Chapter 17 Aurora
AURORA
The mountains rise like sentinels outside the window. Indifferent. Unmoved by human suffering. I press my fingertips against the cool glass, leaving smudges that fade within seconds. Just like truth. Just like trust.
Six hours in this place. Six hours of silence. Medical equipment beeps softly in the background—monitoring my vital signs, my physical recovery. The doctor said something about moderate dehydration, malnutrition, and bruised ribs. Words that floated past me without landing.
I haven’t spoken since Hunter carried me from that collapsing warehouse. What is there to say when your entire reality has been obliterated?
My father didn’t kill himself. He was murdered. And Hunter knew.
The man who touched me, who claimed me, who made me feel things I’d never felt—he was there when my father died and said nothing.
“You need to eat something.” Hunter’s voice comes from the doorway. I don’t turn. Don’t acknowledge him.
The mountain view blurs as tears fill my eyes. I blink them back. No more crying. No more weakness.
Somewhere out there, Liv is with Jax. My sister. The thought hollows me out completely. While I sit in this luxurious prison—because that’s what it is, despite the comfortable furniture and state-of-the-art security—Liv remains in the hands of a monster.
I press my forehead against the glass and close my eyes.
A blanket settles around my shoulders. I didn’t hear him approach.
“Aurora.” Hunter’s voice is soft, cautious. “The doctor says you’re severely dehydrated. You need to drink.”
I remain motionless, eyes fixed on the darkening mountains. In my mind, I’m back at the cliff house, standing where my father stood, feeling what he might have felt in his final moments. Did he know? Did he see it coming? Did he think of me?
I sit by the window, the oversized blanket swallowing me like I’m a child again. Outside, darkness creeps across the mountains, shadows climbing higher with every passing minute. I feel Hunter’s presence behind me—hovering, waiting. The silence between us has weight, substance.
My reflection wavers in the glass. Hollow eyes. Tangled hair. A stranger’s face. I barely recognize myself anymore.
Hunter shifts his weight, wincing. From the corner of my eye, I catch him adjusting the hasty bandage on his shoulder. The bullet wound he received during my rescue. I should care. I should feel something. Instead, there’s emptiness where emotion once lived.
Twelve days in a cell with Jax didn’t break me. One video did.
My bladder protests, demanding attention. Basic bodily functions continue even when your world implodes. How inconsiderate.
I push myself up from the window seat, clutching the blanket around my shoulders like armor. Hunter steps forward, hand outstretched.
“Aurora—”
I walk past him without acknowledgment. His hand falls to his side. Good.
The hallway stretches before me, leading to a bathroom I barely remember using earlier. I move on unsteady legs, my bare feet silent against the hardwood floor. On way back from the bathroom, I hear voices drift from the kitchen. Penn’s low murmur catches my attention as I leave the bathroom.
“She’s going to break her silence eventually,” he says. “When she does, it’s going to be brutal.”
I freeze, hand on the doorknob.
“I know,” Hunter replies, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I deserve whatever’s coming.”
“It’s not about deserving,” Penn says. “It’s about whether you can handle it. She’s stronger than you think.”
I slip back to the living room before I can hear Hunter’s response. Their voices continue, muffled now by the closed door.
They’re talking about me like I’m a bomb about to detonate. Maybe I am.
It happens at sunset.
The mountains outside the window transform into silhouettes against a bleeding sky. Crimson and gold spill across the horizon, painting the room in warm light that feels like a mockery of the cold emptiness inside me.
For hours, I’ve sat immobile, processing fragments of grief while Hunter maintains his vigil. Sometimes he leaves—phone calls, whispered conversations with Penn, bringing food I won’t touch. But he always returns, taking up space in the doorway or sitting silently in the chair across from me.
Waiting. Watching. As if I’m the dangerous one.
The dying sunlight catches on something metal across the room—Hunter’s watch.
Something breaks inside me. Not like glass shattering, but like ice giving way beneath unsuspecting feet. A sudden plunge into frigid waters.
I stand in one fluid motion, the blanket falling away from my shoulders. My legs should feel weak after hours of sitting, after days of captivity, but rage fuels my strength. I turn to face Hunter directly.
His expression changes when our eyes meet—surprise, then wariness. He recognizes that something has shifted. The silence between us is about to end.
“Tell me everything,” I demand, my voice hoarse from screaming during my captivity, from crying, from twelve days of horror. Each word scrapes against my raw throat. “Every detail about my father’s death. Why did you never tell me?”
Hunter straightens, his injured shoulder forgotten. His face—that beautiful face I once traced with reverent fingers—hardens into something unreadable. But his eyes... his eyes give him away. There’s fear there. Not of me, but of this moment. Of what happens after truth is spoken aloud.
He takes one step toward me, then stops as I instinctively back away.
“Aurora—” he begins, but I cut him off with a raised hand.
“No excuses. No lies.” My voice grows stronger with each word. “Just the truth. All of it.”
I wrap my arms around myself, watching Hunter’s face as he struggles with whatever truth he’s about to reveal.
He stands before me, blood seeping through his haphazardly bandaged shoulder. Exhaustion etches deep lines around his eyes. For a moment, I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
“Your father...” Hunter begins, his voice rough. He clears his throat and tries again. “Your father participated in the hunt. Like the one that happened the night you and I did.”
My breath catches. “What?”
“The Vipers have always conducted these trials. Your father tried to become one of us. It’s—it’s how we test recruits’ abilities and their instincts.” Hunter’s eyes never leave mine. “Sometimes recruits don’t make it out alive.”
The room tilts slightly. I steady myself against the windowsill.
“Your father knew the risks when he agreed to participate. He wasn’t the first to die during Selection.”
“So my father was just... collateral damage?” The words taste bitter on my tongue.
Hunter’s jaw tightens. “After I saw how you’d processed it—believing it was suicide—I didn’t see the point in telling you differently. You’d found a way to live with it.”
Something breaks loose inside me—rage, hot and clarifying.
“You didn’t see the point?” My voice rises. “Do you have any idea what it did to me, thinking my father chose to leave us? That he jumped off that cliff because staying alive—staying with me—wasn’t worth it?”
Hunter remains silent.
“I’ve spent twelve years wondering what I could have done differently.
What I could have said to make him want to stay.
” Tears blur my vision, but I refuse to let them fall.
“And you knew. You knew he didn’t choose to die.
He was killed. How could you not understand the difference that would make to me? ”
Hunter takes a step toward me. “Aurora—”
“No.” I hold up my hand. “It was never your choice to make. You watched my father die, and then you touched me, you held me, and you said nothing. And what about Olivia?” My voice cracks. “Where is she right now? With Jax—the man who killed my father?”
Hunter’s face contorts with something resembling guilt. “We’re doing everything possible to find her.”
“Like you did everything possible to be honest with me?” The words fly from me, sharp as broken glass.
He runs a hand through his hair, wincing as the movement pulls at his injured shoulder. “Aurora, there are things about the Vipers you don’t understand. Confidentiality is paramount. We take oaths—”
“Confidentiality?” I laugh, a hollow sound that doesn’t belong to me. “My father’s murder wasn’t some corporate secret. It was my life! My trauma!”
“I was bound by—”
“By what? Your precious code?” I step closer, trembling with rage. “While I poured my heart out about standing at that cliff, trying to understand why my father would leave me—you sat there knowing the truth and said nothing.”
Hunter reaches for me, but I step back.
“I thought we had something.” My voice drops to a whisper. “But it was built on lies.”
“What I feel for you is real.” His eyes flash with desperation. “More real than anything I’ve ever felt.”
“But not real enough to tell me the truth.”
He falls to his knees suddenly, his imposing frame crumpling before me. “Aurora, please.” His voice breaks. “I was wrong. I should have told you everything from the beginning.”
In another life, seeing Hunter Reed on his knees might have moved me. Now, I feel nothing but a vast emptiness.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you for this.” The words come out calm. “Not just keeping it from me—but watching it happen. Standing there while Jax pushed my father to his death.”
“I didn’t know—” He reaches for my hand. “I was twenty-one. A recruit myself. I didn’t know who he was. Not until—”
“But you knew after.”
His fingers graze mine, but the touch that once electrified now leaves me cold. The disconnect between us stretches like an uncrossable chasm.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making this right,” he whispers.
I look down at him, this powerful man brought low, and feel nothing but exhaustion.
“I need space,” I whisper. “I can’t process any of this with you here.”
Hunter looks up at me, still on his knees. For a moment, I think he might argue or try to convince me of something—his love, his regret, his plans to make everything right. Instead, his expression shifts into resignation.
He rises slowly, wounded shoulder making his movement less fluid than usual. The Hunter Reed I thought I knew would never show weakness like this, but perhaps I never really knew him at all.
“I’ll be downstairs if you need anything,” he says. “Penn and the others are actively tracking Olivia’s location. I promise we’ll find her.”
Another promise. I stare through him rather than at him.
He hesitates at the doorway, looking back at me one last time. “I’m sorry, Aurora. More than you’ll ever know.”
The door closes with a soft click. His footsteps fade down the hallway.
I stand frozen, listening to the sudden silence. The mountains outside have disappeared into darkness. No more sunset. Just black emptiness pressing against the window.
My legs give out first.
I slide down the wall, hitting the floor harder than expected. The pain barely registers. The first sob rips through me like a physical force, bending me forward until my forehead touches my knees. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the broken pieces together.
Every tear feels like betrayal. I shouldn’t be crying over him. I should be focusing on Olivia.
But the tears come anyway, hot and relentless. For my father. For the truth, I never knew. For twelve years of misplaced anger. For my stepsister in the hands of his killer. For the love I thought was real.
I press my palm against my mouth to muffle the sounds, not wanting Hunter to hear me fall apart. Even now, I can’t bear the thought of him seeing this final weakness.