Page 55 of Fated to Them

I walk to the bedroom door, flicking the light switch off before turning back and climbing in with Maya. Her little arm drapes over my neck as she snuggles closer.

“Ada?”

“Yes, Maya?”

“Grandma will be sad when you go, and so will mommy.”

“Were you listening on the other side of the door? You know what grandma says about eavesdropping,” I tell her, and she goes quiet.

“Can Mr. Cyrus really fix mommy?” Maya asks. Her curls tickle my cheek as she snuggles closer.

“I don’t know, Maya,” I whisper, unsure if he can just magically cure addiction away. It kind of seems unrealistic to think someone can possibly erase years of drug abuse.

“Mr. Cyrus will try?” asks Maya, and I roll over to face her, brushing her hair from her face.

“He will if I leave with them. Means I won’t live here anymore,” I tell her, and I watch her eyebrows furrow before she looks up at me.

“But I will see you every day?” she asks, and my eyes fill with tears.

I have raised her for four years alongside my mother; she is more mine than my sister’s, but at the end of the day, she has never been mine to begin with. But could I walk away from her? Taking her with me would kill my mother. She has endured enough; I can’t take the only thing making her hold on away from her.

“No, but you would be able to ring me and maybe visit, and I might be able to visit,” I tell her, wondering who she will choose, even though I have now made up my mind. Taylor is my sister, her mother. Even if it kills me, you make sacrifices for family. Family always comes first.

“I will miss you when you go,” Maya whispers, and I nod, swallowing the lump that’s formed in my throat before answering.

“I will miss you, too.”

Chapter Nineteen

Adeline

When Maya falls asleep, I climb out of her small bed before tucking the blanket around her. Walking out of her room, I close the door before walking downstairs, much too alert, my mind churning with thoughts.

Flicking the kitchen light on, I start putting the dishes away and tidying up. When I finish, I make myself some coffee, just as Cyrus walks in.

“What do you want, Cyrus?”

“Nothing, just checking on you. You have been down here for a while. I heard you talking to Maya,” he says, sitting at the dining table.

“Where is Eli?”

“Asleep, well… trying to sleep,” he says.

I hold the kettle up in question, and he nods. I make him coffee before handing it to him.

“It will work. I have never known anyone to break compulsion before without the person who used it breaking it,” he says.

I don’t understand much of what he is talking about and give up trying to figure out how it works.

“Is there a reason you want to go to Soya so badly?” I ask.

“We have our reasons, the main one being it would put your family at risk you staying here.”

“How would it put my family at risk? We have lived here my entire life. Never once have we had as much drama going on as we do now since you came into my life,” I tell him, sipping my coffee.

“You will understand in time.”

“I don’t want to understand in time. I want to understand now,” I tell him, sick of all the secrecy.