Page 106 of Hostile Saint

Her voice was so soft and tender. “I don’t know. But, during a nap today, I dreamt of a woman humming it to me while she rocked me. Doctor Landon feels it is a memory.”

I sighed. Lacey was getting memories. Pretty Girl was slowly coming back to me. “That is great.” I inhaled her scent of the unknown flowers—Wait. “Who was the woman?”

“I’m not sure. But she has a beautiful name.”

My heart started to pound. “Tell me the name.”

She sighed… “Melony.”

Her saying my biological mother’s name, stole my breath. If Melony was humming to my wife when she was a child, that means it is impossible for her to have died when I was a baby.

Jesus. H. Christ.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Howling Pain

Running into the woods, I told Lynx, Dagger, and Vice, “She’s remembering my mother.” Walking deeper into the woods, I was breathing heavily. “Isn’t that nuts? My mom is dead! How can this be—” The men following me, not exuding any shock after hearing my words, had me stopping in my tracks. “I mean, this can’t be true, right?” Dagger and Vice looked to the ground, so I now stared at Lynx. “Right?”

His jaw ticked. “Certain things… that were said during Lacey’s hypnotism make it sound like,” he looked away then back to me before talking really fast, “she is possibly still alive—or at least was.”

“W-What?” My mind was exploding. Absolutely overflowing with what this information meant. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he, too, now stared at the ground. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. This was a long time ago. Your mom—”

“That’s right!” A sudden surge of rage had me roaring. “My fucking mom!”

Grey eyes snapped to mine.

“Lynx!” Luckily far enough into the woods that the Serenity employees wouldn’t hear me, I continued with a slight madness of my own. “I’m in this fight more than you are! Be real with me! You can still walk away from all this! From me!”

He shook his head. “I will never abandon you—”

I didn’t care about his words at this point because fact was fact. “I can’t!” I pointed at the institute. “I’m in a motherfucking fight for my life, goddamnit! Anything that has to do with her is something I need to fucking know!”

“You’re right. I was only trying—”

“To save me more pain? Newsflash, I’m drowning in it!” Not respecting me as the young man I was had to end here and now. “Stop trying to pull me from the water and teach me how to handle the turbulent waves instead.” Fed up with all the restraints others were constantly demanding, I walked away. I fought for control over my anger, stomping through fallen leaves and past fallen branches in the woods. It was dark, but I managed. Walking through life blind is something I was becoming an expert at, but I couldn’t handle feeling lied to. It stung. Deep.

“Kid.” I heard him running, his heavy boots trying to catch up to me. “I should’ve told you.” He was the only one.

Dagger and Vice gave us space. They had warned Lynx to be honest with me. Now, it was something he would have to deal with.

I didn’t slow down. “I know you have the best of intentions, but it can be lonely being me. I’ve lived in this world my whole life, yet feel I’ve never participated in it. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know how to lie. I don’t know how to be deceitful. All I know is pain, cruelty, the love I think I remember from my dad. The love from Lacey,” I stopped and faced him, “and you.” I hit my chest. “You’re not supposed to make me hurt here.” I hit my chest again. “Something is screaming that to me.”

I sounded like a child, I know that, but I had yet to fully learn how to sound like a man. It made me vulnerable, yet that vulnerability was all I had to express myself.

Lynx swallowed and his voice cracked. “Whoever or whatever is screaming that to you is right. I swear it, son. I made a mistake, but I have not betrayed you.”

My hands formed into angry fists as I yelled, “I’m mad!”

As if that wickedly intelligent man understood my rage was not all toward him, he eerily and calmly nodded. “You have every right to be.”

I leaned my head back and yelled into the dark branches above me. “So fucking mad!”

“I don’t blame you, son.”

“My wife is institutionalized and doesn’t even know who I am!”