By the time he finished, my jaw was locked so tight it hurt. I’d been in war zones. I’d seen death. But this? The six people in front of me were what was left over after cruelty and devastation had a playdate.
I made my decision. “You’re asking me to erase your past. You know what that means.”
Cassidy nods. “Yes, but I don’t remember anything so it’s different for me.”
I exhaled slowly. “The rest of you? Are you certain you want to do this?”
“I do,” Corinna–a curvaceous beauty with caramel-colored hair says. “It means no past. No looking back.”
Holly, the camera-clutching red-head, tacks on, “No one coming after us.”
The protector in me—the part that never learned how to stand down—rose up hard and fast. “You’re young. Too young to carry this alone.”
Phil murmurs, “We were too young to live the lives we already did.”
That did it.
I stood, walked around the desk, and stopped in front of them. Six strangers. Six survivors. Six kids who’d been failed by every adult who should’ve known better.
“I can do what you’re asking,” I said. “But understand this. I won't walk away.”
They exchanged glances, uncertainty and confusion flickering between them.
“I protect them. That means if someone comes looking for you, they’ll have to go through me first.”
Phil doesn’t hesitate. “Good.”
I study them for a long moment, then nod once.
Their shoulders sag collectively—not in defeat, but relief.
As they filed out later, clutching onto the fragile beginnings of safety, I returned to my chair and stared at the empty doorway.
I made a vow that day. Not out loud. But deep inside where it rewired something permanent in my chest. I would be the wall between them and the world that hurt them. I would protect them—not until it was convenient, not until they stopped needing it.
But forever.
I didn’t know then how completely I would be folded into their lives, how easily the wordkidswould slip from my mouth when referring to them and feel like the truth.
I couldn’t know that loving them would open the door to a kind of love capable of finishing what the rest of my life had left undone.
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT
We turnand my pulse trips over itself like it’s trying to find an escape hatch. Unfortunately, the truck is moving far too fast, despite the snow crunching beneath the tires. The sound of the wind as we drive is loud in the cab, echoing the rate of my pulse as I spy a white picket fence in the distance.
This is really happening.
On Twelfth Night, no less.
A night that has been diluted to nothing more than a Shakespearean play or an evening to plan the methodicaldisposal of plastic tinsel. It’s astounding to think it was once the second biggest night in the holiday season next to Christmas Day.
As an associate professor of history, I studied the traditions of Twelfth Night and recall reading treatises about how celebrations of this magical day involved bonfires in fields and pranksters would spill levity in their villages. While it was once called the Feast of Fools, Twelfth Night marked the end of festive celebrations before the day of Epiphany.
It’s so fitting tonight is the night I’m meeting his family, I think to myself. On the night before the conclusion of the Christmas season, I would know if they blessed our relationship much like the tale of the Magi. It’s also why I decided to leave my tree and decorations up until Candlemas.
I have a feeling I’m going to need all the blessings I can get.
