Creators(12)
“You could have been there. Did you ever think of that?” I said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Maybe I didn’t want a father who saved the whole world—maybe I wanted a father who saved mine.”
“I wouldn’t watch them destroy you. I couldn’t,” he said, his voice edged with some deeply buried emotion. Raw. Wild. “So, I left, and I am so close to ending it all.” He took two giant steps toward me, grabbing onto my arms. “I need you to give me time. Listen to what I say. Follow my orders without question—”
“I’m your daughter, not one of your soldiers,” I spat out.
“Did you see those things that attacked us? Did you really look at them? The council doesn’t give a damn about us anymore. They want all of us naturals dead. Those things were created to search the woods for survivors. To eat us alive. If we sit back, we are asking for extinction, and I want you to survive, Tessie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
My father took a deep breath and reached a trembling hand into his pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper. Tattered and worn, it looked close to falling apart. “I’m only asking for you to trust me for a little while. Just till the end,” he continued as he unfolded the paper. “And when the world is once again as it should be, you can go back to hating me. I knew it was a possibility the moment I left, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. I had heard these sentiments before. I had heard them from Henry, a boy hell-bent on doing whatever he had to do to bring down the council. And hadn’t I given him a second chance? My father reached forward and took my hand, placing the piece of paper in it.
It was sheet music. It was our song. The very first song I ever learned to play. The song my father taught me. The song that led me to James. He had kept it this whole time. I couldn’t stop the tear that rolled down my cheek, and for once, I didn’t want to.
“There’s one more thing, child.”
I cleared my throat and handed the sheet music back to him, but he simply smiled, refusing to take it.
“About this boy you love…”
“James,” I breathed, my hand clutching onto the song that defined the most important moments of my life. His curly, wild black hair. His endlessly deep mismatched eyes. The scar on his chin that was the most perfect imperfection I had ever seen.
The boy I loved.
“Would you like to talk to him?”
Chapter 5
I pulled on Louisa’s hand so she stood right next to me. Lockwood moved to the other side of her. “Al will be pissed. He’s not just going to let us return, not without making us pay. This is the same man who put a boy on trial for saving your life,” he reminded me.
Put a chosen one on trial, I thought. When I had first entered the community, I expected life to be utterly different. But in a lot of ways, the most important ways, the people of the community and the members of the council weren’t so different at all. Many in the community distrusted Henry and me for simply being outsiders, and we’d had to work hard to gain their trust.
When I had fallen ill and James had come to rescue me, they treated us both with such unbelievable hatred. I sometimes found it hard not to wonder if hatred was the only thing all humans shared. I wasn’t entirely sure everyone was capable of love, but I had seen enough hate to last me a lifetime. The people of the community shunned and judged James and me. Not to mention they tried to kill him for simply being a chosen one. They hadn’t even bothered to see what kind of soul lived inside.
The community hardened itself in order to survive; they weren’t the most understanding species.
The community. The place I thought I would never see again was less than a mile from where we stood, shrouded in the protective cover of night and the camouflage of the trees. I could faintly see the wooden fence and lit torches that surrounded the safe haven.
“Somehow, I don’t think my father’s too worried about it,” I replied, tearing my eyes from the place I wanted so desperately to return to, trying to make my voice sound blasé. I could feel Louisa shake beside me. As I looked down at her, I saw her eyes widen, darting toward where the lights of the community crept into the woods. We stood hidden in the darkness of the tree line. Robert and Henry huddled near the edges of my father’s group. There, he stood, furiously whispering his orders to his standing army.
Appearing to sense my sister’s nervousness, Lockwood cleared his throat. “You’re right, Tess. I don’t know what I was worrying about. Charlie seems to have everything under control,” he said, nodding toward my father.