Chapter 10
TEN
Kallie
Odeyssa left a little bit ago, saying she had been gone way longer than anticipated. And if her dad catches her, she will “be with the whirlies.” Whatever that means.
Atticus waltzed back into the house at the same time I walked out of the bathroom. We stood there awkwardly before he went inside what I’m assuming is his room and hasn’t resurfaced.
I’m vegged out on the couch, watching the sun slowly go down out the window, relishing in the amber glow settling over the living space. For the first time since I’ve left the facility, I’m alone with my thoughts.
Closing my eyes, I feel my heart rate even out, beating in tandem with my breathing. There’s a small light at the end of the tunnel, calling out to me. My chest heaves, and I let out an audible gasp when the singular word penetrates the endless void.
“Firebird?” Uncaring of the tears that spring in my eyes, I let them fall while trying to decipher if this is real.
“Voraxis?” I hold onto the bond like a lifeline, and it glows brighter with my response.
“Where are you?” his gruff, ancient voice asks in earnest. But I can’t bring him into this. Not yet.
“Don’t worry. I’m safe.” Am I, though? Atticus could be working for the people who took me. He never took the serum.
“I will worry! You’ve been missing, no contact for a very long time. I’ve torn apart this realm in search of you!” Guilt weighs me down at his admission.
When I don’t respond, he continues, “I will find you, Firebird. I promise.” The communication ceases, and I grapple onto it until the light dies out.
Wiping my face dry, I sit up and regain my composure. It’s then I notice Atticus leaning against the doorframe. Startled, I jump in surprise. For such a big guy, he sure moves around like a mouse.
“You scared me,” I admit.
“Yeah, I got that. Sorry.” Annoyance grates in his tone, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable, knowing I’m infringing on his space.
“Thanks for, uh…letting me stay here,” I say, picking at the hem of my shirt.
“Don’t sweat it. Any friend of Dessa’s is a friend of mine.” My lips tilt up with her nickname, so unserious and casual. “Are you hungry?” Looking back to where he stood moments ago, I find him gone and see he’s ventured into the kitchen.
“I’m always hungry these days.” Rising off the couch, I stumble into the small kitchen where it looks like he’s making up plates for the both of us. The light casts across his face, and there’s something familiar in his features I can’t quite place.
It’s bugging the shit out of me. I’m trailing my eyes over every dip and curve of his features, shuffling through my brain to figure out why.
“Do you stare at everybody like that?” His question pulls me out of the trance, and I accept the plate he offers wordlessly.
“Sorry, you just look familiar,” I admit.
“Haven’t heard that one before,” he mumbles under his breath, and my eyebrows pinch together in confusion. Letting the comment roll off my back, we sit in the living room and eat our sandwiches in silence.
“So, have you always lived here?” My voice ricochets off the walls as I look around the cozy home.
Pink flushes his cheeks—with embarrassment or anger, I can’t be sure.
“For the most part. It’s been just me for a while,” he admits, sounding somber.
Something else—someone else—takes over my body, and the words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “What about your parents?” We’re both shocked because it is absolutely none of my business.
“Dead.” My cheeks instantly heat with embarrassment. This is going well.
“I also have a sister. She stayed here with me after our parents passed. But she went missing, and it’s been just me ever since.”
My heart plummets out of my ass, and I let out a shaky breath before I dare ask the question, “What’s her name?”
Then time slows all at once. His lips form the name I so desperately didn’t want him to utter. “Serena.”
The walls seem to cave in, and the room turns into a whirlpool I can’t escape out of.
Warring with the tears fighting their way to the surface, I lose the battle, and they release in steady streams down my cheeks.
All the moments we shared, from the beginning to the very brutal end, play in my head.
And no matter how much I will them to stop, they don’t.
Atticus stares at me like a deer in headlights, not knowing what to do.
“Sorry, I just thought—” But my sentence is cut short by a wave of heaving. Serena. “I can’t stay here. Thank you, really, for the offer, but I’ll find somewhere else.” Quickly standing, my legs wobble, and Atticus reaches out to steady me.
“Did I say something?” Concern etches across his face, and I lose it all over again, bile rising in my throat. I can’t let him comfort me—not when I’m the reason his sister is dead.
There’s no oxygen left to take in. All of it is being sucked from the room, far out of reach. Shoving away his hand, I back away until my back hits the nearest wall.
“Twins.” That one word is barely audible, but I can tell it reaches him from the look of uncertainty contouring his face.
But there isn’t time for him to respond.
I don’t think I would be able to handle it if he did.
“I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.
You look just like her.” My eyes meet his, and I watch all the emotions play out in them, like a gateway into his innermost thoughts.
“You knew her.” Pain, hurt, disbelief are all present in those few words. Atticus takes a hesitant step toward me, and instantly, I coat myself in flames, using it like my own personal armor.
Unable to speak, I nod my head in reply, the word getting lodged in my throat. Fisting his hands at his sides, he looks murderous, and I have no idea if it’s directed at me. I wouldn’t blame him if it was.
“Tell me.” He sounds calmer than he looks—aside from the clenched jaw and balled-up fists—but I can’t stop the tears from flowing or the feel of a boulder sitting in my esophagus.
So I wait for the ocean to calm, the waves to steady, before I let the flames die out on my flesh and join Atticus, who is waiting for me on the couch.
My eyes stay downcast as I shuffle my feet to the chair. Once I’m seated, I finally build up the nerve to look him in the eye, and the waterworks start all over again.
“She was brilliant. Someone I looked forward to seeing every day.” My gaze flits down to my hands resting in my lap. “She kept me sane—well, as much as someone could stay sane in a place like that,” I admit.
When he stays silent, I hesitantly look back up, and my heart tugs at the unshed tears that sit in his eyes, and I can feel the shattering, splintered pieces of his heart in my chest.
“What happened to her?”
A breathless, lifeless chuckle escapes me.
Shaking my head, the penetrating stare he sends my way is pleading.
But I don’t have the heart to tell him. How can I possibly explain to him that his beloved twin sister was mutilated and tortured?
That, against all odds, we were getting out.
I was getting her out, and she sacrificed herself to save me.
The words form, but I can’t release them. It should have been me who died in that hallway. And for some unknown reason, she thought my life was more valuable than her own.
Against my better judgment, that’s exactly what I tell him. Atticus absorbs every word of the confession, and when it’s all said and done, the floor opens up, ready to swallow me whole.
Time stretches between us. He hasn’t said anything and continues to stay silent when he stands and storms out the front door.
Alone and distraught, I make no move to get up, cemented to the seat. The odds of me ever meeting any of Serena’s family were never in my favor, but the world has a very sick sense of humor to have the one person in her life offer me shelter.
I must’ve dosed off, because the next thing I know, the sun is asleep for the night, and the room is now blanketed in moonlight when Atticus stumbles through the door.
He is clearly disheveled and out of it, so I stand abruptly, ready to handle any reaction he throws my way.
I was expecting anger, resentment, a fucking fist fight.
But none of those things happen. What he does next never crossed my mind as a possibility.
Atticus stares at me a moment, maybe trying to collect his thoughts, then barrels toward me and wraps his arms around me.
Limb-locked, I don’t return his embrace. Can’t is more like it, since he has my arms pinned at my sides. Nervous, I don’t speak, don’t breathe, unknowing what this means.
When he finally releases me, he places his hands on my upper arms, looking between my eyes, and it takes everything in me to not break again in front of him.
“Thank you,” he says. At a loss for words, my head tilts in question.
“You answered the one thing keeping me up at night, saved me from a life of not ever knowing what happened to her.” Holding on to me like a vise, his grip is almost punishing as he enunciates the last sentence, “I need you to understand it was not your fault.”
“I just—”
“It. Was. Not. Your. Fault,” he pushes desperately.
Lip quivering, I nod my head, and he pulls me in again. This time, I wrap my arms around his large form, and we cry together.
Atticus and I said our goodnights after he made up a makeshift bed on the couch, which I will be sleeping on. He tried insisting on me taking the bed, but I flat out refused.
Sleep meets me halfway as soon as my head hits the pillow, and all thoughts quiet, drowning in darkness.
“Ready or not, here I come,” the venomous voice taunts, shaking the walls of my enclosure. Suddenly, I’m trapped in the confines of a cage again, but instead of bars holding me hostage…it’s my mind.
“Where oh where have you run off to?” The song is in a tune I’m too familiar with. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I’m out in the open to whatever snake has slithered its way in here.