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When she looked at me again, I noticed the moment the memories returned. The ones that had done this to her. The ones that had stolen my mother from me.
“No,” she whined, tears instantly coming to the surface. “No, he’s not gone. No!”
“Calm down, Mom, please—”
“No!” she yelled, pushing me away and ricocheting from my touch. The next second, horror filled her eyes and they widened. “Fire!” she screamed, her voice tearing with the desperation.
“Mom, stop!” I held her arms as she struggled to breath, her anxiety getting out of control. “It’s not real. You are safe.”
“The house is burning!” she yelled at me, tears streaming down, but she could not see me. She could see nothing except the raging flames in her mind’s eye. “There’s fire everywhere. Khayden!!”
“Victor!” Grace yelled to the male nurse nearby, at the same time that my mother began to lurch furiously in my hold, trying to run into the burning room she saw in her memories.
Trying to save my father.
“No, I won’t leave you!” she cried frantically, and shoved me out of the way with all her might, until my ass hit the ground.
Jumping out of her wheelchair, Mom crashed onto the grass. Her singed leg couldn’t respond from the nerve damage it had suffered, but she tried to crawl anyway, wanting to get to Dad.
“I won’t leave!!” she sobbed in response to my father’s pleas that night. I struggled to carry her because she wouldn’t stop jerking out of my hold, trying to reach him. “I can’t leave you!”
Grace rushed to us with a sedative, but my mother kicked her in the stomach from her thrashing, slamming her against the tree.
I was nudged out of the way when Victor got to us, and he straddled my mother so she would stop kicking, holding her arms down so Grace could get to her. Her nurse immediately injected the sedative while Mom screamed at the top of her lungs.
My hands flew to my head as I stared at the wretched scene. Stumbling back, I gripped my hair, trying to repress the pain already spilling out of my eyes. My back burned with the memory, and my father’s voice became alive in my mind. His screams were as jarring as they had been that night.
“Get Braxton out of here!”Dad yelled, almost seeming unhinged as the fire rushed over his body.
“No. I can’t leave you!”
“Dad!” I screamed from the door of my room, unable to escape the growing flames.
“Get him out. Save him! He’s all that’s left...”
Mom’s cries of horror mixed with mine as we watched my father be consumed by the fire. Suddenly, she turned around and ran through the flames to get to me, carrying me in her arms and bursting out of our burning house.
“No!” Mom sobbed as they laid her down on a stretcher, her hysteria already dying down thanks to the injection.
“I’m here!” Rushing to her, I took her hand while her dazed gaze tried to follow my voice. “I’m here, Mom,” I assured, placing her palm on my cheek, and finally saw her eyes find me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears tearing my skin. “I’m so sorry.”
A certain darkness transformed her expression, and her fierce eyes bore into mine. “It was him. He did this to us.”
Confusion contorted my face just as the nurses began to roll her away. “What are you talking about?”
“Raithian… He murdered your father. He forcedhimtoattack.”
“What?” I stared at her baffled, walking along with the stretcher to the entrance of the community.
Urgently, she sat up, her hands gripping my shoulders. “You have to go back, Braxton. You have to end this before more innocent people die.”
“Mom, please stop—”
“Listen to me,” she snapped. “You have to kill him!”
My steps halted with her demand, and the fierce clarity in her request.
“I’m sorry, Brax, she needs to rest. I’ll call you once she is doing better.”
Grace’s voice brought me out of my shock, and I blinked, glancing at her. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Hey,” her hand squeezed my arm, “this wasnotyour fault,” she promised with a conviction that made me want to believe her. “Keira’s mind just can’t differentiate between reality and delusion anymore, but we have to do our best to keep her on this side, with us. You have to endure this, okay? Be strong. You haven’t lost her.”
Nodding, I bitterly wiped the tears from my face. “Okay…”
With one last look at my mother as they took her away, I walked to the tree and picked up my backpack, getting away from there as fast as I could.
