“Yes! Because now he’s old enough to use his biosignature and unlock the secret I keep hidden here.” She pointed to her red-capped head. “It’s what the bad men want. When they found out about mom and dad’s legacy, they went after us. They thought I had it, but on the night of the attack, I gave it to my brother!”
Okay, so these people were after this Valrais Legacy.Fine. “Okay, let’s say”—and Aiden really hoped it would get him somewhere—“I believe you. Can you prove that any of what you say really happened?”
“I’ll show you!” she said and the world around Aidenglitched. Colors and shapes molded together in a head-spinning distortion and then he found himself in a dark room with fairy lights hanging on the walls. They did little to illuminate the space.
A boy with dark hair sat on the floor next to a bed, his knees tucked into his chest, and Sara was peering out of the half-closed door into an equally dark corridor, her small hand resting on the head of a golden retriever. It was the one from the photo with the ciphers, but before he could ask Sara about it, the dog barked and darted out of the room.
“Wait!” Sara shouted, but didn’t chase after it.
Just as Aiden thought about going after it, a loud bang reverberated through the entire building. His stomach squeezed, a sense of foreboding anticipation spreadingthrough him. Sara froze and the boy closed his eyes, covering his ears with his hands. Two more gunshots split the silence, followed by a pitiful whimper.
The bad men were here. The ones from the letters and Sara’s tale.
Tears rolled down the boy’s cheeks—whether for the dog or because he somehow knew what was about to happen—and then Sara was prying his hands from his ears, saying something as he opened his eyes. He shook his head and refused to listen at first, but she yanked him to his feet and cradled his face.
“Listen to me. You have to be strong, okay?” She smiled through tears and snot. She took off the capsule necklace she was wearing and placed it around the boy’s neck.
Aiden tried to speak, to warn them both, but he had no voice, no power to change the unfolding tragedy. He was simply a witness to it.
Sara dragged the boy over to a bookshelf and knocked on its side twice. A panel at the bottom of the wardrobe on their left opened, and she forced him inside, the space barely enough to fit him.
“Stay here and be quiet.” She kissed his forehead. “And whatever happens, don’t come out, okay?”
“Sara, I’m scared!” the boy whined, his voice shaky. “Please, stay! Don’t leave me alone!”
Something sad crossed over her face, but she shook it away and smiled. “They won’t find you here, I promise! But you have to be quiet.”
“No, Sara! Please, don’t go!” he cried, grabbing her sleeve. But she was bigger than him and all too easily slipped out of his hold.
The boy stared at his small hands, squeezing them into fists.
Aiden knew what was coming, a strange sense of loss pressing down on his chest. Sara was going to die here and her brother was going to live.
“Find the kids!” a gruff voice shouted from the corridor.
“Check all the rooms! They are here somewhere!” another one demanded.
Sara gasped and knocked on the bookshelf again, sealing the boy inside the wardrobe. “You have a mission now. You have to keep my necklace safe. Be strong. Don’t come out until the bad men are gone. And then find Uncle Liu, okay? He will take care of you. I love you.”
“Sara! Sara, please!” the boy begged her, clawing at the closing panel.
She graced him with a beaming smile and then she spoke her last words ever, a promise that Aiden knew would haunt the boy forever. “I will always be with you, even if you can’t see me.”
The men entered the room just as Sara moved from the wardrobe to the window. She yelled and thrashed as they grabbed her and dragged her away. It was hard to watch, so Aiden didn’t, instead focusing on her brother. He had shut his eyes and quietly sobbed a poem about a white raven and the man who saved it, pretending that he couldn’t hear the screams as the bad men took his sister from him.
Aiden gasped as he was torn out of the dark room, his heart pounding fast. The surroundings of the garden came tolife, but despite the sunny day and the pretty flowers and Sara’s beaming face, he couldn’t bring himself to smile.
“Sir Kesley, I’m sorry!” Sara said, scooting close to him and hugging his side. “Are you okay?”
He flinched. He wasn’t okay. What he’d seen, what he’d felt, unreal as it was in this made-up world, tore him apart. It shook him to his core. It changed something in him.
But even if he’d witnessed it with his own eyes, it could still be a fabricated lie Sara’s AI had fed him, so he’d agree to help her. So, as much as it pained him to ask her for actual proof, he had to. A tiny part of him hoped as he patted her head and told her he was okay, that she couldn’t give him that indisputable evidence. That none of what he’d experienced was real, because if it was, then he knew that the boy from the memory—Sara’s brother—still carried the loss inside him.
Just like he carried Claudia.
“Sara, I’m sorry. What happened to you and your family…” He took a deep breath, steading his voice. “It’s horrible. But, as much as I want to believe you, it doesn’t prove anything. I need something that you couldn’t have tampered with or faked. Do you… have anything like that?”
She pouted her lips and crossed her arms. “So, you don’t believe me, Sir Kesley!”
