“They had you looking for her?” Wyatt asked, gesturing toward me.
“No,” Vince said, shaking his head. “The higher ups were looking for someone specific, a full elemental affinate. Male. But I couldn’t focus. The day of the massacre, I felt several strong affinates in the same area. I got scared, because I felt you.”
I took a deep breath to keep my hands from shaking, but then Vince looked above me to Zephyr.
“I thought it was you,” he said, then shook his head. “I still can’t tell which one of you I felt, you’re both so strong. I can only recognize certain affinities from each of you.”
The tension in the room was stifling. I felt like I needed some fresh air, but I didn’t know if I could stand. I wanted to teleport, but I didn’t want to leave Aiden, and something told me if I teleported away with just him, Zephyr would be fuming mad that I left him with Rafe and Wyatt.
“So they were looking for a man, not Skye?” Aiden asked after an awkward silence.
Vince nodded. “A very powerful male. Someone with multiple elemental affinities, and something else I’d never sensed before. A new affinity.”
A new affinity?
The science part of my brain was excited, and I opened my mouth to ask more questions before realizing Vince had just said he’d never sensed this affinity before.
I chewed my lip.
Vince continued. “I was supposed to see my son that day. I thought he’d be at the parade, but…”
But the bombs had gone off in the middle of the parade, and then the Pilgrims were there.
“He was one of the attackers,” Zephyr said, continuing the train of thought.
“You saw him?” Vince asked eagerly, the armchair creaking as he leaned forward.
Zephyr looked at me uneasily.
My stomach couldn’t sink any lower, but somehow, it did.
Watching Vince’s face light up was familiar.
Because Ididremember his son, now.
His son was one of the men from my nightmares, one who didn’t die when I killed the rest. He’d called mephantom, asking me to look upon him while he died.
I’d killed him without a second thought, and Zephyr hadn’t reacted beyond a clench of the jaw.
The gravity of what I’d done at such a young age really hit me, then. I’d been a child, and I hadn’t hesitated in killing someone.
That man had been someone’sson.
Vince still watched me eagerly, his blue eyes a dead match for the man I’d killed.
“Will you tell me? His final moments? What did he say?”
I swallowed thickly as Zephyr shook his head, making his curls bounce.
“You don’t wanna know,” he said.
Vince’s expression fell slightly, and I thought I heard Wyatt curse behind me.
“Please,” he said softly. “I know he wasn’t…well. I know he was one of the attackers. I found him after…I saw him. You won’t make my suffering any worse than what it’s already been.”
Zephyr cringed, giving me a look I couldn’t decipher.
“He…” My voice shook slightly. I’d never told the story to anyone, and I wasn’t sure how much to even share. “He tried getting me to cooperate. We were surrounded…they said a Sensor had felt me and knew there was a strong affinate nearby. They thought it was me.”
