Chapter Forty-Five Aria

Chapter Forty-Five

Aria

Ragged juts of air wheezed in and out of my lungs as my father’s hands went slack, and my back arched from the floor as if to get me closer to the sweet reprieve.

Exhaustion pinned me to the spot while my father fumbled backward onto his butt, and he used the heels of his shoes to backpedal across the carpet as if he was suddenly spurred to put a mile of distance between us.

Horrified in his confusion.

Bewildered in his disbelief.

His back hit the wall, his eyes wide, his expression gutted.

While my mother was at my side on her knees, her hands trembling so hard they rattled as she gathered me up against her chest and began to rock me. “Aria. Oh my God. Oh, my sweet girl. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Sobs ripped from her, each pouring out, more desperate than the last. “Aria,” she whimpered.

She tried to scoot me back, away from my father, who was pinned to the far wall, her voice edged in hysteria. “I need you to stand up. We have to get out of here. I took your brothers and your sister to your grandmother’s like you told me to. They’re safe. I’ll make sure you’re safe, too.”

My chest squeezed. She’d listened to me, at least partially. She’d taken the kids but hadn’t stayed there herself. And when my father had told her to run, she hadn’t. She’d stayed. She’d stayed.

“Please, get up,” she begged, her hand frantic on my face as she wept. “Tell me you’re okay. We have to get out of here.”

A wave of dizziness spun my head, and I fought for coherency when the depletion threatened to drag me under. But it was different this time. There was a force that continued to run through my veins, a shivering high that stroked through me with relief.

“He won’t hurt you now.” Each of the words snagged as they scraped up my raw, sore throat.

A sound of torment echoed from the other side of the room. An agonized regret that wrenched through my father’s soul. I doubted he could comprehend the full extent of what he’d done, of what he’d nearly surrendered to, the vessel he’d become, but I was sure he still had access to the memories of the psychosis he would likely think he’d been under.

My mother’s face blanched in a coil of misery, a pasty, mournful white, full of misunderstanding and misconceptions. She frantically brushed back the matted locks of hair stuck to my sweat-drenched face. “You came back. You came back. And he—”

She choked on the last, unable to give voice to my father’s actions.

“How could he?” She cried out her sorrow.

I took her hand and tightly wrapped mine around it. “He didn’t know. It’s not his fault. His mind wasn’t his own.”

Sobs continued to tear from my father, and his face was pressed in his hands as he rocked. “Aria, oh God, I don’t ... I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t understand. I wouldn’t ...”

He choked off the last because I think it was clear that he would have if the Ghorl hadn’t been stopped.

I couldn’t respond, my focus on my mother.

Confusion and doubt twisted her expression, and I knew she was worried that my father might have suffered the same delusions she’d believed that I had, only his had turned violent.

I wondered if she could ever truly hear me.

See me.

Believe me.

I started to whisper my truth, but a scream tore from her when the front door suddenly burst open. She gathered me tighter against her, her arms shields as her attention flew up to the person who raged through the open door.

Pax.

His white hair struck in the bare light, his marred face slashed in ferocity, his pale, pale eyes flaming with white fire.

My mother went weak, and a strangled sob hitched in her throat.

Shock and fear and disbelief convulsed in her being.

Pax’s attention volleyed between us and my father, who was speared to the wall by terror.

His rugged jaw clenched, and I could feel the war go down in the middle, part of him wanting to rush across the room and put a final stake in my father for what he’d done. For what he’d nearly caused. Forever believing him the catalyst that would be my end.

But it was his love, his devotion, that brought him to me, though his movements were slowed as he approached.

“Aria.”

My name was affliction.

Devotion.

Relief.

He dropped to his knees at my side, and a cry erupted from where it’d been locked somewhere in my consciousness, so big and loud it banged through the room and ricocheted from the walls.

“Pax.”

In an instant, he had me pried out of my mother’s hold and pulled me against him.

Terrified, my mother scrambled away, her mouth held in shock as her mind reeled at the sight of the one person whose name I’d been forbidden to speak.

“Pax.” I cried it again, and I knew I’d sing it forever. “Pax.”

Sure, secure arms held me close against him as he exhaled the near tragedy, his voice so low as he murmured at the top of my head, “You did it. You did it. You ended it. You’re safe.”

He inhaled on that, breathing me in, drawing me deep into the well of his spirit. “You’re safe.”

I curled my arms around his middle, hanging on as I wept.

As I wept for the little girl who’d spent her childhood terrified of being seen. As I wept for the traumas that had been inflicted because of it. As I wept for my mother, who’d only done it out of her ceaseless love. As I wept for what we’d endured over the last week.

And most of all, I wept because we were free.

Pax shifted so he was sitting on the ground, and he pulled me onto his lap, my side tucked into his chest as he kissed along my crown, my temple, my brow. “You’re safe.”

“It’s over,” I finally wheezed.

I felt him nod against me. “It’s over. You did it. You ended it.”

My fist curled into his shirt. “We did it.”

“What’s happening? Oh my God, what’s happening? Am I going crazy?” My mother yanked at her hair from where she rocked, sitting upright on the floor. Tears marred her red, chapped cheeks.

I hated that she continued to question the truth that was set right out in front of her, though there was still a piece of myself that understood her disbelief.

Even I, having access to all the things I’d seen and experienced, had questioned my own sanity.

But maybe now she could finally see.

Sniffling, I unwound myself from Pax’s arms, even though I could feel his resistance in my doing so, and I pushed to my feet. My legs wobbled, but I could stand. I moved to my mother, and I stretched out my hand. She clung to me as I helped her up. A deep line cut between her brows as she warily watched Pax from over my shoulder, as she glanced back at me, silently begging for answers.

“It was never a lie, Mom. Who I am. The scars that I hold and how I got them. And I know it’s difficult to understand, that you never believed it possible, that you thought I was unstable. I don’t blame you, because it’s beyond the unfathomable. Who we are.”

I looked back at Pax then, lost to the steadfast devotion that blazed in his eyes. Then I turned back to my mother. “Everything I ever told you was true, all except for the lies I’d been forced to tell to try to hide who I really am. But I won’t hide who I am anymore.”

She waffled with the inconceivable, her mind and heart torn, and her gaze traveled to Pax, whom I could feel was standing behind us, the man in the middle of the room, a power all his own.

I knew what he looked like to other people, but I knew right then that the only thing that really mattered was the way he looked to me.

“He’s real. It’s ... real.” Blankets of moisture poured down her face as she shook her head, as if her logic urged her to refute it while her spirit swam with the realization.

“It is. And the reality of it put you all in danger.”

My attention swept to my father, who was silently sobbing against the far wall, rocking and rocking as he looked at us.

“I don’t ...” My mother’s expression pinched. “I don’t understand.”

I squeezed her hand. “The ones we fight were after me, and they used Dad as a way to get to me.”

Tears of disbelief poured from my father’s eyes as he continued to sob.

“Pax knew I was in trouble, and he came for me. He got me out of the facility to protect me. But I knew you were all in trouble, so I came back.”

I simplified it times a thousand since I knew she couldn’t fathom all that we were and all that had happened in the last week.

“Because of me? Because of my disbelief, this is what happened?”

Sorrow clutched my chest. “No, they would have come for me anyway.”

Guilt crushed her features. “I still don’t—”

“It’s okay. You’re not supposed to understand. I think you need some time to let this settle. Why don’t you let us take you to Grandma’s, and tomorrow, we’ll meet for coffee and you can ask me anything you want.”

Obviously, I couldn’t leave her here. Not after what my father had done. I didn’t believe he was a threat to her any longer, but I couldn’t imagine her having to stay in this house with him. And I had no idea what the future would look like for them.

My mother stumbled forward and threw her arms around me. “I’ve always loved you. More than anything. It’s why I ... I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I hugged her tight to me, wrapped her in my arms, which should have been weak after the energy I’d just expended but somehow vibrated with power.

“I forgive you.”

My smile was sad when I finally pulled away. I took two steps back just as Pax took two forward, and he threaded his fingers through mine the way he’d always done in Faydor, though now, it felt like a promise that he would always do it here.

Panic blanketed my mother’s features. “And where will you be?”

“With Pax. Because he’s where I belong.”

My mother didn’t pack anything. She simply took my hand and allowed me to lead her out the door while my father continued to quietly weep.

I’d touched his forehead, murmured, “I forgive you,” before we’d left, unsure if I would ever speak with him again.

If I could ever trust him again.

But I also knew how powerful the Ghorl had been, and maybe there were no humans who could have resisted that type of influence.

The only thing I knew was that I was filled with hope as we pulled up outside my grandmother’s house in the earliest hours of the morning. I stepped out of the passenger-side seat and lifted it so my mother could climb out. She wrung her fingers, unsure, her gaze slanting between me and Pax, who sat in the driver’s seat. “I don’t—”

I reached out and squeezed her hand, and I promised, “Tomorrow.”

Her nod was shaky. “Tomorrow.”

Without saying anything else, she hurried up the walkway to the front door of the single-story condo, and she dipped down to grab the key that was hidden under the same rock where it had always been. She unlocked the door; then she paused to look back at me with a soft, adoring smile on her face.

I lifted my hand in a goodbye, and she lifted her chin before she walked inside.