Chapter 31
DIANA
Idon't remember standing.
One moment I'm sitting at the edge of the stiff infirmary bed, fingers still curled into Judge's shirt, like if I let go, he'll disappear again, and the next I'm on my feet, heart hammering so violently it might crack straight through my ribs.
My brother?
My first genuine reaction is that whoever decided to play this sick joke on me will have Judge to answer to.
"This isn't real, is it?” I ask, glancing at Judge.
“Tell them they can come in here, and Beast stands outside the door.”
God, I missed his bossiness. I do exactly as he says and stand in the open doorway, trying to think of how that person could have been wrong. It doesn’t make any sense. As I wait, watching as Beast finally rounds a corner with Kitty at his side, my heart races a little.
Well, someone is coming who says he’s my brother.
I don't look at Judge much, but I feel him. That steady, lethal presence at my back. He just exists there like a shadow that knows how to kill, and I have a feeling he’d rip all those lines right out to get to me if I needed it.
Once Beast and Kitty stand across the hall, I hear more people, as if there’s an escort. Sure enough, at least a dozen Dominion men round the corner, with a man dressed in a military uniform at the center of them.
My jaw literally falls open.
He has his hands in his pockets, gray winter light falling over him as he passes by the windows.
He looks like Mom now. He used to look like Dad as a kid…
This man walking toward me competes with every image I kept alive over the years, and I wonder distantly if I've died and he's here to meet me on the other side.
That would make sense.
Judge died, and so did I of heartbreak, and now Dean is here to confirm it all.
I tilt my head when I see there's a scar along his jaw I don't recognize, stretching over an eye that's gone clouded and still, the vision lost to whatever took it. Then, when our gazes connect, Dean tilts his head in that stupid, familiar way he always did when he was trying to work something out.
I turn back to Judge. “Are we dead?” I ask, far too seriously. "What's happening?"
His eyes are nothing but soft. "Go ahead, Diana. He's real. He’s who I wrote to. He’s the reason we had tanks.” The world narrows, and I half step out, half step back in because I don’t want to leave Judge in here alone. “I’ll be right fucking here,” he says, leaning his head back.
"Dean?" I ask, fully stepping out of Judge’s room. It comes out barely a whisper, like volume might shatter whatever this is.
He looks at me like he's terrified to blink, his gaze flicking once to Beast then back like he can't afford to look away.
"Diana?”
My knees go, and I fall to one of them.
I can only take so fucking much at once.
That's my brother’s voice. Older, rougher, worn down by years I wasn't there for, but his. Kitty nears me, catching my shoulders before I can fold entirely, her grip sure and steady. “You alright?”
I rise to my feet, ignoring that Judge knew. At this point, I just trust he had his reasons. I take one step forward, then another, and then I'm half-running, half-stumbling, the hallway dissolving into light and tears and ten years of grief that suddenly has nowhere left to live.
I hit him hard enough that he staggers back a step and catches me anyway. My hold is so tight, it’s like I’m squeezing the memories back between us.
"Dean." His name breaks in my throat. "Is this real?"
"They lied," he says immediately, hands gripping my elbows, steadying me as I pull back just enough to look at his face.
His eyes are full. Brown like mine, like Mom's, and full…
Well, the one is. "When you first wrote back, all those years ago, when you ran, they tried to send people after you.
But when the family that our Dad made the deal with found out you were gone, they didn't want you anymore.
" He exhales, jaw working. "Dad had a brain tumor, Di. We think it’s why he acted so weird toward the end.
He died about six months before our whole sector got hit, and no one cared about the omega who ran anymore.
" He motions to the ruined eye. “I got this then…
When I survived, I wanted to find you. But Major Allen told me if I reached out, they'd drag you back.
Especially since your letter confirmed you were safe.
So I didn't respond.” His voice catches. "I'm so sorry, Di. I'm so sorry."
I take his face in my hands. "Hey." I wait until he looks at me. "I'm okay. I'm right here. I guess it all worked out, right?”
"You're mated to Judge," he says quietly, like he's still working out what that means, his eye flitting around to those around us.
“And I’m going to be very happy, I think,” I say, wiping a tear from his face. "Dad had a tumor?”
"That's what they found in his autopsy. He had all these seizures at the end, and then just went into a coma. It had to be why he did what he did. And Mom just couldn’t handle any of it, so she just went mute.” He collects himself and the emotions that flood him in a way so unlike my overly emotional brother.
There's officially a man standing in front of me where a boy used to be.
"We can go over it all later. Are you okay? You look like shit.”
The laugh that comes out of me is so free and unburdened.
"I just found out you're alive. So no. And also yes.
" I pull him in again and breathe. He smells different, years of a different life on him, but underneath it is something that is just family, something I thought I'd buried.
“And I just need a bath… I cannot believe you're okay," I say against his shoulder.
"I am." His voice is low, careful, like he's handling something breakable. "And so are you, if you say you are."
"I really am. At least, now I am.”
He wraps around me the way he always did, one arm firm across my back, the other hand cradling my head, fingers threading through my hair like I'm still small enough to need protecting.
“Judge said you sent the tanks?” I ask, still in a daze that my brother is holding me. I pull back to look at him again, hands framing his jaw, thumbs brushing over stubble that has no business being there because in my head, he's still fourteen.
His smile is crooked. Familiar. The exact smile that used to make me want to throw something at him.
“Yeah, I got rank now. Judge wrote to confirm if any family of Diana Dare was alive, and I told Allen he can shove a banana in his ass if he doesn’t let me reply.
That’s when we saw the opportunity for an alliance… I mean, it seriously worked out.”
I don’t know what to do with a world that actually works in my favor. For the first time in my life, the past doesn't feel like a trap snapping at my ankles.
It feels like something I survived, and the future feels… well, a little like hope.