The day he was supposed to meet me.
He wasn’t abandoning me.
He was dying.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t?—
“Clover?” He’s closer now. Not touching, but close enough that I can feel his body heat. “Are you okay?”
“Am I—” A laugh bursts out of me, bitter and broken. “Am I okay?”
“That was a stupid question. I’m sorry.”
“You were…beaten.” I’m staring at him, but it’s not this version I see. No, I see a young man. A teenager who helped a girl escape and paid for it with his memories. With his life. “You were nearly killed.”
“According to hospital records, yes.”
“And you don’t remember…anything.”
“When I woke up, Aunt Vivi was beside me. She told me who I was, Valen Stone. The son of her brother, Edward Harrington and Terra Stone.” His mouth twists. “I don’t remember either of them but know that my father died when I was young, and mymother died a couple of years after I woke up in the hospital. I never met her.”
“Terra.” The name sends ice down my spine. “Your mother,” I whisper.
His whole body goes rigid. For a moment, the professional mask slips, and I see something raw underneath—a boy who never got to grieve a mother he can’t remember. A man who doesn’t know if he should mourn or hate her.
“You knew her.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “I knew her.”
And she knew things—secrets that died with her. Or should have. But someone’s been digging. The packages. The notes. Someone wants to make sure those secrets stay buried, even if it means burying me too.
“From Roots of Salvation.” He’s cautious, careful with his words and his actions.
I nod. “Do—do you know about that place?” Does he know that his mother was a sadistic, narcissistic bitch with really fucked-up ideologies?
His eyes narrow, and I realize my fingers have turned white where I’m squeezing them together. “Some. Just what my family has told me.” He’s watching me too closely now. “We were both there. As kids. You and me.”
“Yes.”
“Were we…” He stops. Frowns. Then starts again. “We were close? Before?”
How do I answer that?
Do I tell him we were everything to each other? That he saved me a hundred times over? That I’ve loved him since I was six years old and saw him smiling at me?
Do I tell him he promised to meet me? That I’ve been waiting ever since? That he’s the hero in every book I’ve ever written?
“Yes,” I finally say. “We knew each other.”
“Were we friends?”
Friends. Such a small word for something that encompasses my entire world.
“Yes.” I’m detaching. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. “We were friends.”
Something flickers across his face. Relief? Disappointment? I can’t tell.
“When I saw you earlier, something just—” He touches his chest, and I feel it in mine. The pressure, right over our hearts. His fingers press there, like he’s holding something in—or trying to understand what’s fighting to get out. “I didn’t know why. But your name, that nickname, it just came out. Like my body remembered even though my brain didn’t.”
