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The Crimson Kres. The colony that went missing. They’re the ones feeding my parents and Sophia the information about the prophecy?
Violet howls in agony. A sound I have never heard before. One that scrapes at my heart with rusty nails. A mother mourning her child before she’s even gotten to know her.
I clutch the dresser for support as Jack takes the baby out of her arms so she can successfully fall apart. A puddle at his feet.
“I can’t leave her!” she wails. “I can’t separate my babies!”
Jack kneels in front of her, holding the baby to his chest. “You’ll see her again one day. You and Scarlett.” My father fails at shoving the pain down his throat. His quiet, quivering voice gives him away. He is barely holding himself together. “You’ll find a home on the other side of the Bear Traps. Stay hidden until this is all over. Find Skylenna, and tell her the truth. Tell her I loved her, no matter what they made me do. Tell her I’ll always be with her, through every hardship, through every battle.”
I huff out a breath, shock coursing through my veins. He loved me. My father loved me. The knowledge reaches every inch of my soul. It warms my chest, tingling behind my eyes. They loved us.
Violet looks up at him through thick tears. “Tell her yourself. You’ll make it out of this too, Jack.”
He smiles sadly, brushing her thick, wavy hair from her forehead.
“We have to leave something behind for them. If Skylenna is like the others, she may be able to look back on this. See that… I wasn’t always a monster to her. See the truth.” Jack walks toward a jewelry box on the dresser, the same one that he left for me in the basement. “We’ll leave our wedding rings with them.”
As they both remove their rings and loop them on the gold chain, I wonder how everything could have gone so terribly wrong. They thought Scarlett would survive this. They thought by separating us, they would, at the very least, spare her from having to go through the experiment. But—they didn’t. Somehow, Demechnef must have found them. Infected Violet with the Mind Phantoms.
And it all went to hell.
18. The Days Under The Red Oaks
I left the house with the locket and rings around my neck.
I made camp just outside the Red Oaks. Before I went to sleep, Chekiss found his way to me once more, moving the braids away from my face, and getting me to eat cooked meat and some fruit he picked from a nearby tree. He sat next to me in silence until I finished my food.
Oddly, it was what I needed. What I craved. And he is the only person I feel comfortable being around.
But he left, squeezing my shoulder once, then walking into the night to find his camp with Warrose.
The morning sun blasting over my face is the signal I need to get moving again. My legs carry me to the Red Oaks with caution. Somehow, I know this might hold more missing pieces than I can handle. It’s the moments with Kane that I’ve lost. And I’ll bet the Red Oaks is where he would bring me.
Before he—died… he told me that I was the one he promised to kiss under the waterfall. That thought alone burns in my throat. And without warning, I remember our kiss. The way he held my face, pressing me into the limestone wall. It felt like the moment I lost all control over myself. It felt like…soul mates.
The leaves began to change color, from green to orange to flaming red. The bark saturated from fresh rain, the sky cloudless and beating with the hot sun. Each step sucks me in; without having to touch anything of importance, the area alone seems to change, to morph into a memory. My knees wobble, my vision loses focus, and I can feel the earth tilt.
Reality blends into several memories all at once.
All centered around the bright-red leaves.
Kane, looking about the age of nine, holds Skylenna’s hand as they jump into the lagoon. Then, to my left, around the ages of thirteen and ten, they have a picnic, throwing food at each other and laughing. They climb the trees. They race through the forest. Kane holds Skylenna while she cries.
He kept me happy and busy, but most importantly, he made sure I was loved and protected. My hands tremble at my sides as I watch it all play out in a series of debilitating hallucinations.
My childhood was good. As the memories skitter on around me, I can see that. They succeeded in keeping my mind safe from the experiment. At least, until now.
I walk to the edge of the cliff, watching Skylenna, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, point to the waterfall.
“I’m old enough now! I can swim under it without drowning. I swear,” she argues with Kane, agitated as she treads water.
Kane shakes his head. Older, maybe seventeen. “Nope.”
“Fine.” She tilts her chin up in a challenge. “Then am I old enough to be kissed?”
I think he swallowed his tongue. His silence stretches as he glares at her. Blinks. Opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. For about a minute, he simply doesn’t move.
A smile spreads across Skylenna’s young face, matching my own.
