Me – 3:46 p.m. ~ Glad you’re back safe. Missed you! Did you find out anything?
Aunt Sage – 3:47 p.m. ~ Missed you too. Will tell you when you get here.
Again with the short answer. Maybe she was saving all the details for an in-person discussion.
Me – 3:47 p.m. ~ Can’t wait to see you. FYI, I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m coming over blind.
“Want to stay and help us decorate the gym?” Lainey asked in a hopeful voice, then grimaced. “I had no idea when I volunteered just how much help they’d need.”
It was good for Lainey to volunteer every once in a while. I couldn’t help but inwardly smile at how inconvenienced she seemed by all the hard work. Maybe she’d come to appreciate what the rest of us do when we volunteer. “I can’t. My aunt just invited me over. She’s expecting me right after school.”
“Fine, bail on your best friend.”
I shrugged and pointed to my aunt’s text. Lainey started to sigh her frustration, but then her eyes lit up when her gaze landed on Matt strolling down the hall. She walked off in his direction, calling, “Hey, Matt, guess what you’re doing on a Friday night…”
I sent Drystan a text.
Me – 3:48 p.m. ~ My aunt just got back in town. She wants me to come over after school, so I can’t go to the park today. Plus, I think you’ll be stuck at school decorating. *snicker*
When I didn’t get a text back right away, I put my phone in my backpack, reminding myself to charge it as soon as I got home. I’d forgotten to plug it in last night since I was waiting to hear back from Ethan.
A half hour later, I drove up my aunt’s long, tree-lined driveway to her house. I walked slowly toward her porch, squeezing my hands around my keys so hard they dug into my skin. Since I woke so early, I hadn’t dreamed this far into my day last night. I had no idea what I was about to hear.
Aunt Sage pulled me into a tight bear hug the moment I walked in her door. Bo, Luke, and Duke also took turns throwing themselves against my legs.
“Wow,” I said as I kept one arm around Aunt Sage while trying to pet each of her dogs with my other hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever received such a huge greeting. I’ve missed you guys too.”
Once everyone settled, I expected my aunt to lead me straight into the kitchen and feed me one of her famous pies like she usually did, but this time she pulled me over to sit on the couch with her.
I could tell by her expression and the way she pushed her red curls behind her ear something was wrong. I clasped her wrists to calm her nervous movements. “What is it, Aunt Sage?”
Concerned hazel eyes met mine as she clasped my hands. “I didn’t get in to see your dad’s secretary until mid-week.”
I clutched her fingers, my heart starting to speed up. “What did she say?”
“She said the same thing that she’d been saying on the phone, that your dad was out of the country on a business trip.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand—”
“Let me finish, Inara,” she interrupted, her tone sharper than I’d ever heard it.
I tensed and clamped my lips shut, nodding.
Sage ran a hand through her hair. “Like I said, she kept saying the same thing, so I came back the next day and offered to take her to lunch for taking such good care of my brother all these years. While we ate, I worked in the fact that I read Daily tarot and when I saw she was interested in having a reading done, I traded a reading for the truth.”
My eyebrows shot up as worry gripped me. “The truth?”
Aunt Sage nodded solemnly. “After her reading, she told me that they don’t know where he is. That your father just disappeared.”
“Why—why didn’t they call the police? Why would they try to keep something like this quiet?”
Sadness crept into my aunt’s gaze. “I’m pretty sure I know why. Not long after he left, your dad sent me a package with a key and a note inside. The note said that if anything ever happened to him that I was to use the key and retrieve what he’d locked away in a safe deposit box.”
My pulse pounded so hard I heard my own heartbeat. I pulled my hands away from hers and set them on my thighs in tight fists. “Do—do you think he’s dead?”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetie, but just in case we never hear from him again—” Pausing, she turned and picked up the remote to the DVD player. “Your mom mentioned what happened this week. She’s worried for you. I’m so sorry about Mr. Holtzman, Inara. I wish I could hold off on showing you this, but I knew you’d insist on learning what information I could gather the moment I got back.” With a sigh, she handed me the remote. “Watch this and we’ll talk—about your dad, Mr. Holtzman, whatever you want—when it’s over.”
When she got up and started to walk out of the room, I asked, “Have you seen it yet?”
She shook her head. “The note your father wrote on the DVD cover said, ‘For Nari’s eyes only,’ I’m honoring his wishes.”
After she disappeared into her jewelry studio, I stared at the remote in my hand for several seconds, biting my lip with indecision. All my questions about my powers might finally be answered with the click of a Play button, but the knowledge that these answers came at the cost of my father’s disappearance—or worse—felt like a double-edged knife sawing through my heart.
Bo jumped on the couch and nuzzled my wrist with his wet nose. I stroked his white head until the Jack Russell settled beside my thigh. Then Duke, the Shepherd mix Ethan and I had rescued, lowered his solid frame on the other side of me, setting his chin on my thigh. When Luke circled his massive Rottweiler body and laid against my feet on the floor, the dogs’ collective warmth and support gave me the courage to lift the remote and hit Play.
A picture popped up of a dark-haired man with dark green eyes wearing a light blue button-down shirt and gray slacks as he leaned against the corner of an office desk. By the décor and window in the background, I could tell he was in a home office.
“Hi, Nari,” he began, then cleared his throat. Loosening his red tie, he unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt. Tension ebbed from him as he folded his arms and gave a nervous half smile. “A part of me hopes you’ll never have to watch this, but my selfish-half wishes I could’ve given it to you the day I left.”
He looked so young and handsome, seeing the conflict on his face made all my locked away happy memories of him come flooding back in a swell of bittersweet sadness. “Why did you leave?” I asked the screen in a shaky voice.
He adopted an intense expression, his hands gripping his biceps. “I want you to know that leaving you and your mom was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, but I did it to protect you.”
He jammed his hand through his hair, glanced away and sighed, then looked back at the camera. “God, I’m screwing this up. Let me start from the beginning. Maybe then all of this will make more sense, and one day you’ll find it in your heart to understand.”
Nothing you could say would ever help me understand how you could leave us. I set my jaw and folded my arms, waiting to hear what he had to say.
My dad stood and shoved his hands in his pockets, pacing in front of the camera. Stopping, he looked right at the lens. “I’ve had the ability to see my entire next day through my dreams the night before since I was a little boy. I learned to deal with it, living my life one day at a time.” He gave an ironic crooked smile before continuing, “I met your mother in college and instantly fell in love. I graduated and got a great job working for the government. Once I had a stable job that I loved, one where I truly felt like I could make a difference in the world and that would also allow me to provide for my family, I asked your mom to marry me. Elizabeth meant everything to me, and when you came along, all seemed right in the world.”
He smiled briefly, reflecting on happy memories. I pressed my lips together. If you were happy, why did you leave? What changed?
“I never told Elizabeth what my rea
l job was at the DOD—that’s Department of Defense. I didn’t tell her because she didn’t know about my ability. I wanted a normal life, Nari. You and your mother gave me that, a normalcy I hadn’t had since before my abilities showed up as a child.” His eyes pleaded for me to understand.
This part, I did get. Wholeheartedly. But after living with the ability to see my next day for almost a decade, I’d pretty much become accustomed to it. I thought about my mom and wondered how she would have reacted if she’d learned the truth about Dad’s ability. She was such a black and white person, I wasn’t sure she would have believed him even if he had told her the truth.
Dad blew out a breath, bringing me back to the present. “In my first job with the DOD, I was an analyst, poring over intel collected by agents in the field. When my boss figured out what I could do, he immediately set me up with my own covert division. Other than my boss and a couple of higher-ups, who had to approve the funding for the division, no one knew what I could do.”
Excitement filled his gaze. “You know what it feels like to see your entire next day, Nari. Now imagine what you could do with that ability if the whole purpose of your job was to watch daily events?” He spread his arms wide. “You could help save the world! You could stop terrorist attacks before they ever happened. You could avert catastrophes like jumbo jet crashes or minimize lives lost from natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes that would’ve taken thousands of lives. You could be the early warning system.”
Sudden sadness rolled across his features. “But then things started happening at home. Events that weren’t in my dreams or that went totally against my dreams. I felt helpless. You and your mother were in a car wreck. Elizabeth broke her leg falling off a ladder, then later her arm in a fluke flyaway swinging door. I felt as if my family was being punished—worse—targeted. For the first time in my life, events were happening in my personal life that I couldn’t predict.”
When he shoved both hands through his hair and tortured guilt filtered through his expression, I pressed a trembling hand to my lips. He didn’t know about Fate. He didn’t know there’d be consequences…
Anguish filled his face as he glanced at the camera. “When that bookshelf almost fell on you, I realized it wasn’t just my imagination. I’d bolted the damn thing, but it yanked out of the wall as if ripped out by an unseen force. I couldn’t let you or your mother get seriously hurt because of me…because of my actions.”
He shook his head, bafflement in his furrowed brow. “You’d think with all the lives I’d saved, good karma would come my way. Instead, danger stalked my family.”
Lifting his gaze to the lens, his eyes begged me to understand. “I didn’t know what was causing it. I didn’t know if it would continue to go on forever, but I did know it was getting worse, and the ‘accidents’ seemed to coincide with my prevention of huge catastrophic events. What I could do was remove myself from your lives, and by doing so, I could take away the bad karma that seemed to be hurting my loved ones with every move I made.”
“It was Fate, Dad!” I yelled at the screen. “He was making you pay for every single life you saved.” No wonder Fate spoke about my father with such deep loathing. In his daily job, my dad constantly challenged Fate in huge, sweeping ways. Every. Single. Day. Fate must hate him with molten intensity.
Now it made sense why Fate had attacked me when he did. Fate hadn’t bothered me until that day I stopped the bomb from going off at school. He didn’t want me to follow in my father’s footsteps, saving many lives at once with a simple phone call. Fate must absolutely despise how easily we’d derailed his plans for so many lives. I would never have figured out that Fate was behind the things happening to me without Ethan there questioning everything. Nor would I have been able to face Fate down without Ethan’s ability to allow me to see the “unseen” via my dreams. My father didn’t have an Ethan in his life when all that stuff was happening to our family.
“I’m sure you’re probably wondering why I didn’t leave this for you and your mother.” Deep regret etched grooves around his mouth. “I will always love you both with all my heart, but it’s best if your mom believes me to be a deadbeat dad and deserter husband. You’re only watching this video because I asked Sage to show this to you only if you inherited my abilities.”
He put his hands together and pressed them against his lips for a second, then pulled them away. “With your power comes a great responsibility. You’ll feel compelled to get involved, to save lives. Please don’t follow my path, Nari. Once I got a taste of how I could help the world, of all the good I could do with my abilities, my conscience wouldn’t let me turn my back on it. How could I walk away from the thousands of lives I could save? How could I sacrifice them for my own personal happiness?”
“What about your family’s happiness?” I choked out, tears trickling down my cheeks. I hated that he chose the world over his family, even as a part of me understood how torn he must’ve felt when he left us. He was right to keep this video from Mom. She would never understand. If she learned the truth, she would flip out that he’d left when he still loved her, loved us. But Mom didn’t have to live with the conflicting emotions our powers left us with every morning when we woke up. She didn’t have to decide to act or not act. Ever. She had no idea how crippling and guilt-inducing that could be.
My dad spread his hands toward the camera. “I don’t want this life for you, Nari. Do not take a job that will exploit your powers and absorb you so completely. Even if it’s for the greater good, don’t open yourself up to the all-consuming guilt. Learn from my mistakes and live as normal a life as you can, despite your ability. That is what I hope you can accomplish for yourself. I love you, Nari, and now I hope you understand why I made the decision I did.”
The video ended and I was about to turn it off, when my dad popped back up on the screen.
“Hey, Nari.” He exhaled deeply and rolled his shoulders as if gearing up for what he was about to say. His hair had grayed at the temples and he had a few more wrinkles. He looked a little thinner too, but otherwise he’d aged well. My eyes widened when I realized that the date at the bottom of the video was a few days after I’d called in the school bombing.
“I recorded the first part of this video not long after I left when you were little. I hadn’t intended to record any more, but when I saw that you’d called in the bombing—yes, we can tap into any camera in the country. Anytime. Anywhere. Always keep that in mind, sweetheart—I thought I should add this last bit.”
Pride filled his gaze, a smile tilting his lips. “You’ve grown into a beautiful, confident young woman, Nari. I’m so proud of you.” His smile slowly faded into a serious expression. “Please take my advice and don’t get involved. And yes, I’m saying this with the full knowledge there will be lives you won’t save.” His lips twisted in an ironic smirk. “During my two decades with the government, I’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives…on an epic scale. So as far as I’m concerned, in the gambling risk of life, I’ve more than covered my marker and yours. I want you to consider yourself absolved of the responsibility. Our family has sacrificed enough.”
He gave a sad smile. “I love you, Nari. Live your life and only yours. Be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wished for you.”
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there staring at the blank TV screen, but my aunt finally came back into the living room.
Bo jumped down when she sat beside me on the couch. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, reaching up to brush my hair out of my eyes.
My earlier tears had long since dried, but I scrubbed my cheeks anyway. “Did you know about his job, Aunt Sage? Did you know why he left?”
She nodded. “Your father was so upset the day you got this. You were just a little thing.” She brushed her fingers across the small scar on my brow I’d gotten when the bookshelf tilted and a bookend fell on me. My dad had rolled me out of the way just before the shelf crashed down. “He came to me and I helped as best I could.�
� Tears filled her eyes. “It broke my heart that he had to leave, Inara, but he honestly didn’t have a choice. Your mother had already been hurt a couple of times, and then your life had been threatened in a way he couldn’t explain. He would’ve fallen apart if something happened to either of you. You and your mom meant everything to him.”
My heart ached so much, it felt like it might implode. I pressed my lips together to keep from sobbing all over again. “I wish I’d known the truth.”
She nodded, sadness in her gaze. “Now you know why it was hard for me to hear how much you resented him. He made me promise to never tell.”
I tensed. “The truth doesn’t change the fact he chose his job over us.” My shoulders sagged as I continued, “But I do understand being torn between what’s right and following my heart. Sometimes it’s not always so black and white.”
She cupped my cheek, sympathy in her eyes. “I don’t think he expected your forgiveness, Inara. All he hoped for was your understanding.”
I nodded, then straightened and spoke with fierce intensity, “He’s not dead!” For my own self-preservation, I needed to believe that was true. To believe I would see him again.
My aunt exhaled a tired sigh. “The government division he works for has tried to find him. For obvious reasons, they don’t want to give up on their most valuable—and one of their most covert—assets, but they’ve exhausted all their current leads.”
I fisted my hands on my knees. “It can’t end this way. Not now that I know the truth.” He needs to know about Fate. I can tell him. He could have a life, maybe even a semi-normal life with his family!
“I’m right there with you, sweetie.” My aunt pulled me close, her arms wrapping around me, enveloping me in her warmth. When I leaned into her, hugging her fiercely, she tightened her hold and kissed the top of my head. “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up on my brother. Now that I’ve made a connection with his secretary, she’s promised to keep me informed of any developments. I spent the week searching through his apartment and I’ve brought a box of paperwork and receipts home. I plan to go through them, looking for any clues as to where he might’ve gone.”
Lucid, YA Paranormal Romance (Brightest Kind of Darkness Series, Book #2) Page 23