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“I was just thinking about how I wish I had memories like this with my parents. I don’t have a lot of memories with either, really. My mother died when I was still pretty young, and she was busy when she was alive. My father never really cared about spending time with me, so even though he only died a year ago, we didn’t really spend much time together.” I thought about my own words, then laughed at my own foolish thoughts. “Isn’t that sad? Even after what my father did, I wish I had good memories with him.”
“It’s not sad,” Vance said. “I know what you mean. My parents aren’t the best—I mean, you met them—but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I had better memories. I think all kids want that, no matter how bad our parents fuck up.”
I turned my gaze toward the garden we’d created, the plants making me smile. I’d never really grown food before, since my apartment wasn’t a good place for it and I’d never lived anywhere else where it was possible. The idea of planting, of taking care of those, of eventually harvesting and using the food it grew?
“Your face is like a roller coaster.” Char chuckled lowly. “Every few seconds it changes and you think of something new. What is it this time?”
I didn’t bother to try to hide my smile. “I feel like this is creating a future for us. We’ll get to take care of these, to help them grow. Char and Vance can help me with the weeding, and Hayden can help with watering—since he won’t forget it—and Tor can cook the vegetables when they’re ready. I guess, I like the fact that we’re doing something that feels like building a future.”
I lifted my gaze when no one spoke, only to find all four men looking at me silently, a strange expression on their faces. It reminded me of that same hesitation that they’d had, a tension that they’d tried to hide.
“What is it?” I asked, suddenly worried my words had come on too strong. Maybe I’d scared them off? Men didn’t like to talk about a future, so perhaps I was getting ahead of myself? “Sorry if I was rushing things,” I went on, my voice dropping to an embarrassed whisper. “I didn’t mean to get ahead of myself or anything.”
Still, they said nothing, the silence almost painful. Vance opened his mouth, as though to say something, but his gaze rose instead to look behind me, toward the house.
It wasn’t a subtle glance, and that forced me to pay attention. I turned around to find the last person I expected standing on the deck, just in front of the house.
The looks the men had given me about the plants suddenly made sense. They hadn’t reacted not because I was moving too fast, but because they’d already known that we would never get the chance to take care of those plants, to harvest them, to enjoy them. They weren’t the future I’d thought, but rather a goodbye, a last good memory.
Because Nem standing there, looking at me like she was, without the men reacting could only mean one thing.
They’d contacted her and planned to send me away.
Chapter Fifteen
Kenz
How was it that seeing Nem could feel so strange? For a while there, just seeing her face made me happy since she reminded me that I wasn’t alone in the world anymore.
However, in the time since I’d been with the men, since I’d last seen her, a lifetime had seemed to have passed. In many ways, I didn’t even feel like the same girl, the one who had clung to Nem out of fear.
“Oh,” I whispered, the word the only thing I could think of to say.
“Kenz,” Hayden started to say, but I shook my head, pleading with that one gesture for him to be quiet. The pain that tore through me was overwhelming, and it would take almost nothing for it to shatter whatever control I had.
Nem walked forward, her red hair like dancing flames, her looking exactly as she had the last time I saw her. From behind her, the Quad entered the house as well.
It was like my past reaching out to snatch me back, just when I’d thought I’d found something solid, something I’d craved for so long.
Thrown away, again.
I let out a laugh, one broken and full of pain, then shook my head. “I guess I should get my things, huh?”
“This is for the best,” Char said from behind me, his voice lacking any of the playful tone it had before.
And just like that, it snapped the cold exterior I’d tried to hold on to. I wanted to be my mother, to accept something I didn’t like with elegance and grace, to appear unaffected no matter how deeply it hurt me.
However, here I was, forced to remember that I didn’t have all of that. Instead, I had a lot of my father’s temper as well.
“Don’t youdaresay that to me.” I spun on my heel to look at Char—no, to look at themall.“You went behind my back and made decisions about me, about my life, without even talking to me.”
“You would have never agreed to this,” Hayden pointed out. “If we’d told you, you’d have just argued with us and ruined the time we had left.”
“So that’s what today was? Just a final farewell? And you thought that would be better?”
“I don’t like this either,” Vance said, taking a step toward me. “I didn’t want to do this, but after what happened? Lorien is out of control, and you being here is only going to threaten you more. One of these times, we won’t be able to protect you.”
“I’ve had people deciding my life for me all along, but I thought I finally found a place where I got to choose, where people actually respected me enough to give me a choice. Instead, you’re no different than everyone else, just doing whatever the hell you want without listening to me at all. In the end, you treated me just like everyone else does, like I’m just a thing you can shuffle around as you please with no thought to what I want.”
