Chapter 40
SLADE
The rubble of the sickeningly familiar prison around me has every beast in me stirring as a continuous growl rumbles in my chest. It’s haunted with screams I’ve forced myself to forget, and memories I’ve subtracted from my mind.
I move over the spot where my brother’s cell once was…so far away from mine, since separating us was one of their many experiments. His mind tapped to mine in desperation when he sought solace through our link.
He screamed my pain when they tortured me.
I let him betray me first before I betrayed him in return, taking away that precious link he loved so much by making us both believe it didn’t exist, until I opened that journal. I siphoned it myself, truly weakening it, betraying him all the more.
He still shielded himself from me, somehow knowing the link was stronger than I wanted him to think it was, his subconscious guiding him after brief moments of clarity.
My mind discreetly stayed open to his, and his was just fragile enough to believe all the lies I did.
My fingers still on the journal pages, I allow myself to remember everything as I spread my brother’s ashes in the same place where his mate and his unborn child took their last breaths.
I can’t even hate him anymore. He lost so much more than me, and he suffered all the guilt I faced a thousand and one times, only twice as hard.
And I allow myself to hope he finds peace while the journal is open, because I know I won’t really be able to care all that much once the book is shut.
Kneeling, I stare at Alton’s ashes as they settle in the absence of wi
nd.
“I wish I hadn’t had to make us forget how close we once were, but I knew I’d never be able to let you die by my hand if I remembered too much. It’s always the details, brother, that destroyed our futures. I really hope you find your mate and child now, while I try to figure out what in the bloody hell I do in a time where I was never supposed to survive.”
Massaging my temples, I dematerialize away from that place, unable to stand being there a second longer. The open journal allows for too many memories to flood back too quickly, memories I had to forget in order to survive.
Propping up, I stare through the windows of a house I’ve never seen. In a town I’ve never heard of. In a time I have no memories of, not even in my journal.
I’ve never seen this. I have no idea what happens next. And I can’t have my visions back because I made it a point to ensure it was irreversible in a desperate time where hope was no longer an option.
Now there’s hope, and I’m not entirely sure what to do with it just yet. I’m just sort of staring at it from the corner of my mind like it’s a box marked “Open the Hope.”
Ella calls out my name from the front door, but her eyes pass over me as I stand camouflaged by the world around me. It takes every ounce of strength I have not to go to her, especially when her gaze hovers over me like she senses me here.
Exhaling heavily, she turns and goes back in, and I swallow thickly while watching her through the window.
“We’ve been looking for you,” Kya says from behind me, and I close my eyes and work on calming as I drop the camouflage.
“The dragonites were late,” I tell her.
“Better late than never.”
“It was a message from Darius that he wasn’t a pet. Alyssa should send him a message in return or he’ll think he’s more dominant. It’s how he thinks,” I go on.
“Is that really what you’re standing out here in the dark thinking about?” she asks as she moves to my side.
I stand quietly for a minute, opening and closing the journal over and over before finally leaving it open. “I took painstaking precautions to ensure I was nothing like the man I was in this journal. The man I am now is the same Slade they all hate,” I point out a little angrily. “I didn’t plan for a future, Kya. The second I close this journal, I’m going to be livid with you for seeing this moment of weakness.”
“And probably say some things that would be hurtful to normal people, but I sort of grew up with you. I can handle it.”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter under my breath. “I still don’t know what happened. Why Leah?” I ask. “Are you sure it’s her and not Hannah?”
“Hannah’s dead,” she says softly. “We survived. Now we move forward and start planning for tomorrow.”
For a few long minutes, we say nothing.