Char indicated that I should return to Dakota, and I nodded with a shaky breath. Marcus hovered, and tears burned my eyes since I realized he was hoping to calm me down, so my emotions no longer clogged my throat. “I know I might be way off,” I whispered, clearing my throat when my voice cracked. “But this town isn’t far from where our apartment was, and, well, I don’t know the odds for this situation.”
Dakota pulled me so I sat on his lap again, nuzzling his head against mine with a soothing purr. After a shaky breath, I unfolded the blanket to reveal the same tear shown in the picture, with an identical horrible stitching job done with a dark red thread. Mom always had that color of thread lying around, hell it was the only thread we had as far as I could remember. Mom said it was the first one she found when she needed to fix something, and she didn’t care what it looked like, so it became known as her fix-it thread.
Touching the blanket’s scar as I named it years ago, my lip trembled with tears burning my eyes again. “I don’t understand,” was all I said even though there were many more words bouncing in my head. Are we related? How? Were he and my mom friends? More? How were we connected? Who took that picture? Who was he growling at? Why did I need defending? Why did I never meet him when I got older?
“Jax disappeared and although we tried to follow him, he shook his shadows. The last time he disappeared, he brought that picture with him. We know no more about it than you, sweetheart. I daresay you know more than us since until now, we’ve always wondered who the infant was. Those like you do not always look as similar as you and Jax do, but I don’t know what that means for you,” Marcus murmured in a thick voice. When I glanced at him, his eyes were full of unshed tears, and he met my gaze with a sad smile. “You are not like us, but I don’t know what this means.”
With a slight smile, Dakota grabbed the blanket and brought it to his nose. “It still carries a faint hint of his scent. So, it’s you in that picture, Angel, because he died before Matty was born. Albeit, I believe this was a beloved blanket of yours throughout your childhood, hence why you have it. I would love to know the connection myself since he was my cousin, so I feel his absence stronger. He was like my older brother while I grew up, and when he died nine years ago, I thought I might die with him. God, his death hurt us all, and I miss him so much. I hated Kyler for hurting you because you looked like him, you know? And when I realized you shared his gift, I wanted to kill the bastard for even upsetting you. That hug you gave me, god, it felt like one of his, and I felt whole for the first time in ages,” Dakota whispered thickly, and I swallowed audibly.
“So, yes, that you have the gift you do and look like Jax makes everyone here adore you even more than they would have for being what you are. Jax, we loved him, and we felt his death like a blow to the heart and soul. I’ve been cold, wondering if I would ever feel warm again, until I looked up from the book I read to find his female look-alike standing in my wife’s gas station. I cannot describe the anger I felt upon realizing you were living the life Jax saved me from, nor the sorrow. While I would have taken you in either way, because of your situation, your resemblance made me even more determined to protect you,” Marcus admitted while staring at the table. A moment later, our eyes met, and a soft sob escaped my lips before I scrambled off Dakota to throw myself into his embrace.
“Why did you come here?” Ava asked gently once I stopped crying, and Marcus produced tissues for us to erase the evidence of our tears. When I looked at her, startled, she gave me a tender smile and shook her head. “You misunderstand, darling. I mean, did you feel you had to come here, or did you stumble upon us? Was it pure chance, or something you felt you needed to do?” When I bit my lip, she chuckled with a nod. “You didn’t know why, but you felt like you had to come here. While you reasoned your monster wouldn’t think to look so close to home, you knew you were coming, regardless. Surely, you tried to stay away and did so for years, but eventually, the need became too strong. And, after getting off the bus, you walked to the nearest gas station, which is mine.”
“Fate brought you here,” Marcus agreed with a nod, “leading your feet to me. Well, we’ll call it fate, but it’s probably Jax. Bastard never could stay out of my business.” His eyes were full of tears, although his lips curled into a slight smile, and I swear I heard the ghost of soft laughter which wrapped around me for a moment. With it, came the scent of pine trees and damp earth, the same smell my blanket used to carry
