Blake pulled his phone out of his pocket and, after tapping at it, turned the screen toward me, displaying a photo taken in what appeared to be a barn.
Drawn in blood across the cement floor was the same symbol branded into my skin.
And Blake’s skin, too.
My hand instinctively drifted toward my chest, the wound still raw and aching.
“My sister and I were taken when we were kids,” he explained quietly, answering the question lingering between us.
I reached for his hand without thinking, trying to offer him the same comfort he’d provided me all night.
“I’m so sorry, Blake.”
“His name was Isaac.”
I tilted my head. “Not Josiah?”
“No. But Josiah was another one of his so-called ‘lost children’. He branded my sister and me the first week. Gave us new names. Said it was proof God chose us for salvation.” His expression darkened. “Really, it meant we belonged to him.”
Rage coursed through me. Not at Isaac. At a world that allowed monsters like him to prey on children. Abduct them when they were most vulnerable. Brainwash them to believe whatever they were told for fear of retribution or correction if they didn’t.
“But you escaped,” I said softly, filling in the blanks.
He nodded once.
“How?”
“I made him think I believed in his bullshit.” His voice turned hollow. “Did things I’m not proud of to earn his trust. One night, when he invited me to play chess, I grabbed a knife and stabbed him. Took some cash from his wallet and left.”
“And your sister?”
Pain and regret flickered across his face.
“I’d helped her escape years earlier. After I got out, I tried to look for her, but she changed her name, like I’d told her to. I knew her as Chandler Meadows, so that’s who I was looking for.”
“Did you figure out what she changed it to?”
“Thanks to Henry, I did.”
I scrunched my brow. “Henry?”
“He knew her as Amber Fuller. She’s Sarah’s birth mom.” He laughed under his breath as he shifted his eyes forward. “All this time, I’d been looking for her when she was right in front of me all along if I’d just told Henry about her. But that would have meant telling him about me. Where I came from. What I’d been through.” He met my eyes. “I wasn’t ready for that.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you finally got the closure you needed.”
“Me, too.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke, the sheer weight of everything he’d endured settling over us.
Then I gasped as the realization hit me. “If your sister is Sarah’s birth mother, that means?—”
“You’re my uncle,” a voice cut through.
Blake and I snapped our eyes toward the doorway.
Sarah stood there clutching a paper coffee cup in both hands, her green eyes glazing with emotion.
For a split second, Blake looked speechless. Then a disbelieving laugh escaped him. “I… I never really thought about it like that. But I guess I am.”
