Chapter 50 | Anna
The season changed, and the days rolled by in a blur. It had been a week since Silas showed up and dropped his information bomb.
Rain turned the villa gray around the edges. Nights went sharp and cold. It broke my habit of leaving the courtyard doors open, so now I stood behind the glass and stared out like I’d lost my best friend. Dramatic. But accurate.
Kincade’s bandages were gone. The stitches were out. He was moving better. Still not combat ready, still furious about it. Still barking orders at the men.
His men. I was still getting used to that.
I took mild satisfaction in that, because for once it wasn’t directed at me.
And it was a strange realization, too. That he had all these people at his disposal and I’d been oblivious. Like I’d been living beside an entire machine and only now noticed the gears.
I’d come to terms with the idea that Walker Manor was no longer a home. I still didn’t like it. I knew our time in the villa was ending—soon—and we’d go back. I also knew they’d all come with me like some testosterone convoy of protection, as if I was a shipment marked FRAGILE.
Or I was hazardous cargo.
When the sun broke through the clouds one morning, I was standing at the courtyard doors pretending the light fixed everything when Kincade walked in holding my coat. He was already wearing his which was shocking, because I’d pegged him for a man who would rather suffer than admit he was cold.
Apparently, I’d been wrong.
“Are we going somewhere?” I asked.
“Yes. Come on.” He held the coat out to me.
“Where?”
“You need fresh air,” he said, like it was a medical prescription. “And a change of scenery.”
I slid my arms into the sleeves and followed him out the front door. Ludwig and Ulrich were already waiting beside a dark sedan with blacked-out windows.
They were all armed.
Kincade opened the rear passenger-side door. Ulrich took the front passenger seat. Ludwig slid behind the wheel. Kincade got in beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him even through layers.
I felt like I had my own Secret Service detail. All we needed were sunglasses and earpieces.
They probably had the earpieces. Wouldn’t surprise me at this point.
“Well, this is mysterious,” I said.
Silence. Like this was a recon op, and I hadn’t been briefed.
As we drove, I realized something. It was the first time I’d stepped foot outside the villa in weeks.
He was right. I did need a change of scenery.
It was a short drive. Too normal for what my life had become. Normal. I’d forgotten what that felt like. Ludwig pulled into a public lot near the river and parked between a family van and a muddy hatchback like we were another group out for a walk.
We all got out at once. Ulrich first, scanning without looking like he was scanning.
Ludwig locking the car and drifting a few steps ahead.
Kincade closing my door and pausing like he was deciding how much space to give me.
Professional. All of them.
Then we moved toward the Isar on foot, following the paved path until it narrowed into a riverside trail.
A few minutes later Kincade guided us off the main flow and down a shortcut through the trees, closer to the bank.
Close enough that the sound of the water covered voices, close enough that my boots found damp earth instead of concrete.
Ludwig peeled off to the left. Ulrich to the right. Kincade right next to me.
Silas stood near a bench like he’d been assigned to it, hands loose at his sides, his one good eye watching everything. Ophelia was there, too. Arms folded, face tight with that I’m-trying-not-to-cry expression. And sitting on the bench—
My steps stalled.
My mother.
For a second my brain refused it, like the world had glitched. Then my chest went hot and hollow all at once.
I turned on Kincade, stunned. “What is this?”
“You said you wanted to talk to your mother.”
“So you… brought her here?” My eyes burned hot. I blinked.
“It’s the safest place to meet. She doesn’t know where we are, so if she’s questioned, she can’t tell anyone.”
That was the technical answer.
My throat closed. I couldn’t speak. Gratitude and shock and something that felt like breaking.
His hand pressed the small of my back as he leaned closer. “Go talk to her.”
I managed to glance up at him, trying to figure out what to say.
“I’ll be right here,” he said. “Waiting.”
I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking and forced my feet to move forward. As I approached, Silas gave me one quick nod, then stepped back as if to give us more space. Before I even reached the bench, Ophelia was moving.
She grabbed me in a fierce hug, squeezing me so tight I could hardly breathe. I hugged her back and since this whole nightmare began, something loosened in my chest.
Then she pulled back, held me at arm’s length and looked me over. Her gaze landed on my hair for a long moment, but there was no judgment. Only acceptance. Then her gaze moved over my face, like she wasn’t entirely certain she was looking at the real me.
“God, Anna. We’ve been so worried.”
Words froze in my throat.
“When Silas said he wanted us to come with him…” She hiccupped a breath. “I didn’t know if it was a cruel joke or not.”
I looked past her at my mother.
Natasha—because that was the name the Knights had given her after the alteration—sat on the bench with her hands folded in her lap. Her dark hair was tied at the nape of her neck, and she was staring out at the river like she could see something none of us could.
“Is she—” I halted, not sure how to ask.
The alteration had scrambled her sense of self. It had only been in the last few months that pieces of her had started to return.
“She’s fairly lucid,” Ophelia said, glancing at her. “She’s been asking about you.”
A lump formed in my throat, tight and thick. “And Grace?”
“She knew this wasn’t about her,” Ophelia said softly.
I nodded.
“Are you… all right?” Ophelia asked.
My gaze landed on her blue one. “I’m better. I’ll tell you everything when I can.”
She nodded and squeezed my hand once, then stepped away.
I walked to the bench and sat beside my mother. Her gaze drifted from the distance to me. Violet eyes. Like mine. A faint smile flickered across her face. Recognition in her gaze. She knew me.
“There’s my girl.”
Her voice was soft. She reached for my hand and held it in hers. It was cold, but her skin was smooth.
“Hi, Mom.” My voice wobbled. It was the first time I’d called her that. The word felt strange. Foreign. Right. “I’m glad you came.”
“The man with the eyepatch,” she started, then paused.
“Silas,” I supplied.
“Yes. Silas.” She nodded, like she was placing him in a drawer in her mind. “He’s been at the manor. Did you know?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s making it safer for all of us.”
“Grace likes him,” she said.
“Grace likes everyone,” I said, and the smile that came with it surprised me.
Grace was Southern charm wrapped in warmth, manners, and a glass of sweet iced tea. She’d never been unkind to anyone. People tended to bend to her will without realizing it the moment they heard the soft lilt of her Texas accent.
“We’ve missed you,” my mother said. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon,” I promised.
Now that she was here, all the questions I’d carried for months fled my mind. It was enough to sit beside her and breathe. This. Her presence.
My mother’s gaze shifted to where Kincade stood. Then she leaned back slightly, still holding my hand.
“He stayed,” she said, like it surprised her.
I glanced his way. Arms crossed. Eyes scanning everything and everyone but us. Watching for the thing that would try.
Ludwig passed by in front of us on the path, then cut in front of the trees like he belonged there. Never looking our way. Ulrich was somewhere nearby. I didn’t see him. That meant he was doing his job.
“He did,” I said.
“That’s good,” she said. “He loves you.”
The words hit like an arrow to the heart. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t respond. I said nothing.
“I think he’d move mountains for you.”
My voice was weak when I spoke. “I think he would, too.”
“I like him,” she said then.
And it shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. I’d never sought anyone’s approval. And now she’d handed it to me like a gift I didn’t know how to hold.
“So does Grace,” she added.
“That’s good,” I whispered.
“But I think I’m here for a reason,” she said.
I nodded, throat tight. “We have something in common.”
“What we have in common,” she said, “is we both survived them.” Her gaze flicked to Kincade again. “And you chose someone who won’t let them finish the job.”
My breath caught. How did she see that? How did she know? “You don’t even know him.”
“I know that look,” she said. “The way he stands. The way he stays.”
I said nothing for a long moment as I stared out at the Isar ahead of us like it held all the answers. I wished it did.
“I killed him,” I said then. “The man who did this to us.”
I don’t know why I said it. I guess because I needed her to know.
She was quiet, thinking it through. Then she nodded once. “Good. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
No judgment. Cool acceptance. Relief flooded through me.
“Would you have killed him?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Because he hurt you, too.” Then she went still for a long moment. “I killed a lot of people I didn’t mean to.”
I squeezed her hand. Hot tears burned behind my eyes. I blinked them back. Barely. “I know.”
“I didn’t know what I was,” she said. “But I do now.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. What could I say? That I understood? I did.
“One thing helped, though,” she added.
“What’s that?”
“Having someone who cares. Friendship,” she said. “Your friend, Grace. She…” She hesitated, like she was reaching for a word she didn’t trust. “She helps me. Sits with me. Talks to me about… things. Reads from a book.”
“A book?” I asked, my brows drawing together.
“A Bible,” she said simply. “Grace reads to me when my thoughts slip.”
Her thumb rubbed over my knuckles like she was comforting herself with the motion.
“Small passages. Psalms, mostly. The parts that sound like someone lived through something awful and still woke up the next day.”
She glanced at the men standing guard, then back to the river.
“Sometimes I don’t remember the words after. But I remember how it feels when she reads. Like the noise goes quiet for a while.”
My throat tightened. “Grace does things like that,” I whispered.
Grace. Taking care of everyone. Always.
A faint smile touched my mother’s mouth. “Then she’s exactly who you needed. When you were growing up.”
It wrecked me, hearing her say that. Because she understood what happened to me now. Not in a distant, abstract way. In the way a mother knows when she finds the missing piece and it’s her own absence.
She knew I’d been left behind. That someone else had raised me. That my childhood had gone on without her while she was trapped inside a name that wasn’t hers, in a life that wasn’t real.
And there was something in her voice that sounded like acceptance and apology braided together, quiet enough that she didn’t have to ask for forgiveness to mean it.
Hearing that Grace had been with her let me believe my mother wasn’t alone in that house. Not while I was gone. Not while I was hunting monsters and pretending it wasn’t taking pieces of me with it.
It had taken everything.
Her gaze held mine. “But even when I am afraid, I still trust you.”
A Psalm. It hit me hard. I stopped breathing.
My throat tightened as I nodded. The river kept moving beside us, indifferent and steady, like it had never heard the word alteration in its life.
When I glanced up, Kincade was exactly where he promised he’d be. Still, vigilant, refusing to let the world touch me while I held my mother’s hand.
That’s what home was going to be now.
He hadn’t brought me here to be brave.
He’d brought me here so I wouldn’t have to be.