I looked down into the ravine, at the river where the mountain lake’s overflow funneled and became cascading waterfalls as it flowed.
“It would’ve been nice to have you around,” I said. “But I’m glad that you weren’t. They would’ve arrested you.”
That would’ve been a valid reason for him to stay away. But that wasn’t it. Derrick was an enigma, not a liar.
“Do you remember the time we scaled this cliffside? Mom was pissed,” I said.
Derrick’s lips lifted at one side. “I do.”
The wind picked up, colder as the storm moved closer.
“You really don’t know where I was that year?” I asked.
Derrick's expression tightened briefly. “I looked for you everywhere.”
His words struck brutally, cracking my façade and ripping open scar tissue that I’d forgotten hadn’t always been there.
“You did?” I asked, my voice fragile.
“I did,” he said. “But I failed.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“I can no longer offer you the certainty that you will be safe, Anna,” he said.
“I don’t understand what changed,” I said. “Mom felt safe here. What happened that night?”
“I do not know,” he said. “And that is why I can no longer keep you safe.”
Cold drops of rain pelted my skin. Hearing Derrick talk like this, like he’d been rendered powerless, felt like a gaping hole had been torn into my body. He was the strongest and most confident person I knew, and for him to be scared, that terrified me to my core.
“Am I not safe here? Am I putting Susan and Katie in danger?” I asked, my voice only steady by fierce determination.
“You are vulnerable now, Anna. You are no longer hidden, and it is unclear why you were returned, but one thing is known—they expected me to reconnect with you,” he said.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “What does that mean?”
“It means my next move was anticipated, and for now, the goals of our adversary are aligned with our own,” he said, his voice distant and monotone.
“Who is ‘they’?” I asked. “And what do they want with me?”
Derrick narrowed his eyes. “If I knew, they wouldn’t have taken you.”
Rain was coming down harder now, numbing my skin.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I said. “How can I move on? How can I stay here? I don’t know how to let go of this.”
“Staying here was never an option,” Derrick said. “It was a dream that your mother had.”
I thought of her porcelain face, still and quiet.
Pain ached at my core, deep inside my chest like a cancer slowly spreading. It wasn’t that she was gone. That hurt, but grief was natural. Grief faded over time. What I felt wasn’t grief, but regret. Regret for how she lived her life, or rather, how much she hadn’t lived. All for what?
For me to exist and feel guilty for the rest of my life? Her words haunted me, creeping into my mind at the most inconvenient times without warning, breaking down the walls that I’d constructed.
“It wasn’t until you were born that I truly understood unconditional love.”
“She was trying to protect me, wasn’t she?” I whispered.
