Epilogue
Addison
“What’s the point of putting it in the pinata instead of just eating the candy?” I ask Tara as she grabs handfuls of candy and shoves them in a colorful donkey-shaped pinata.
“Because it’s fun to beat it with a stick,” Tara says with a devious smile, shoving another handful of candy inside.
I nod my head as I understand, but I don’t.
Jenny walks in carrying bags of groceries in her arms with Thane behind her. He’s holding a large, heavy-looking box with some sort of device inside.
“Car-ah-oak?” I ask, sounding out the unfamiliar word on the box.
“Karaoke,” Jenny corrects. Thane rolls his eyes and sets the box down on the table.
“I tried to tell her you wouldn’t want this for the party, but she insisted,” Thane says. “And she’s going to make you sing. So be prepared.”
“It’s not a party if there’s no karaoke,” Jenny says, rolling her eyes at Thane.
They explain what it is and why it’s fun, and I laugh alongside them as they talk about times they went to bars in town and got drunk doing it.
“Happy birthday, by the way,” Jenny says, giving me a one-armed hug as she holds a large cake in her other hand.
“Thanks.” I blush at having all this attention on me.
A lot of my memories have come back over the month I’ve been away from the facility. A lot of that is thanks to being able to travel back and forth between the Wild Heart pack and the Echo Ridge pack to talk to my family.
Jenny and Thane have been able to share a lot with me. Even though the memories we shared stopped when I was eight years old, they lived on with them in an inexplicable way, and I’m thankful for that now.
Now, I have an idea of who my parents were. I’m still waiting for clarity about the night I was taken. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking the memory is going to come suddenly, and I’ll hear my parents screaming as they try to find me in the fire.
I’m happy to know that they cared about me. They loved me. Jenny and Thane have told me they were head over heels for each other, too. We were a happy family for a long time, and knowing that means the world to me. Someday, I’m going to have the same thing with Zeke. I can’t wait for that to come.
Jenny was the one who told me about my birthday.
Apparently, she had been celebrating it quietly every year since I was gone.
It became a little ritual she did with herself, where she would bake a cake and wish me happy birthday.
Something always drove her to do it, and she didn’t know exactly what it was. But now, I think I know that it’s hope.
She never lost hope that there was a chance I would celebrate with her. And now, here we are, ten years later, hanging up a pinata filled with candy for a birthday party. The kind of birthday party I always begged my parents for when I was younger, according to Jenny.
“Where’s your man?” she asks, leaning back against the counter casually.
“He said he has a surprise for me,” I answer with a shrug.
“I bet it’s a big, expensive birthday gift,” Tara says with a wide smile.
“It better be,” Jenny tacks on with a laugh.
“I’ll just be happy having him here. I don’t really need anything.”
Footsteps down the hall catch our attention, and Nora walks in with the baby on her arm. Everyone stops talking and rushes around her to coo over baby Ashton.
He’s only a couple of weeks old, and he’s absolutely perfect. He barely cries, which I’m thankful for, and he’s doted on and spoiled like no other.
“You shouldn’t be up walking around,” Tara chastises Nora, leading her to the table to sit down.
“You try staying in bed for six weeks straight and tell me if you wouldn’t want to take a little walk.” Nora sighs.
She immediately picks up some of the candy off the table and opens the wrappers.
The five of us hang out in the kitchen for a while, putting everything else together for the party.
Tara cooks dinner while Jenny puts together the karaoke machine.
Nora and I both talk about the latest episode of Bridgerton that we watched last night, and try to convince Tara to give it a chance.
After a while, we hear a knock on the front door, and we know the first guests coming for the party have arrived.
The house fills up quickly, and music plays over the karaoke machine. A few people decide to get up and sing along to the words, their voices not pleasant with the rest of the music.
As time goes on, Zeke doesn’t show up, and I feel myself starting to worry. I stand by a window waiting for him, and when I see the headlights of a car pull in, I know instinctively that it’s him. I rush out of the room and meet him outside, wrapping my arms around him excitedly.
“What took you so long?” I ask, just happy to have him back.
“Perfection takes time,” he says, gesturing to the wrapped package in his hand.
He leads me to the porch, and both of us sit down on the front steps for a minute while the party is in full swing behind us. It’s nice to have a moment of quiet to just be with him and celebrate today.
“Open it,” Zeke says as he hands me the package.
I smile and carefully untie the red ribbon on the top before prying open the corners of the wrapping paper as gently as I can. Zeke laughs, seeing how neat I am.
It opens to a cardboard box with a lid that I pull off. I gasp seeing what’s inside.
“It took some digging, and with Roderick’s help, I found this,” Zeke explains while I grab the simple black picture frame from the box and hold it in my hands. “You were six years old when the photo was taken.”
My throat tightens, and I feel myself choking up as I look at the photo.
It’s me and very clearly my mother and father, their faces virtually the same as they were in the few memories I’ve conjured up of them.
We’re standing in front of a weeping willow tree.
My dad is holding me sideways, and I’m laughing and smiling as my mom reaches over and tickles me.
It’s not staged or planned. This is a perfect moment that was captured on film forever. And as I look at it now, I can remember this day like it happened yesterday.
I can smell the spring air, carrying sweet floral notes, and feel the breeze licking my skin. I hear both of my parents laughing.
“Thank you,” I say, holding it close to my chest. Zeke wraps an arm around my shoulders and holds me.
“I love you, Addison,” he says. He kisses the top of my head.
“I love you more,” I reply, turning and smiling at him. “You’ve made my life feel like it’s worth something. Thank you.”
We sit in silence for a while, looking at the photo, while I share the memories I have of it with him. His phone buzzes loudly in his pocket, and he pulls it out to look at it. The smile fades from his lips, and he looks at me with confusion in his eyes.
“What is it?”
He doesn’t say anything, but he shows me his phone screen, and I feel my heartbeat still as I read the words.
You’ve taken out only one of our many facilities. You might have won this battle, but you won’t win the war.
There’s no name or signature, but we don’t doubt what this is about.
Axiom.
They’re still out there, and they won’t stop until they capture all of us.
Thank you for reading Finding Fate.