Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ryder’s POV

I sat in the airport waiting area, the hard plastic chair pressing into my back. I held my boarding pass between two fingers, but I hadn’t looked at it since I left the check-in counter. My mind was stuck on a different truth.

“Harper is alive.”

The thought kept repeating, over and over, like something my mind couldn’t process all at once. Every time it came back, it didn’t feel lighter. It tightened something in my chest instead.

I glanced sideways at Logan. He sat beside me in silence, fingers clenched tight around his passport until the knuckles showed white. When he finally turned to meet my eyes, the question broke out of him.

“What if she doesn’t want to come back?”

The words hung between us, freezing everything for a long moment. I didn’t answer right away. Because I knew this wasn’t just talk. It was the real possibility we would have to face. If she refused us, this trip wouldn’t be about bringing our sister home. It would be about standing in front of her and accepting that she no longer belonged to us at all.

I closed my eyes, the image of her smiling on that screen burned into the back of my eyelids. She looked so much like Mom.

“Then we go see her,” I said slowly. My voice was raspy, stripped of its usual authority.

000%

M

4

1404

Chapter

At that moment, the intercom crackled overhead, announcing our boarding group.

We stood up without another word, and walked toward the gate.

We didn’t care how long it would take. We didn’t care if we had to spend the rest of our lives begging to earn even a scrap of forgiveness that might never come. As long as we could get one step closer to her. Even if it was just standing in her shadow, watching the time pass from across a street. That was still closer than the empty silence of the house we had left behind full of regret.

Harper’s POV

The next day, I slept late. The interview from the day had drained everything out of me in a way I hadn’t expected.

Talking about the present was supposed to be easy, but it had required me to keep the doors to my past locked tight with my shoulder pressed against them.

It wasn’t until noon that my phone rang and pulled me awake. Ethan’s name showed on the screen. I answered it.

“Harper,” he said, his voice clipped. “Come to the Gadigal Center. Now.”

“What? Why? Is everything okay?” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, sitting up.

“Just come,” he said, and then he hung up.

I confused as I stared at the screen, a knot of confusion forming in my stomach. That wasn’t like him.

21.031%

MI

14:04

Chapter 9

#1

I threw on a sweater and jeans, my hair still damp from a quick splash of water, and headed out.

On the way there I kept turning it over in my mind, trying to figure out what was going on, but nothing made sense. I pushed open the door to the center and stepped inside.

The air felt tight.

Ethan was standing by the entrance. The moment his eyes landed on me. he visibly froze.

“What happ-” I opened my mouth to ask, but the words died in my throat the moment I saw the person in front of me.

Ryder.

I stopped cold in the doorway. I never expected him here. Yet there he was, standing near the kitchen area, his eyes locked on me without blinking.

Beside him stood Logan, Colton, and Grayson. The four of them wore dark suits and had pale faces, looking at me with an expression I had never seen before…not in sixteen years.

Ryder spoke first, his voice barely above a whisper. “Harper.”

It sounded like he needed to say the name out loud just to believe I was real.

I didn’t answer him right away. I turned my head to Ethan, my voice shaking with a sudden, violent heat.

“Why are they here? Why did you let them in?”

Ethan shook his head, his hands up in the air. “I didn’t permit it, Harper.

41.40%

M

14:04

Chapter 9

They were just… here.”

Ryder took a step forward and started to speak. “We just want to ta-”

“Don’t.” I cut him off before the sentence could finish.

The words just talk had never meant anything good in my life. They had never changed a single thing.

I looked back at Ethan.

“Ethan,” I said, trying to steady my breathing. “Make me toast. Peanut butter. Please.”

Ethan looked at me deeply, his eyes searching mine. Then he nodded, and walked toward the back kitchen.

The moment the door swung shut behind him, Grayson spoke. His voice was thick, cracking on the edges. “Harper, we found the letter. Mom’s letter. The one she wrote before… before she died!”

I stayed silent, my hands curled into fists at my sides.

“We already know the truth now.” Grayson continued, the words tumbling out in a rush of grief. “You’re our biological sister-not the daughter of a rapist. Our mother’s daughter. We were wrong. About everything. The things we thought… the things we did…”

Colton stood beside him, nodding again and again like he couldn’t stop. “We failed you. We know that. We just want a chance to make it right. To be the brothers we should have been.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify