29. Twenty-Nine
TWENTY-NINE
WRENLY
I had to get away before I started crying. My head hurt and my stomach was sick. I pushed through the crowd and headed up to the manor. The heavy wooden doors creaked as I flung them open, stumbling into the grand foyer. The ornate portraits of stern-faced ancestors adorned the walls, and their painted eyes seemed to follow my every move with cold disapproval. I couldn’t bear their silent judgment.
“Wrenly?” I heard Theo call after me.
I raced down the hallway and into the bathroom, purging my stomach’s contents into the toilet. I gripped the sides of the porcelain bowl, my knuckles white as wave after wave of nausea wracked my body. Sweat dripped down my brow, mingling with the tears streaming down my face, I couldn’t shake the suffocating feeling of shame and embarrassment that clung to me like a heavy shroud.
Theo hadn’t told me my brother worked for them, and Gage was more than upset I was with Theo. What had begun as a perfect night had turned sour. I slumped against the cool porcelain, and the bitter taste of bile lingered in my mouth.
A soft knock at the door startled me. “Wren, it’s me,” Theo’s muffled voice sounded through the door.
“Go away, Theo,” I responded .
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
I closed my eyes, willing him to go, but I knew he wouldn’t until I faced him. Slowly, I pushed myself up from the cold bathroom floor and went to the door. I turned the lock and cracked the door open. His face came into view, his brows knitted with concern.
“Baby, I’m so sorry. I should have told Gage about us and told you that he worked for us,” he said softly. “I never meant to keep it from you.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Well, you did. How could you not mention that my brother works for your family?”
Theo ran a hand through his hair, and he looked genuinely remorseful. “I was planning on telling you, but it never seemed like the right time.”
“The right time? My brother looked at me like I disgusted him.”
Theo reached out to touch my arm, but I flinched away. “I think he was more disgusted with me than you. My comment about fucking his sister probably didn’t help.” He winced. “I’m sorry, baby. And I promise I’ll make this right.”
I shook my head, unconvinced. “I need some air.”
I pushed past him, my heels clicking against the polished marble floor. I could hear him following behind, but I didn’t slow down. I needed to process everything that had just happened.
Bursting through the front doors and into the cool night, the sounds of the party became louder as I walked down the gravel path, my heels sticking into the soft earth. The moon hung low in the sky, casting a soft, silvery glow over the expansive gardens. The scent of roses and jasmine filled the air, but the chill had me shivering. I walked closer to the fire pits, when a loud explosion ripped through the night air, leaving behind a deafening roar that sent shockwaves through the ground. I stumbled forward, nearly losing my balance as the earth trembled beneath my feet.
It was eerily quiet for a few seconds before panicked screams broke out from the direction of the manor. I spun around, my heart racing as I witnessed the chaos unfolding. Flames licked at the night sky, engulfing one of the tents in a fierce inferno. Guests fled the gardens, their expressions twisted in terror .
I stood frozen, rooted to the spot, unable to process what I was seeing. A thick plume of black smoke billowed from the direction of the manor and clawed at the sky, casting everything in an ominous orange glow. Guests scattered in every direction, marked by fear. Some stumbled, others crawled, and their clothes were torn and smeared with soot. The acrid stench of burning wood and flesh assaulted my nostrils, causing me to gag.
Then another explosion, this one closer. The force sent me careening backward. I hit the ground hard, the air knocked from my lungs. I lay there, dazed and disoriented, a high-pitched ringing in my ears silencing the screams around me. Debris rained down, and I instinctively covered my head with my arms as shards of glass and embers fell onto my skin.
“Wren?”
I heard someone yelling my name, but the ringing muffled their voice.
Struggling to my feet, I looked through the haze and saw Theo’s silhouette yelling for me.
“Theo?” I coughed and sputtered, the thick smoke burning my lungs.
“Wren?” he shouted again, not seeing me.
“Theo? I’m here.” But he didn’t hear me. My cries were drowned out by gunshots and the cacophony of screams.
I stumbled forward, my vision blurred by the smoke as I neared the spot where I had seen Theo. But he wasn’t looking my way.
A dark figure dressed in a black Kevlar military uniform and holding an assault rifle emerged from the shadows. The figure turned, and I caught a glimpse of their eyes in the flickering light of the flames.
It couldn’t be.
“Connor?” I croaked. “What are you doing here?”
He stared at me, his eyes wild and filled with a rage I had never seen before. “I’m doing what needs to be done,” he snarled. “This family, this empire—it’s time for a new order to take their place. Starting with your freak boyfriend.”
“Connor, please, you don’t have to do this. We can talk about it. ”
He let out a bitter laugh. “There is no other way, Wren. Don’t you see? You embarrassed me, flaunting around with that motherfucker. The Brotherhood poisons everything they touch. He—” I watched him lift his gun, pointing it at Theo, who still had his back turned. “He’s poisoned everything, including you. You’re just another whore on their roster, and you can’t even see it. And this time, I’ll have my revenge.”
“No!” Time seemed to slow as I forced myself to sprint toward Theo, my heart pounding against my ribcage. The gravel bit into my bare feet, but I barely felt the pain. All I could focus on was reaching Theo before Connor pulled the trigger. “Theo, look out!” I screamed.
“Wren?” Theo turned around, his eyes widening as he saw Connor pointing the gun at him. I watched Theo pull his own gun out of his waistband. I lunged forward, throwing myself in front of him just as the deafening crack of gunshots split the very air and my body slammed into Theo’s with the force of my momentum.
Agony erupted in my abdomen, and when I glanced down, I saw blood spreading across my dress, turning the golden fabric into a dreadful shade of crimson. My legs buckled, and I collapsed to the floor.
My vision blurred at the edges as Theo’s anguished cry cut through the fog of pain. He held me tightly, supporting me against his chest as he gently laid me down. “No, no, no. Wren, baby. Stay with me. Please hold on.”
His voice seemed far away and muted, as though he were speaking from beneath water. I attempted to focus on his face, but my eyelids grew heavy, and the world around me began to blur.
More gunshots rang out, followed by shouts and hurried footsteps. I struggled to comprehend my surroundings. All I felt was the searing pain burning through my stomach and the comforting warmth of Theo’s arms holding me close.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, my voice almost drowned out by the distant screams. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, don’t talk. Save your strength.” His voice broke, and I felt something wet drip onto my cheek.
Tears , I realized .
He is crying.
I wanted to comfort him, to tell him everything would be okay, but the words wouldn’t come. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth, and my breath came in shallow gasps. A cold numbness started to spread through my limbs, and I knew it was because my body was shunting any blood I had left to my vital organs.
Theo was shouting something, his voice desperate and pleading, but I couldn’t make out the words. He pressed down on my stomach, trying to stem the flow of blood, but it was no use. There was too much, and I was growing weaker by the second.
I thought of my brother and how we had been fighting in the last conversation I’d had with him. I wouldn’t be able to tell him sorry. I thought of the life I had dreamed of with Theo, a future that seemed impossibly out of reach now.
“Wren, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you help. Please don’t leave me,” he begged. “I love you. I can’t lose you.”
I tried to smile and offer him some small measure of comfort, but I couldn’t make my muscles obey. The world was fading in and out, the sounds of chaos and destruction growing distant and muted. As my vision went from light to dark, I saw Theo’s beautiful, anguished face hovering above me like a beacon in the darkness. I didn’t know if he was carrying me or if it was just a symptom of dying. I tried to focus on his face one last time, to memorize every detail—the curve of his jaw, the green depths of his eyes, the way his hair fell across his forehead. I wanted to carry that beautiful image with me into the darkness I had once craved; that craving now seemed like a distant dream.
And then the darkness claimed me, pulling me violently into its silent, endless depths. The last thing I heard was Theo’s anguished cry as he called my name, a sound that would haunt me even in the void. I floated in a sea of nothingness, suspended between life and death. Time lost all meaning in this place, and I had no sense of how long I drifted untethered and alone. There was no pain here, no fear, no sorrow. Just a profound sense of peace and a soft, enveloping warmth, like sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day. Memories flashed through my mind like shards of a shattered mirror, each a bittersweet reminder of the life I had left behind .
Theo’s smiling face, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. The feel of his arms around me, strong and safe. The taste of his lips on mine, sweet and intoxicating. I clung to those memories like a lifeline, desperate to hold on to some piece of him even as I felt myself slipping further and further away.
Then I heard something else.
The darkness swirled around me, but through it, I could hear my mother’s voice, a soothing melody I hadn’t heard in so long.
“Mom?” I called out into the dark.
Silence.
Was this some cruel joke from the afterlife?
“Wren, my darling girl,” she whispered, her voice a gentle caress against my soul.
I moved toward the sound, but my body felt weightless, untethered from the physical world. “Mom, where are you?” I called out again, my voice an echo.
A soft light glowed in the distance, just a tiny pinprick of warmth amidst the cold darkness. It grew larger and brighter until it resolved into the shape of a woman, her features blurred and indistinct.
But I knew it was her.
I could feel it in every fiber of my being.
“Wren, my darling.” The figure spoke. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Tears sprang to my eyes as I recognized her voice. It was a sound I had longed to hear every single day since she’d died. “Mom? Is it really you?”
She smiled, her face radiant and glowing with an ethereal light. “Yes, my sweet girl. I’m here.”
I ran to her, falling into her embrace as sobs wracked my body. Her arms enveloped me, and I buried my face in her shoulder.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”
She pulled back, cupping my face in her hands. “Shh, it’s not your fault, Wren. There was nothing you could have changed. What is done is done.”
“Where’s Dad? Is he here too?” I choked out .
“Only one of us could come see you.” She sighed. “But he sends his love.”
“Am I dead?” I asked her.
She shook her head, a sad smile playing at the corner of her lips. “Not yet, my love. You’re in between, caught between life and death.”
Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, mingling with the inky darkness. “I thought this was what I wanted, just so I could be with you and Dad, but now that I’m here, I-I’m not ready to leave him.”
She reached out, her hand hovering just above my cheek. I could feel warmth radiating from her, comforting me in the midst of my grief. “I know, sweetheart. And you have a choice,” she said softly.
“A choice?”
“You can come with me, leave behind the pain and the suffering of the world. Or you can go back.”
I stared at her, my heart torn between the desire to stay with her and the aching need to return to Theo. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I’m so tired of fighting, Mama. I’m tired of the loss and the pain I feel every waking second.”
She smiled mournfully as she brushed a strand of hair from my face. “You are stronger than you realize. You always have been.”
I leaned into her touch, savoring the warmth and comfort of her presence. “What if I’m not strong enough this time?”
“You will be, Wren. You have so much love waiting for you on the other side.” She paused, moving her hand down to my stomach. “So much to live for.”
I followed her gaze, confusion clouding my mind. “What do you mean?”
She smiled. “A new life grows within you, a part of you and Theo. A reason to fight, to live.”
My hand instinctively moved closer to hers, pressing against the flat plane of my stomach. A baby ? I couldn’t be pregnant. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a mother.
“I’m scared,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. “I’m not ready to be a mother. What if I can’t protect them from the darkness in my world?”
“Oh, Wren.” She sighed, pulling me into her embrace again. “No one is ever truly ready for the challenges of parenthood. But you have a strength in you, a light that even the darkest shadows cannot extinguish.”
I clung to her, breathing in her familiar perfume, committing every detail of this moment to memory. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“My love, I will always be with you, watching over you and your little one.” She pulled back, cupping my face in her hands. “But it’s time for you to go home.” Her gaze drifted to something behind me, and a knowing smile graced her lips. “Listen.”
I strained my ears, trying to hear what she was referring to. At first, there was only silence, the vast emptiness of the void pressing in on me from all sides. But then, faintly, I heard a voice calling my name.
“Wren, please come back to me. I need you.” Theo’s voice was distant, muffled as if he were calling to me from across a great chasm. But it was unmistakably his, filled with a desperate, aching longing that shattered my heart into a million pieces.
I turned back to my mother, tears streaming down my face. “I have to go back,” I told her. “He needs me. They need me.”
“They do.” She smiled a radiant smile that seemed to light up the darkness around us. “And I will be here, waiting for you when it’s your time. But that time is not now. Give Gage a hug from me. Tell him to forgive himself because we love him unconditionally. Oh, and tell that stubborn boy to open his heart again.” She leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. “Go to Theo,” she breathed. “Go back to the life you were meant to live.”
I closed my eyes, and the void crashed around me.