Page 119 of Four Promises to Love

“Everyone left me. Except for Tansy.”

Swiping away tears, Finn looked over at the sleeping girl, whose small cheek was still bruised from the smacking the brute had given her.

“I don’t know if I can keep her safe,” Finn said miserably.

“You can. You can keep everyone safe.”

“How? Please tell me. I will do anything!”

“You have the answer. You know what you must do.”

“I don’t know,” she said brokenly. “There’s no one to turn to. I-I’m so alone.”

“That, too, is a choice, isn’t it?”

At Rose’s gentle, knowing smile, Finn felt pain well up from a deep, buried place.

“Caleb said I was selfish,” she whispered. “That I acted on my own because I didn’t care about them, but that’s not true. The Hawks are my family. I care about them too much.”

“Then why did you fly alone? Why did you distance yourself from your gang? And from the man you love?”

You’re no good to anyone. No one loves you, and you’ll always be alone.

Finn’s throat dried; she couldn’t speak.

“You’ve never been truly on your own.”

Rose reached out, touching Finn’s pendant. The heart glowed and gave off a tender vibration.

“Understand your fear, Finn. Face it. Only then will you break the cycle.”

With a gasp, Finn opened her eyes.

She was still sitting in the corner of the farmhouse, Tansy curled up beside her. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep…if the visit with Rose had been a dream or a vision. Yet as she became fully alert, she felt a lifting in her chest. She touched her tin pendant and felt a faint, stirring pulse. The truth blazed inside her; as Rose had promised, it gave her the answer she’d been looking for.

“I know what I have to do,” she whispered.

Thirty-Four

“I thought I might find you here.”

The sound of Ethan’s voice interrupted Owen’s brooding contemplation of the stream. His brother approached, a basket swinging from his hand.

“Mind if I join you?” Ethan asked.

Owen moved over to make room on the blanket he’d spread beneath the yew tree.

Ethan sprawled beside him. “Since you weren’t at breakfast, I brought you some food.”

“I am not hungry.”

“How long have you been sitting here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“That makes two of us.”

Guilt suffocated Owen. Staring at the moving current, he forced the words out.