When none of us move, dad takes mum’s hand and says, “I can see you all need a moment. We will wait at the cars.” With one more painful look in my eyes, mum follows dad as they walk away.
I wait until they are a good distance before turning around, and my guys circle around me. “I don’t trust them. They might be my parents, but he is a god, and that means he is hundreds of years old. I could be one of thousands of children for all I know.”
“How did you get us here?” Liam asks after a long pause. “I know you wanted us to trust you, but we need to know now.”
Clearing my throat, I wonder how crazy they are going to think I am. “Since the day I became a familiar, a man in a cloak kept turning up in my life. He saved me from the car crash, he has always been there, and finally he came to me. He died, but before he did, he revealed that he was a god, and then he showed me this place. Like a map in my mind.”
“So he left out that your parents were here?” Mason scoffs in annoyance. “Not like that is important or anything.”
“He has been showing me dreams, which are actually visions of the past and the future. I’m scared what being here means for us all,” I reply, rubbing my hands together. “And how do I tell Phoebe our parents are alive? That they are well and just didn’t come for us? Would it help Bethany to know, or would it make her even more unstable than they currently are?”
“I don’t know, but you won’t be alone, Tassie,” Alex tells me, and it helps a little bit. “Maybe if Bethany knows, she might calm down her psycho rule-the-world vibes she has going on.”
“No, I actually think it will make her worse. Bethany could never get over them leaving her, and she doesn’t have anyone left,” I say, feeling firm in my judgment on her. “The only one who can stop her is me, and I will. I won’t let anyone else die because of Bethany.”
“I don’t think that will be your choice for much longer,” Mason gently reminds me, placing his hand over mine. I link my fingers with his, looking back at the cars where my parents are watching us.
“We stick together, got it?” Alex demands, and I turn back to meet his brown eyes.
Breathing in the thick smell of the saltwater and the pine from the trees, I answer, “And if that isn’t enough, we get the hell off this island no matter what it takes.”
Chapter 2
Anastasia
I have a secret, but this city? I bet it has more…
The Jeep driven by Alex jolts every few seconds as he follows the car in front that my parents are in. Now that the sheer shock has worn off, I can’t feel anything but a wave of burning anger that they are still alive. I want nothing more to do with them, but clearly they are more manipulative than I would have given them credit for. Heartless and manipulative. I now know exactly where Bethany got it from. I assumed it was my aunt, but it wasn’t.
Thinking of my aunt, I wonder what she would think to find her precious sister alive and well. Another subject to bring up with my mum at some point. I want to get her away from dad; I want to know how much of this was all of her choices. From the look in her eyes, I felt like she was hurt by leaving her children more than anyone else.
“You okay?” Liam softly asks me, his hand linked with mine, resting on my knee. I look up at him, admiring his locks of blond hair, how they fall over his forehead, and he brushes them aside when they get close to his eyes. He really is a handsome man, striking to look at and kind on the inside. Even with how messed up the world is, Liam is one of the good things I know I can count on.
“That’s a two-way question,” I murmur. “I’m okay in the sense my shoulder only aches now, and the scar is not pretty, but I will cope with it. I’m not okay in the sense my parents are alive and they have effectively grounded me for the first time in their lives.”
And the fact I’m pregnant, and I haven’t told anyone here. I never expected to be shipping us into danger, but I have done, and it was a shit thing for me to do. Every day I keep the secret from them, the worse I feel. We should be talking about the baby and figuring out the future together, and here I am, too scared to find a moment with all three of them to tell them the truth.
Liam frowns, brushing his lips against my cheek. The little contact sends shivers through me.
“Whatever happens, it can’t get worse than finding them alive,” Mason tries to make light of a bad situation, and I want to thank him for it, but even the thought of being thankful they are alive is bitter on my tongue.
Looking out the window, I feel a tear fall down my cheek. “I used to stare out of the window in my room, listening to my sisters sleeping, and cry, wishing my parents would come back.”
“They don’t deserve the title of parents,” Alex angrily bites out. “If we ever have kids, fuck, I will never let them down or not be in their lives for a single day. They will be bored with how much I’m always there.”
His words make me smile for more reasons than he could possibly know.
“Same,” I whisper, hoping in some ways my baby can hear me. I know zero about pregnancy, so there
