Chapter Twelve - Eve
1119 Words
The room felt like it was spinning.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't think.
I just stood at the top of the clubhouse stairs, staring at the broken piece of silver in
Grim's hand.
The pendant.
Or part of one.
It looked almost exactly like the one hanging around my neck.
The words wrapped around it echoed through my head.
She should have stayed hidden.
My knees gave out.
Dani caught me before I hit the floor.
"Eve."
I looked at her, but I couldn't make my eyes focus. My mind was somewhere else.
At the old farmhouse.
The little white house with the squeaky front porch.
The garage where Dad had taught me how to change my first tire.
The kitchen where we'd eaten brunt pancakes every Saturday because he never
could figure out how to cook them right.
Gone.
All of it.
Burned to the ground.
A sharp pain spread through my chest.
"I have to go home."
Dani tightened her grip on my arm.
"Eve—"
"I have to go."
I pulled away from her and took a step towards the front door.
Grim was there before I reached it.
He didn't touch me.
He just stood in front of the entrance.
"You can't leave."
I looked up at him.
"My home is gone."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
His jaw tightened.
"My father is dead," I whispered. "Now the last place I have that's connected to him
is gone too."
He didn't answer.
Because there wasn't anything to say.
I wrapped my fingers around the pendant hanging from my neck.
The silver was warm against my skin.
A memory surfaced.
I couldn't have been older than ten.
I had been sitting on the old workbench in Dad's garage while he rebuilt an engine.
"Dad?"
"Yeah, Evey?"
"What if the house burns down?"
He looked up from the motorcycle and smiled.
"Then we'll build another one."
"What if everything burns down?"
He had wiped the grease from his hands and walked over to me.
Then he tapped the pendant around my neck.
"As long as you've got that, you'll never lose everything."
At the time, I thought he was trying to make me feel better.
Now I wondered if he'd been trying to warn me.
A woman's voice broke through my thoughts.
"He knew this day would come."
I turned.
The woman from outside the gates—Mara Vale—stood near the bottom of the stairs.
Up close, she looked exactly the way she had from the window.
Elegant.
Composed.
Like nothing ever caught her off guard.
But when she looked at me, there was sadness in her eyes.
Real sadness.
"You knew my father," I said.
She nodded.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Long enough to know he loved you more than his own life."
The words made my throat tighten.
I folded my arms across my chest.
"Then tell me who he really was."
Mara was quiet for a moment.
"He was the bravest man I've ever known."
"That's what Silas said."
"Then he was telling the truth."
I took a shaky breath.
"Was he my father?"
She looked at me with an expression I couldn't read.
"He was your father in every way that mattered."
The answer wasn't enough.
I was tired of half-truths.
Tired of everyone acting like I was too fragile to know the truth.
"So who were my real parents?"
Mara glanced towards Silas.
The old man sat silently in his chair, his eyes closed, looking every one of his sixty
two years.
When he finally opened them, he gave a small nod.
Mara looked back at me.
"Your mother's name was Charlotte Bennett."
The name meant nothing to me.
"And my father?"
Silence.
I looked between the two of them.
"You know, don't you?"
Mara nodded once.
"I do."
"Then tell me."
"I can't."
Anger flared so suddenly it surprised even me.
"You can't?" I laughed bitterly. "Or you won't?"
Her expression never changed.
"If I tell you before you're ready, people will die."
I stared at her.
"My father is already dead."
The words hung in the air.
Mara looked away first.
"I'm sorry."
"No." I shook my head. "No, you're not. None of you are."
I looked around the clubhouse.
At Silas.
At Cal.
At Grim.
At all the men who had looked at me like they knew a secret they refused to share.
"You all keep saying you want to protect me."
I touched the pendant.
"But every answer I get just gives me another question."
Nobody argued.
Because they knew I was right.
Mara took a slow step towards me and set her leather briefcase on the old wooden
table.
She unlatched it carefully.
"I didn't come here empty-handed."
She reached inside and pulled out a small stack of photographs tied together with a
faded blue ribbon.
My heart skipped.
She handed them to me.
The picture on top stole the breath from my lungs.
It was me.
Or at least, it was a little girl with my eyes and my smile.
I couldn't have been older than two.
I was sitting on a man's shoulders, laughing.
Beside us stood a beautiful dark-haired woman with her hand resting on my tiny
foot.
She was smiling at the camera.
At me.
My fingers trembled.
"That's..."
"Your mother," Mara said softly.
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
I had spent my whole life wondering what she looked like.
Now she was staring back at me from an old photograph.
I looked at the man holding me.
His face had been partially torn away where the picture was damaged.
Only one side remained.
A strong jaw.
Dark hair.
A leather motorcycle coat.
"Is that my father?"
Mara's expression changed.
She looked at the damaged photograph for a long moment.
Then she whispered the words that changed everything.
"No."
I frowned.
"Then who is he?"
Her eyes met mine.
"That's the man who was supposed to die protecting you."
The room fell silent.
My pulse pounded in my ears.
"What do you mean?"
Mara reached into the briefcase one final time.
She removed an old leather-bound journal, its edges worn with age.
Carefully, she placed it in front of me.
Thomas Cross's name was written across the front in faded black ink.
I stared at it.
"Dad had a journal?"
Mara nodded.
"He wrote in it every year."
I reached for it, my hands shaking.
The first page was already marked with a folded corner.
I opened it.
There, in my father's handwriting, was a single sentence.
If you're reading this, then I failed to keep my promise... and Eve is no longer safe.
- Writer
