Free Midnight Sky (Dark Sky Book 2) by Amy Braun Page A

furniture that I didn’t pause to look at. I dropped onto the floor and leaned back, resting my spine against the remains of what felt like a bedframe. The metal was cool, but I welcomed it. I set the torch onto the floor, pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Sawyer sat next to me, exhaling as he stretched out one of his long legs and propped his elbow on the other. We sat there in silence while the wind howled fiercely beyond the window.
    He turned to me and gently nudged my arm with his elbow. “You okay, Firecracker?”I nodded, too emotionally drained to glare at the name. “It’s just strange. Being back here.” I lifted my chin and looked at my surroundings. I suddenly recognized where we were. This was my old bedroom. Or rather, what was left of it.  
    My heart clenched as I dragged my eyes across the room that was stripped bare of anything I used to own. No sheets on the bed, no curtains on the windows. The wallpaper was flayed, revealing the cracked drywall beyond. Across from me was a heap of splintered wood, the shattered bones of my dresser and desk. The pile was smaller than I expected, and I sighed, thinking about the kindling that the squatters chose to use. I wanted to blame them for taking apart my home, but honestly, how could I? I was guilty of the same crimes. I’d stripped homes bare to find tools and materials. I wore someone else’s clothes. I stole food when I found it and burned wood to keep my sister warm. I shouldn’t have been offended that the same thing had been done to my own home.
    Though it didn’t ease the raw longing in my chest.
    “You really didn’t think you would come back here?” Sawyer asked softly. “Ever?”
    I shook my head. “After my mother told me to take Abby and run, I never looked back. I never thought I would have to.” I looked down, clutching my knees tighter to my chest. “Guess the past catches up to you.”
    “It never really leaves,” he agreed quietly. “We just blind ourselves to it.”
    I looked at the young captain, watching him sit casually and stare at the floorboards. He acted carefree and content, as though nothing could touch him. But I knew differently. I’d seen the vulnerability, the cracks in the walls he put up around his heart. Like me, he was forced to take on a burden from his family that he didn’t want. Condemned to be known as the son and brother of two of the most ruthless sky pirates ever to exist. To be constantly accused of instigating whatever happened beyond the Breach. To be thought of as no better than those who were long dead, or who had been transformed into something worse. As often as I was accused of being a traitor to Westraven because of my parents, at least I could do something about it. I was an engineer, and it gave me an advantage. Sawyer was a marauder. He would never be seen as anything more.
    “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
    He narrowed his eyes quizzically. “For what?”
    “Treating you the way I have been,” I admitted. “I know you’re just trying to keep me safe. But I don’t think it will work out that way. Not with the Vesper, or Davin.”
    Sawyer’s eyes flicked back and forth, taking in mine. My breath seemed to catch in my chest. I saw the worry in his eyes. The fear.  
    “Don’t apologize to me, Claire,” he said sadly. “I haven’t earned it.”
    He turned away and dragged his stretched foot against the floorboards. I watched him as he did this, waiting for him to say something, anything, to me. He dragged his boot over the floor a couple more times, then stopped, and he started lightly thumping his heel against one of the boards.
    I hated seeing him like this. As stubborn and difficult as he was, I cared about Sawyer. More than I should have. I wanted to help him, see him walk away from the gloom that wrapped around him like a cloak. The only way I could do that was to make him trust me and open his heart. Even if I had to force him.
    He kept dragging his