by Desi Lin
Instead, a month after the big move I found out I was pregnant. I don’t know why I never told him. He had his life, and I had mine. He would have done right by us, but neither of us were in love. What kind of life would we have? So, don’t be angry with him. He didn’t know. I know he’ll love you.
So, that’s my final wish and my first and last gift to you. Your father lives in Marysville, Washington. near Seattle. Find him. Let him be the parent I won’t be able to be. Let him love you. Find him and be a family. I love you, my daughter. Find your father. Find Michael Phoenix.
It ended abruptly, the x trailing off like a tail. My hands shook, and my chest tightened. When the dizziness rolled over me I realized I could not breathe. The letter fell from my fingers as large, warm hands gripped my shoulders and shook me.
“Breathe, sweetheart.” The familiar rumble sent a jolt of warmth and comfort through me, enough for me to draw in a deep breath. I closed my eyes and leaned into the comfort offered.
“My...father.” I stumbled over the words, struggled to catch a decent breath. “I might...a father...here…” Black crept in at the edges of my vision.
A murmur of voices cursed but they seemed a long way off. The world seemed to recede around me.
Lips molded to mine, breath rushing in. I sucked it in automatically, then pressed tighter against those lips. The lips tried to pull away, and I snatched a handful of shirt to hold them there.
Hands wrapped around mine, gently prying my fingers from the shirt while other hands gripped my shoulders and drew me away. I slumped against a slender, but well defined chest. My eyes closed, and I breathed deeply, attempting to calm myself. When I seemed okay again, I opened my eyes to find Souta holding me and JJ and Brooks across the room.
“Sorry,” Brooks said, eyes downcast. “You started panicking or something, and I did the first thing that came to mind to ground you.”
“It’s okay,” I managed to get out. Arms came around me, squeezed, then let go.
“If you think you’re okay, Sera, I should get off the bed.” Since the reason for his statement poked into me, I nodded and sat up. Souta slid out from behind me and took up residence in his chair again.
“The letter.” My voice still shook a little. “It’s mostly what you might expect, but then…” I needed to stop and swallow down the tears threatening. “Then, she talks about....my father.”
I glanced at each of them, not sure what I would find. They moved closer without my realizing and stood around me, out of arm’s reach to be safe. JJ reached over and plucked the letter off the bed. He scanned it quickly, before passing it off to Souta, and then Brooks.
“You didn’t know?” Surprise rang clear in JJ’s voice. “Obviously, you didn’t. That was kind of stupid. But you never suspected, or wondered about your dad?”
I shrugged, though my voice still shook. “I always wondered, but figured him to be dead. I mean, if he wasn’t, that meant he didn’t want me, right? I never imagined he might not even know.” I glanced at the letter Brooks handed back to me. Michael Phoenix. My father. Out there with no idea I existed. “I want to find him. And I–”
I broke off, glancing at them again, standing around me, ready to support or comfort. They stood ready to do whatever I needed. Right then, I realized I needed them more than anything else. Even before Iunctura, they’d always been there. No matter how often I tried to push them away, they came back. They refused to leave me then, why would it be any different now when tied by Iunctura? They said nothing, waiting for me to be ready to tell them why I wanted to find my father.
“I am not sure I could have done this before, but I want to try. A family, it’s all I ever wanted. Now, with you, I have one. But it might be fun to find out what my father thinks of my...boyfriends?” I ended the statement on a question, hoping they understood what I asked.
“Yes!” Souta pumped his arm, and I rolled my eyes.
The grins on JJ’s and Brooks’ faces lit up the room, speaking for them.
“Good, and my first act as your boyfriend.”—JJ crossed his arms over his chest—“is to ask you to tell us what’s been going on with these injuries.”
Spilling my guts about Aguirre the second time around seemed easier. The murderous fury in their eyes helped a lot. I told them not to worry, May knew and would take care of things. Afterward, they left for the night, since all our control seemed to be shredded. Sleep didn’t come easy after two naps. I spent most of the night mulling over everything. Eventually I drifted to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I spent Sunday morning quietly by myself, since none of us wanted to worry about the bond’s influence. We wanted our relationship to develop naturally. Shortly before the twenty-four hour period expired, Souta’s parents sent for me to meet them in the kitchen.
Shaking with nerves and fear, I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself as I stepped into the kitchen. Souta’s parents sat at the small, round table while the boys perched on the stools at the counter. Since I didn’t feel the need to jump any of them when I passed by, I knew the bond settled. The scrape of the chair along the floor screamed into the silent kitchen, sending more nerves skittering along my spine.
“There’s no need to be nervous,” Akiko, Souta’s mom, said as I took a seat. “Now, don’t be upset with them, we kind of forced answers out of the boys about your injuries.”
I sat up straighter, my eyes widening as worry replaced nerves. What did the boys tell them? Why?
“Akiko and I are both doctors. We took an oath to do no harm.” Souta’s father’s voice rang through the kitchen with authority, and I realized I didn’t even know his name. “It is our understanding that sending you back to the dorms at school would be doing exactly that, sending you back into harm’s way.” He paused, his dark gaze meeting mine expectantly, waiting for an answer to his unspoken question.
I swallowed hard. “I…um…” I dropped my eyes to the table and sighed, realizing I still needed to learn quite a bit about being part of a family, and I currently sat in the middle of my first lesson– I didn’t need to handle things on my own.
“Yes, sir. It’s true. My injuries came from the dorm monitor.” Something bit into my palm, and I glanced down to find my hands fisted tightly in my lap, my knuckles turned white. I forced myself to unclench them.
“I understand the situation is being dealt with.” Souta’s father nodded as he spoke. “But neither Akiko nor I can condone sending you back there.”
Panic raced through me. I lived in the dorms because no one wanted responsibility for the orphan. Where would I go? Hands gripped my waist, pulling me off the chair and into a lap. I curled into a slender chest, hands gripping tight to the shirt and face buried in the crook of the neck. Brooks’ fresh, clean air scent assaulted my senses, wrapping around my panic and pushing it down.
“Shh,” Brooks whispered in my ear, his hand running up and down my back slowly. “Don’t go borrowing trouble, beautiful.”
“We apologize,” Akiko said. “We didn’t mean to upset you. What we are trying to say is we want you to stay here, with us.” My head shot up and whipped around to catch the grin on her face. “We spoke with Sage Maybelle this morning and she believes it would be a good move for you. The room you stayed in last night is yours now and your belongings can be fetched for you or you can get them tomorrow, but we’d very much like you to consider this your home now.”
Stay here? With them? With Souta? It took two point five seconds to make my choice. “I’d like that, too, thank you.” I grinned at them, then remembered I needed to ask something. “Um, sir, what should I call you?” I asked Souta’s father.
He chuckled. “I forgot in all the excitement we never met face to face. You can call me Tadashi, though I’m a bit more partial to dad. Now we’ll leave so you can get settled.” He winked and took Akiko’s hand as they left.
They barely crossed the threshold of the kitchen when I got yanked out of Brooks’ lap and into a gentle
embrace.
“I see a lot of midnight movie marathons in our future.” Souta laughed in my ear as he pulled back.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Or we could be sleeping since we still have school to attend.”
“Stop destroying my fantasies.” Souta pouted, and I melted. “Come on. JJ wants to show you something.”
He let me go, twining our fingers together and tugging me after him, JJ and Brooks chuckling as they followed. We wove through the house, back toward my room, but stopped at a door across the hall. Souta bounced on his toes as he shot a glare down the hall.
“Hurry up slow pokes!” he griped.
JJ’s laugh echoed around us.
“You’d think you were the one with something to show off!” JJ teased as he finally reached us.
He flung the door open and, with a hand pressed to my lower back, guided me in. I barely noticed the room since my gaze fixed on the sculpture taking up floor space. It looked like the same one I saw in JJ’s studio, but the fourth side was complete. Red speckled flames now merged with the rest of the piece.
“So, that phone call I made yesterday? I called my dad, and he brought it over. I finished your side this morning, all but one thing.” JJ took my hand as he spoke and drew me closer to the sculpture. He raised our joined hands, flattening his and placing mine over the top of it. “We just need to add your name.”
He smiled softly, leaning in to give me a quick peck. I didn’t know why he wanted to add my name this way, but I didn’t question it. Our joined hands moved with slow, careful precision over the sculpted flames. My skin tingled where we touched. In moments, my name, the full version much to my dismay, appeared, worked into the curling flames. Our joined hands dropped, and we stepped back.
“Are you going to finish it now?” Brooks rumbled.
JJ shook his head. “No. We’ve only just begun. I don’t want to jinx us.”
I agreed wholeheartedly. As much as I wanted to see the piece finished, I didn’t want anything to jinx our chances.
Sunday morphed into Monday and the inevitable return to school. I didn’t want to go but I knew delaying would be pointless. A sense of dread hung in the air, or I imagined it did. The guys spent the night again, and we arrived at school together. On the drive in I held JJ’s hand in a tight grip, sure I crushed a couple bones.
“It’ll be okay, beautiful.” Brooks leaned across the seat and ran a finger down my cheek. He nudged my chin so I saw the guys all around me, and my nerves melted away.
As we got out of the car, I noticed another vehicle, one not normally at Illustratio. The white SUV, with the compass style symbol on it, could only mean one thing, the Lex. Sort of like the Elementum version of the cops. I couldn’t imagine why they might be here.
“Look, firefly.” JJ drew my attention to him, and I turned.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. Aguirre stormed toward us, fury on her face and hands cuffed behind her back. The Lex walked behind, one of them with her arm in a firm grip.
I knew it to be wrong, but a sense of vindictive satisfaction rose in me, and I smiled. The guys stepped back, not going far, letting me be the first one she laid eyes on. The moment her eyes caught mine, she snarled. Stepping into their path, I forced her and the Lex to stop, then leaned in.
“What you did to me was horrible, but I forgive you anyways.” I whispered the words, surprised to find I meant them.
“You fucking bitch!” Aguirre screamed and lunged at me.
She tried anyway. The Lex snatched her back. In seconds, the boys surrounded me, cutting me off from Aguirre’s view. Hands gripped tight to mine, arms went around my waist. I didn’t know whose hands held whose, but we all touched, intertwined as one unit.
“Boys.” May’s voice drifted to me as she greeted them. Hands drew me forward to stand between JJ and Brooks. “Sera.” She sighed the words as she reached out to caress my cheek. “You no longer flinch when I’m affectionate. It’s nice to see.”
Her gaze shifted, and I didn’t need to follow it to know she watched Aguirre. “I don’t know what happened to her.” Frustration laced her voice as she looked back to me. “I’ve known Agatha Aguirre a long time. She was never an easy person to know, too strict and severe even as a teenager, but what she did to you… This extreme hatred… I just don’t know where this came from. I’m going to find out, though. I promise you, I’ll find out what sent her off the deep end. I’ll get you answers, so you can truly move on from this.”
Someone called her name, and she waved as she strode off.
My gaze drifted back to where Aguirre sat in the back of the Lex SUV. I thought vindictive happiness and relief would be the only emotions running through me, so when the tears fell, they caught me by surprise.
The boys drew tight around me as I sobbed, murmuring words in my ears I didn’t register. After a minute, I fought back the tears and smiled at my worried boys to put them at ease.
I didn’t cry because of Aguirre. No, for once I cried happy tears because I realized I finally found the one place I always wanted to be. It wouldn’t be easy. There were rough edges and fears the boys didn’t know about yet and no guarantees about our relationship, but for the first time ever, I had a family.
And right here, in their arms, I was home.
About the Author
Desi Lin lives in Central Florida with her husband, four kids, and one spoiled, pure black kitty. She enjoys a good cup of coffee, a great tune and delicious food. When not writing, she can be found cooking, taking photographs, playing on her Xbox and driving her kids nuts.
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