Samira laughed.
“I guess so. I wish I knew what he was singing to me.”
“I know,” Valerie said. “I wish I did, too. I wish I could remember every word that he ever said or that I had something that I could show you, so you could see his face or hear his voice.”
“You don’t have any recordings? Any pictures? Anything?”
Valerie shook her head, her expression pained again.
“No,” she said. “Everything that I had was destroyed.”
Samira felt herself stiffen and her jaw tighten with anger.
“Randall?” she asked.
“I had a storage unit that had everything in it from my marriage to your father. Pictures. Recordings. Documents. Gifts. Everything. I knew that Randall wouldn’t allow me to have them in the house, but I didn’t want anything to happen to them. When things were bad, I would go there and just spend some time looking at everything. I would talk to Martin and pretend that he was there with me. It might sound silly, but it made me feel better. Like I was somehow closer to him.”
“That’s not silly,” Samira said. “It’s not silly at all.”
“I don’t know how Randall found out about it,” Valerie said, drawing in a breath and straightening as if trying to withdraw from the memory. “He followed me there one day and found me looking through it. He was so angry. It was terrifying. I remember being so glad that I had brought you to a babysitter before I went to the unit. I didn’t usually do that. Usually I brought you with me and I would tell you stories about your father. At that time, part of me still believed that I could raise you knowing him. I wanted to be able to tell you about him and make sure that you knew who he was and how much he loved you. I never for a second wanted you to think that Randall was your father. That was something that I just wouldn’t compromise on.”
“What did he do when he found the storage unit?” Samira asked.
“He pulled everything out of it and loaded it up in the back of his truck, then forced me in. He brought me out into a field behind one of the farms where he sometimes worked, dumped everything out, and burned it all. It was one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen. There was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn’t even cry because I knew that that would just make it worse. Standing there watching it was like going through your father’s death all over again.”
Samira swallowed the emotion in her throat.
“Did you ever get to go to his grave?” she asked.
“He never got a grave,” Valerie said, her voice strained. “I didn’t get his body back after his death.”
Samira felt her heart drop into her stomach and her vision blurred slightly.
“You never got his body back?” Samira asked. “Like Aegeus? They thought that he was dead when he disappeared from the battlefield and didn’t have a body to bury. If you didn’t get to see his body and were never able to bury him, how do you know that he’s dead?”
It was a hopeful feeling, a lift in her heart that for a moment made her think that there was a possibility that all of the suffering her mother had gone through had been in vain, but that she had the chance that she would one day have the love of her life back, and that Samira would be able to look into the eyes of the father who she had missed even though she didn’t remember him. There was no hope in Valerie’s expression, however, and Samira quickly knew that her hope had been misguided.
“I know, Samira. It wasn’t a mystery when he died.”
“How did he die?” she asked.
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know, but at the same time she craved any knowledge about him that she could have. The more that she heard about him, the closer and more connected to him she felt, and she wanted to know everything about him, from how he came into her mother’s life, to how he was taken out of both of theirs.
“He died in a car accident on the way home from work one day,” she said. “He was so tired. He had been working so hard and not taking care of himself like he should have been. The investigators said that he probably fell asleep behind the wheel and lost control of the car. The car ran into the back of a truck that was carrying hazardous materials. It exploded nearly on impact. That’s why I wasn’t able to have his body back. It was incinerated beyond collection. All that was left of the car was a warped, melted metal frame. The only reason that they knew it was him was that the force of the impact dislodged the license plate from his car and it flew far enough away from the crash that it wasn’t melted. They used that to confirm that it was his vehicle. That was the only identification that they had, but it was enough.”
“I can’t imagine not even having a grave that you could go to,” Samira said.
“It was really hard at first,” Valerie agreed. “I considered having a grave for him anyway, but I didn’t want to go through the motions of having a funeral and burying an empty casket. It seemed almost disrespectful, as if it was my grief that mattered in the situation rather than the end of his life. I struggled with that for the first few months, but then it changed.”
“You met Randall.”
Valerie nodded, looking resigned to the reality that she had created for herself, but also still experiencing the lingering hurt that came from it.
“The tighter that Randall’s hold over me became, the more I realized that even if Martin had been able to have a proper grave, I never would have been able to visit it. He would have just laid there with no one to acknowledge him or caring for his grave. I couldn’t stand that thought. Once I realized that, it was comforting to know that there wasn’t a grave. It was almost reassuring that there hadn’t been a body to bury. Not having a body to bury or a grave to visit meant that when I wasn’t able to go there to visit him, I wasn’t neglecting him. I could carry him in my heart and know that he was there, safe and protected, and that even Randall couldn’t get to him or take him away from me there.”
“Do you still feel that way?” Samira asked.
Valerie sighed and looked away for a moment before meeting her eyes again.
“I do,” she said. “It’s been so many years, but even now, I haven’t forgotten your father or what he meant to me. Other than you, he was the most wonderful thing that I ever had in my life. Everything that I went through with Randall made it harder to remember that. I’ll admit that there was a time when I felt like he had been able to do the exact thing that I said that he wouldn’t and had taken the memory of Martin’s love out of my heart. It was like he had gutted me completely. I still had my thoughts of him and could see him when I looked at you, but I had lost the vibrancy that he had given me. Then you rescued me.”
“I didn’t rescue you,” Samira said. “You did that for yourself.”
“No,” Valerie said. “If it hadn’t been for you and Ero, I never would have survived. I wouldn’t have made it out and I wouldn’t be here. I will never be able to thank you for that enough. You didn’t just save me from Randall, you gave me back what he had taken from me and reassured me that he hadn’t been able to take everything. I’m still what Martin helped me to become, what he saw in me, and I still have him in my heart. You’ve helped me find that again.”
“Why don’t I have my father’s last name?” Samira asked. “I know that you wanted to remember him and that you wanted to honor him. So why did you make me carry another name?”
“I never had your father’s name.” Valerie admitted. “When we got married, I kept my last name. It was something that was really important to me then, but I regret it so much now. At the time I felt like keeping my name and passing it along to you was a way to carry on my family’s legacy. Martin wasn’t close to his family. I never even heard him talk about them. So, it didn’t seem to matter to him if their history was carried on. I don’t have any siblings, but I was very close to my parents and my grandparents. I wanted to give that to you. I wanted you to be a part of the family that I had had when I was a child, even if you never had the opportunity to know them. I feel so guilty about that now
. I realize that just because Martin himself wasn’t the legacy of a family that meant much to him doesn’t mean that he didn’t deserve to have a legacy of his own. You should have been his legacy, a part of him to linger on and carry his name further than he was able to. I should have honored him by giving you his name. Even if it meant changing your name after he died so that you could have that link to him, I should have done it. Maybe that would have made the hard times with Randall more bearable if at least you had his name to hold on to as a reminder of who you really are.”
“But the same could be said for you,” Samira said. “If you didn’t take Martin’s name, why did you take Randall’s? Wouldn’t it have been easier for you to not feel so tied to him? If you had kept your own name the way that you did when you married Martin, maybe you wouldn’t have felt so controlled by him.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Valerie said. “Taking his name was something that I barely even thought about when we were engaged. Like I said, I was never in love with him. Being engaged to Martin and planning our wedding was such an incredibly joyful time and I couldn’t wait to experience it. I wanted every moment of it to be perfect. I don’t even remember Randall asking me to marry him. It was like all of a sudden we were talking about it and then we were standing in front of the judge.”
“You didn’t have a wedding?” Samira asked.
“No,” Valerie said. “It wasn’t something that Randall was interested in, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t excited like I was with Martin. It didn’t feel like the joyful beginning that it did then. It felt almost like an ending. They assumed that I was going to take his name and we were ushered through all of the paperwork. I didn’t question it or try to resist. I think even then I knew that Randall would have been angry if I hadn’t. Maybe part of me even thought that if I took his name, it would somehow make me feel closer to him, like it would improve our marriage if I felt like I had that connection to him. In the end, it just made me feel like he owned me.” She took another sip of her drink and stared at the table with the same downcast look that Samira had hated seeing in her as she grew up. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t more open with you. I always made sure that you knew that Randall was your stepfather, but I’m sorry that I didn’t make sure that you knew who your father really was.”
“I still don’t,” Samira pointed out. “I know his name, but that’s it. I want to know more about him.”
“Everything that I had of his and that was about him was destroyed, but when we get home, we can research together. We can try to find records and anything else that we can, so you can learn more about him.”
Samira smiled through the tight feeling in her chest as she realized that “home” was never going to be what they thought of it again.
Chapter Seven
Eden settled Lysander into the makeshift cradle that they had created for him against one wall of the room that she and Pyra had chosen and gently settled a blanket over him. He was sleeping so calmly and peacefully, blissfully oblivious to the chaos and danger that was happening around him. She hoped that that was the way that it would always be, that he would never be aware of the risks that he was facing and all that he had gone through when he was still so young. In the same breath, she knew that as he got older, they would tell him. They would make sure that he knew what he was born into and the strength and courage he had before he even knew. Just as Loralia had told her when she was pregnant, her son was a warrior, as strong and brave as his father.
Leaning forward to touch a soft kiss to her tiny son’s forehead, Eden patted his belly gently and then crossed the room to the bed where Pyra sat. It had been built out of salvaged wood and blankets from throughout the compound, but while it didn’t look as comfortable as the bed that they had shared in the Denynso compound on Uoria, it was better than what they had had in the basement of the lab and Eden felt even more exhausted just looking at it. Her body ached with the exertion of the last few days. Though there hadn’t been any fighting, she felt like she had been moving constantly, working to go through the compound and find everything that they could that might be useful, build supplies, prepare food, and help those who were still working to recover from their wounds.
Pyra was sitting on the edge of the bed, one of his boots sitting on the floor in front of him and his hands paused on the ties of the other. He stared down at them, his expression unchanging. She settled onto the bed next to him and took off her shoes, then stood to start undressing for bed.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked as she slipped out of her shirt.
Pyra glanced up at her and she saw the involuntary hint of a smile that came to his lips every time that he saw her undressed. It gave her the same boost that it always did, making her feel treasured and beautiful in a way that she had never experienced before she came to Earth. It was so different than the way that Ryan had looked at her. Now that they were here, ready to confront him for everything that he had done, the thought made her skin crawl even more. Where Pyra looked at her with love, respect, and adoration, Ryan had looked at her with lasciviousness, clearly not caring who she was or what she thought or felt.
“It’s just really hitting me how much all of this has grown,” he said.
Eden sat back on the bed and looked at him questioningly.
“All of what?” she asked.
Pyra straightened and gestured around him as if trying to encompass everything in the room and the entirety of the compound.
“All of this,” he repeated. “This whole situation. All that we’ve faced and done.” He looked at her with a mirthless laugh. “I bet you never would have imagined that giving into Ryan’s demands to go to Uoria would have been the beginning of something like this.”
Eden shook her head.
“No. I don’t think that this rests with me,” she protested. “All of this was already happening well before I ever agreed to get on that shuttle and go to Uoria. It would have unfolded just the same whether I had gone or not.”
“How?” Pyra asked. “It was you coming and telling Creia about Ryan’s plan for you to steal my blood that made us aware of what was going on here.”
“But that wasn’t the start of it,” Eden said. “And it wasn’t what actually got the Denynso involved in it. Yes, me showing up in Uoria and talking to Creia made him aware that Ryan had designs on Denynso DNA and was a threat, but the only real result of that was that I was given permission to stay on the compound. Even if I hadn’t come or if Creia had sent me away the second that I arrived, the Denynso still would have been at war with the Klimnu. You still would have fought in Loralia’s realm and Jem would have still disappeared. The compound would still have gone into mourning for him and the warriors would still have left the compound to explore the rest of Uoria. That means that you still would have found the settlement with the Nyx 23 crew and everything would have happened from there.”
Pyra looked at her incredulously.
“That’s not how it would have worked,” he argued. “The only reason that we were able to find the underground realm was because of you women. We couldn’t get through the tunnel, so we wouldn’t have found our way down there, which means that we wouldn’t have been able to fight the Klimnu down there and Jem never would have disappeared.”
Eden shook her head.
“I had nothing to do with that,” she said. “That was the other women, the women who came to Uoria with the exchange program. I wasn’t a part of that. Even if I didn’t come, they still would have and they still would have been able to help you with the tunnel. They still would have gone down there and found the mirrored realm, you still would have gone through the entrances in the orchard, and you still would have had the final showdown with the Klimnu there. It all would have just kept going exactly like it did without me.”
“Even if that’s true,” Pyra said. “Even if we did still have the same battle with the Klimnu and Jem still disappeared, and we still went into mourning. If all that happened in exactly the same way, it
still wouldn’t have been the same. We wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to unlock the Nyx 23 crew if it wasn’t for the necklace that Jem made for you and the gifts that the other human women made for their mates, and if it wasn’t for the two of us being together, I don’t know if those women would have been so willing to bond with the warriors.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Eden said. “I know how powerful the lure of a warrior is. I think that they would have fallen in love in just the same way and you still would have been able to figure out how to unlock them. “
“Well, that only means that we still would have been together, which would have still brought us right here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like you said, we still would have had the other humans with us and would have unlocked the Nyx 23 crew. They would have then told us what happened to them and we would have eventually figured out about Ryan’s experiments.”
“How?”
“We would know that there was something strange going on with the crew and then Ryan still would have sent the Valdicians to capture Creia to lure us to Earth. We still would have been there for the wedding because Samira and Ty would still be together, and we all would have ended up in the laboratory. I believe that if you hadn’t agreed with Ryan’s commands and gone to Uoria, that he would have kidnapped you and put you into the program, which means that you would have been in the laboratory, and we would have been together.”
“But the only reason that we ended up in the laboratory was that the Valdicians kidnapped Lysander at the wedding and Jane had that picture, which let me figure out that they were in the lab. If it wasn’t for me, none of you would know what to look for or where to go.”
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