“And not once did you introduce yourself.” He shot her a hard look. “Is that an American thing?”
She offered him an innocent smile. “You didn’t seem unwilling to answer my questions. I’m Lanias.”
He paused in reaching for olive oil when he heard her name, his eyes meeting hers. “Is that so? You’ve finally returned, Eris always said you would one day.”
“My father—I mean, he did?” Lanias hadn’t any idea what sort of person or was it Surrem; he’d been. That part shouldn’t have felt like such a blow, she’d known nothing about him aside from what her uncle had written. Eris was like a being out of time and space; he saw things in a completely different way thanothers. She wondered if she could even trust those words. “I wouldn’t know much about that.”
“Eris wanted you to have a better life, rather than hiding and pretending to be something you’re not.” Roni’s eyes grew dark. “He just didn’t count on Zaharis getting you, and other Witches caught up in his bid for power. Even still he promised not to interfere with your life, he only broke that promise once.”
Catching on to what Roni had said, Lanias frowned. “He promised not to interfere in my life?”
“Didn’t Warren tell you?” Roni said, his eyes on the task at hand.
Lanias pretended not to notice the mouth-watering smell of the food he was cooking in front of her. “Once a child was sent from the Garden, Eris would not interfere in their lives. It was a promise he made to your mother. For he almost killed an entire village for persecuting a Witch long ago.”
“How long ago?” she demanded, feeling that her perception of “long ago” was very different from him.
He didn’t answer, only offered her a secretive smile. “Just know, that he never broke this promise even after your mother’s death. He broke the oath the day he saw you and your friends being buried.”
“What?” A faint knowing filling her, but Lanias couldn’t bring herself to fully believe what Roni was hinting at.
“The day you and your kind lay beneath dirt after their execution.”
Keeping his attention on meal preparation he turned and reached for a bottle of water. Reaching up with his other hand he picked up a larger pot and placed it upon the left stove top. He then poured the water inside. “He used you as a conduit to save everyone.”
Lanias always thought she’d been the one to lose control of her magic, saving everyone, but also killing the doctors asshe escaped with Eliza in her arms. She winced, feeling a pain explode from her right temple. Hissing, she pressed her fingers there. “Ow!”
Roni’s voice sounded as if it was coming far away. “He opened the door, telling you to run.”
Her heartbeat was pounding faster; she held the edge of the counter to keep herself upright. She felt as if part of her were being shredded and exposed.
Lanias had no memory of any of this, she felt like she was running down a dark hallway only to realize there was no escape to the outdoor sunlight. Only a simple glass light fixture in a corner.
“Run Lanias. Run.”
A voice came from the dark. The screams that had filled the halls of the lab fell silent. She’d curled in the corner terrified of what was happening, weak and unable to do anything.
“The door is open, go!”A masculine voice shouted at her.
She wanted to believe the voice.
Young Lanias needed something, anything to believe in. Trembling, she rose from where she crouched and hesitantly went to the door. With shaking hands, she grabbed the door handle and pulled.
To her astonishment it opened, and before her was the long hallway. The guards who were making their way back to intercept glared at her. “You, who let you out!” they shouted, but before they could reach her, their heads suddenly inflated and exploded.
“Move forward.”
Stunned by the gory mess that coated the walls and floor. Lanias felt frozen but she listened to the voice. Moving bare foot down the hallway.
In her mind’s eye, her memories was unredacted roll of film, slowly but surely exposing her to what she’d missed. She wasthe one killing the guards, hospital staff and the scientist in their sterile white coats. Apparently, it was she who destroyed the tank that kept Eliza in. Cradling the crying infant in her arms.
Lanias watched herself as if she was seeing a moving clip.
She was ten or was it eleven, shivering as she kept moving forward ignoring screams of pain, and remorse. Ignoring the death and bodies that piled up. When she reached the exit, only to step out onto what looked like a short cliff. She’d stared up at the angry sky, a sky she hadn’t seen for what felt like forever.
“My child, this is my first and last gift to you.”
The lightning struck twice, and she saw the bodies of young girls lined up on unburied ground. Their bodies wriggled as some lifted their heads as they found air. She felt the warm tears falling down and buried her face in the wriggling mass in her arms.
