Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
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.”