Chapter Fifty-Eight
Addie
Tad is taken prisoner and windwalked to Sunrise City by Renegade soldiers.
Caleb and Creed spend a good deal of time talking with a top US military official.
And Creed’s mother agrees to come to Sunrise City and help our cause, and is en route with a band of Renegades for her protection. I’m not sure I trust her, but I believe she has a lot to offer, and she’s done a lot at this point to prove she deserves a chance. I’m just not sure Creed believes as much, but she’s done a lot to hurt him. Maybe in time.
When we finally return to the city, Creed and I retire to our room, inhale a meal, shower, and sleep.
We wake the next day and make love, shower together, and do it again. Creed doesn’t want to see his mother right now, and I don’t push him. He talks to me about it, though, and that feels like progress. It’s about a week before they have a mom-and-son breakfast, which I refuse to attend. I’m not sure what happened, but he’s cranky after. He does agree to another meeting, though.
My father is still missing, and truly, it’s hard to believe he’s so far from the good man I once believed him to be. I have moments when I feel lost to know both of my parents are gone because, alive or dead, my father is gone to me. But I’ve been made to feel like family at Sunrise City, and I’ve even kicked off my new program to help protect innocent women from abduction by holding regular meetings and working with law enforcement.
It's two weeks after all the craziness—no three, I realize. Time has flown by, and Creed and I have little habits, like we used to, that we’ve fallen into. Places in the city we eat and movies we love. Human locations he windwalks me to visit. It’s a time of quiet before a storm to follow, we all know, but there is a sense of all of us needing it.
One night, Creed declares a surprise we must windwalk to, and I smile with pleasure. “Yes. Please.” I really do love windwalking, though I’ve yet to develop the ability on my own. I’m hopeful, though.
A few minutes later, we’re at the peak of a magnificent mountaintop at the edge of the Grand Canyon, a blanket beneath us, the stars twinkling a song above, and a picnic basket in front of us that Emma had apparently packed for us to enjoy.
“It’s magnificent,” I say, forgetting the war raging around us and embracing this moment with the man I love. He’s calmer now and less scary to everyone around him, too, I’m told. It’s my fault, he’s proclaimed often. He needs to be scary. As if, I think, and smile over at him.
That’s when he produces the velvet box, his eyes brimming with emotion, with love. “I love you, Addie. You have changed my life in ways I didn’t think possible. And you have made me a better man. Given me hope that man can be more human than monster. Marry me. Please, Addie.” He opens the box and produces a round ring that glows like the glorious moon hanging between the stars.
My heart swells with the gesture that offers me the choice our bodies did not, and I touch his jaw, my fingers curling on the rough stubble shadowing his jaw. “Yes,” I say, sliding the ring onto my finger. “And it was yes from the moment I met you.”
Relief washes over him, as if I would say no, as if I would ever want to be anywhere but right here with him for the rest of my life. I press my lips to his, and he lays me down and makes love to me right here in the middle of the wild, and I can almost hear the wind cheering us on.
The End