FINDING ELENA
Ary nodded once, but his gaze stayed fixed on the empty corridor where she had just disappeared.
~~~~~
ELENA
I leaned against the door after I got into my room, my breath catching somewhere between disbelief and fury.
Sliding to the floor, I pulled my knees close, trembling from the ache of what I’d buried long ago.
After Mom died, my father lost himself. I was barely eighteen, but I went from bar to bar, pulling him up from his own wreckage.
I would walk behind him or hold his arm while he staggered home, crying her name.
It's what daughters did, right?