Pieces of wood scattered all over the floor as he went inside.

He hardly heard Blake calling his name from the kitchen as he looked around wildly for his sister, even throwing open the closet door and bending down to look under the bed for her.

But the room was empty.

Elijah only had a moment to notice that the window was unlocked before there was a loud crash from down the hall.

"What the fuck-"

"Logan?" Elijah called.

There was another crash, this time of breaking glass, and Blake screamed.

Elijah threw open the door to his room, pulled the gun from the top shelf in the closet, and rushed into the living room.

He felt the pain first, then registered the blow to the chin. He instinctively threw up an elbow and punched the other guy harder in the nose. The man was wearing a ski mask, but Elijah could tell he had hit his mark. He hit Elijah twice again in the ribs before Elijah brought the butt of his gun down on the side of his head as hard as he could and the man fell.

Logan was fighting a guy much bigger than him by the dining table, where pieces of the glass table were strewn across the floor. Elijah barely had time to see that Blake was sorely losing his own fight with someone else when someone wrapped their arm around his neck from behind.

Spluttering for air, Elijah jabbed his elbow twice in the guy's ribs, and when that didn't work, he brought his foot forward and jammed it backwards in his assailant's shin. He heard a crack and a scream and wrenched himself away from the man and dove straight into the man holding Blake down on the floor.

The two of them rolled on the floor, halting as the larger man pinned Elijah's waist down on the floor and hit him across the face twice. Blood filled his mouth and nose and Elijah coughed and spat to the side, the sticky liquid running down his cheek.

"Blake," he breathed hoarsely. "Get out of here."

But Blake jumped on the back of the man holding Elijah down and the two of them crashed to the side. Elijah rolled away, coughing. He grasped the gun in his shaking hand and forced himself to stand back up, shoving the muzzle into the back of the masked man who was now trying to strangle Blake.

"Let him go," Elijah demanded, his breathing coming in shallow bursts of air at the sight of Blake's face turning purple. "Now!"

"It's alright, Michael, ease up."

A man with blond wisps of hair escaping his ski mask was holding Logan in a chokehold, just tight enough to restrict his airway but not enough to strangle. He jerked his chin towards Blake. "Come on, Mike, let him have some air."

The man on the floor - Mike - hesitantly released Blake's throat just the slightest bit. Blake coughed and wheezed. Elijah's arm began to shake. His hands were sweating on the gun.

"You with the gun," the blond man said. "Drop it now or I'm going to snap this one's neck."

Although Logan's face was contorted in spite and anger, it was also reddening with the exertion of just breathing. Elijah swallowed hard and slowly crouched to the floor to put the gun down. "Alright," he managed through trembling lips. "Just - just let him go."

"Stop it Elijah, just shoot these fuckers," Logan rasped defiantly. The man behind him viscously yanked his arm up higher, and Logan let out a hiss of pain and rose higher on his toes. "They've got Olivia, just shoot them!"

"Shut up," the man holding him grunted. His hand tightened on his shoulder and Logan's eyes watered as he weakly pulled at his forearm.

Elijah's gun clattered to the floor. "That's enough," he pleaded desperately. "You're choking him."

The man smirked. "That's the idea, boy."

Logan's eyes went wide at something behind Elijah and his mouth moved but he could only make out a strangled cry. 

And then something hard hit Elijah in the back of the head, and his vision turned black. 

If anyone wants to kill me - this had to happen. I've been planning this since the beginning of the book ;)

If you think Olivia was wrong - maybe hold on and wait for the next chapter. 

I feel so nice and evil and also really pleased I've gotten this far. Just nine more chapters to go!

I also don't know how to make images smaller so they're not SO huge here, but how's this cover? Better/worse/blah/nah than the one right now? 

Not sure when I'll be able to update, but I'm really hoping for Tuesday. 

For next time: should I keep giving hints or just let you imagine...