By the timeBoone and I finally crawl out of bed, we’re dehydrated and sore as hell, and his cheek right under his eye is bruised.
“Shit. I’m sorry for head butting you,” I say, skimming the marred skin with my fingertips.
“Worth it,” he insists, kissing me.
I’d love to stay in bed, but the sun’s up and my phone has approximately four hundred cousin notifications. Boone offers to bring me breakfast in bed so I can avoid everyone, but I’m done hiding out in my room. Time to confront the family.
Confrontation, as it turns out, might be difficult to achieve, given that the moment we walk into the living room, everyone suddenly becomes an expert at looking anywhere but at us. Which, now that I think about the noise Boone and I made last night…fair.
Oakley mercifully has coffee and biscuits waiting, and I want to hug him for knowing that this conversation cannot be had without caffeine and carbohydrates.
Right as I take my first bite of delicious, flaky goodness, though, the elevator dings, and suddenly my dads, most of my uncles, and Hedy spill into the room.
Boone leans in, whispering, “It’s like a clown car of emotionally repressed assassins.”
I snort as Hedy grabs a coffee and walks to the middle of the room.
“I’m just going to start with this,” she says, her voice authoritative. “Mistakes were made.”
I’m tempted to say something snarky, alathis meeting could’ve been an email, but she seems earnest, so I let her say what needs to be said.
She admits they underestimated me, and that keeping secrets this big was both unfair and hurtful.
“If you didn’t want me involved,” I say, squeezing Boone’s hand for courage, “you could’ve at least trusted me with the truth.”
“You’re right.” She shakes her head. “I should never have put your brother and cousins in a position to lie to you and Oakley or leave either of you out of important conversations.”
Honestly, all the Wildlings needed to hear that.
Dad shifts, uncomfortable. “I also… if I really think about it, I can’t deny that your learning differences colored my choices. At least subconsciously. And that wasn’t right.”
My chest pinches at that, but at least it’s the truth.
My father tears up. “We never should have excluded you,” he admits, his voice hoarse. “That’s on us.”
Dad nods, eyes shining. “We thought we were protecting you. We were wrong.”
My uncles and cousins express the same regrets, their emotions right at the surface.
It’s messy and imperfect, but real.
Oakley adds his voice, steady and calm. “The Wildlings have never been sheltered. We were famous before we even knew what famous was. Knowing our family was fighting the monsters? That could’ve been a comfort.”
There are nods. Some guilt. Maybe relief that it’s finally being said.
Hedy then explains the Whitaker situation—the decades of blackmail, the secret marriage, the legal booby traps he set for the team, knowing they’d eventually take aim at his dirty dealings.
It’s complicated, and honestly, I have no trouble believing that the fate of the Guardians hinged on uncomfortable family dynamics. That is our exact brand of chaos.
“Actually, I have an update on Gina.” She grins when the dads all lean in. “Funnily enough, the one thing Whitaker never anticipated was that his sister would have a moral compass.”
“Wonder what that’s like?” Sy jokes, surprising a laugh out of all of us.
“More importantly, what does that mean for us?” Anders asks, getting to the heart of the matter.
“My dad went to Gina last night and came clean. About all of it.”
She shakes her head. “He was surprised how much of it she had already worked out for herself. The cave full of vigilantes was news to her, but she was fully aware of my mother and me and has been since the beginning.”
