Past
I’m moving.
The ground shifts from underneath me and someone holds me in their arms.
Daddy?
No. Daddy needs help.
It’s dark in here. I can’t open my eyes. I can’t speak.
I can only remain motionless as someone carries me. The faint shuffling of footsteps is the only thing I hear.
“You’ll be fine. You’re Steel’s legacy.”
The voice is distant, almost from another room. Or maybe is it from another place?
My head lolls against the arm carrying me.
Daddy. Save Daddy, too.
Did Grey Eyes leave safely?
I want to ask those questions and more, but my mouth doesn’t move. Nothing moves.
A small whimper reaches me from the ground. The sound is so haunting and pained, it rips through me.
Ma?
Am I imagining it?
The sound comes again like a howl in the winter.
This time, the one carrying me stops and turns around.
“You just wouldn’t die, would you?” The voice sounds disapproving, angry almost. “You don’t deserve this life, Abigail and we both know that. It’ll all end today.”
And just like that, they march ahead. The whimpers grow far and quiet the more he walks. We’re leaving Ma behind. Why?
I’m trapped in and out of the darkness as if we’re playing hide-and-seek.
The person strides on and on.
I want to call for Daddy or Ma, but I can’t.
When I think they’ll never stop walking, they halt and place me on something soft. “Take her to the hospital. Call Blair and Jaxon Quinn, then watch from afar. Don’t interfere, and only make sure she’s safe.”
Daddy. Daddy. Save Daddy.
“Burn the whole mansion down,” the voice says in a sure tone.
“Are there any survivors inside?” Someone else asks.
“No,” the voice says. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Daddy.
Daddy is still in there.
And Ma, too.
My eyes flutter open the slightest bit. Two men climb into the back of a black van. One of them is Dr Shepherd, Dad’s personal doctor.
He leans over a body wearing a bloodied white shirt.
It’s Daddy.
Don’t leave me.
The other man sits on Dad’s other side, watching him closely.
“Burn it,” he tells a man in black standing near the van.
The man speaks into his hand and the mansion catches on fire.
I stare at the man beside Dad through blurry eyes. He watches the house being eaten by flames with a neutral expression as if there isn’t a person inside. A person whimpering and asking for help.
“Let’s go,” he commands and the van flies down the road with other black cars following it.
His voice.
It’s him.
The one who told my ma she doesn’t deserve this life and that it’ll end today.
The one who’s currently burning my ma inside.
The one who’s taking Daddy away like heaven took away Eli.
The one without emotions as he does it all.
Uncle Agnus.
