by Fallon Hart
“Don’t I deserve to know now that we’re finally going to be free of each other?”
We reached the twenty-foot gate and wall William had erected around his ranch. Some said the wall would hold back the gangs if they came but the truth was a rash of illness among the cattle and a number of setbacks in the greenhouses made a future at the ranch for this many people uncertain. It was stay behind and eventually starve or travel west in hopes for a better life.
William nodded to the guard posted at the gate and I watched as it was slowly unlocked and pushed open. Wilde let go of Brett and together we stepped over the threshold.
“Rebecca.”
At the sound of my name, I looked over my shoulder at my uncle.
“You look like your mother.”
I froze.
William’s expression hardened. “You look exactly like your mother. You have her eyes.”
My eyes. The ones Wilde was afraid would attract attention on the road. I had long since stopped paying attention to my appearance. What I knew was that I was of average height, slender from rations but strong from hard physical labor. My hair was shoulder-length and a dark brown that turned auburn in the light. The sun had long since darkened my skin to a golden tan. There was nothing exceptional about any of that. But for my eyes.
They were a clear, pure, startling spring green.
Some said they were beautiful. Others that they were unsettling.
I cared for no one else’s opinion of my eyes. What I knew was that they were the only thing I had left of my mother.
“And?”
The hatred I saw in my uncle’s gaze was familiar. “She was mine first. Did your father ever tell you that?”
Stunned I could only give him a slight shake of my head.
“Well she was. Until your father came back from college and stole her from me. That’s why we didn’t talk before… I never forgave either of them.”
Bitterness swelled in my throat making it thick and my voice hoarse as I replied, “So you took it out on me? An innocent child?”
“You’re the daughter of a whore and a traitor. You were never innocent.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Wilde suddenly cut in, reminding me he was there. His eyes were flat. “You’re either coming or going.”
I nodded despite the rushing speed of my heart rate. For years I’d been plagued by my uncle because of the sins of my parents. I wouldn’t respond to his insults though I wanted to defend my mother and father. Instead I did the only thing I thought might piss William off more than anything.
I gave him nothing.
Nothing except my back.
To my shock he didn’t take a hit at it. Instead I determinedly kept pace with Wilde’s long strides as we marched down the overgrown road of my uncle’s ranch and disappeared into the woods beyond.
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