Chapter 36

The hard lines of anger around his forehead and mouth did not hide his worry. I remembered those lines very well; I had seen them up close and personal one night when I had walked home late from the park with a few of my friends. I had known my parents weren't going to be home. So instead of heading straight home after dark, I had walked around with my friends, enjoying a ten year old's sense of freedom.

By the time I had made it home, it had been close to my bedtime, and I thought my brother was going to blow a vein in his forehead. It had taken me a while to understand that his anger was just a cover for how worried he had been about me. Erik had yelled and stomped around the house for hours. He went on and on about all the things that could have happened to a ten-year-old girl.

Though my parents had grounded me for my stunt, it was my brother that had made the biggest impact on me that day.

And it was that look and that tone that made me pause to listen to him now.

"What can I do to