A laugh escapes me, wet and broken but healing just the same.
“We have a lifetime to sort through your secrets, Clove.” Savvy pats my arm. “But the real question is, what are you going to do about Valen?”
It’s as though she wrapped her hands around my throat, constricting my air with her words.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still love him?” Elle asks.
My answer comes from somewhere deeper than logic. “Yes.”
“Even knowing what he did?” Savvy is always guarded, but she lives up to her name. She’ll spoon-feed me questions until I come to a conclusion that my heart and mind will be happy with.
“He didn’t know what he was doing. Terra turned him into a weapon before he was old enough to understand there was a war. He’s as much a victim as I?—”
He’s as much a victim as I am.
The emptiness shifts in my chest—a small, painful adjustment of perspective. The hurt is still there, but it’s wrapped in gauze and understanding. But most of all, it’s love.
“Have you told him that?” Elle asks.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
A knock has me looking up to find Grant’s face in the partially open doorway.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “But there’s someone here to see Clover.” He pauses. Is it just me, or is Grant…nervous? “It’s my…FBI contact, and I think he can give you some of the answers you’re looking for.”
The man standingin Madi’s living room is a stranger with a knack for blending in, for disappearing. I’ve studied characters like him long enough to know that this man is a ghost.
Not literally—though with the week I’ve had, I’m not sure I can rule out anything.
“Hello, Calla.”
The name hits me harder than a physical blow. I have no recollection of this name belonging to me, but I feel it, somewhere deep in my soul, a little thumping that gets louder with each passing beat.
Calla. Calla. Calla.
“I’m Agent Craig Lamott,” he says. His voice is coarse, as though it doesn’t get used enough.
“I—I don’t think I want to be Calla,” I say through a wall of emotion. “I don’t remember being her. Clover is me, it’s who I’ve fought to be. It’s?—”
“Your choice,” Grant says.
“Your father was a good man,” Agent Lamott says, grabbing my attention.
“You—you knew him?”
He casts a cautious smile my way. “We were…partners, of sorts. I worked the cases that rescued victims, while he—and eventually your mother—found places for them to heal. We…”He rubs roughly at his jaw. “We had no idea you were still alive. No idea what Terra was turning ROS into. Not until Vivian fell ill and finally tracked me down. She knew she was dying and needed help, but my work…it’s complicated. I’m not someone you can just call up and ask for.”
On wobbly legs, I sink into a chair on the far side of the room.
“I honestly have no idea how she did manage to track me down.” He chuckles sadly. “She was one determined mama bear when I finally agreed to meet her though. She used her connection to your parents to get help shutting down ROS, and then, years later, to find me, I suppose.”
The room is too quiet, and I find myself scanning the space for Valen.
He should be here for this. I want him here, but I won’t ask for him. Not yet. Not when he has so much of his own turmoil screwing with his mind right now.
I’m vaguely aware of my friends behind me. Of Grant and Roman, flanking the stranger as though they’re not completely sure they want to trust him.
