were supposed to love her.
But this didn’t feel like love.
The narrow peaks of distant pine trees pierced the sun as it drained golden orange into the horizon.
Someone had to tell her the truth.
The truth was a funny thing. Like a pond during winter. Safe, stable. Until it wasn’t. And the ground tumbled away, dropping you into an existence so cold the maw of death could look like a refuge.
Elodie wouldn’t wait around for anymore of Gwen’s truths. She had her own to determine. And from now on, Elodie would make sure her feet were always on solid ground.
Quickly, Elodie stripped out of her scrubs and pulled on her favorite pair of black leggings and a cotton tee before stuffing her feet into her tennis shoes. She shoved aside the row of rocks she’d collected on the banks of the Columbia and climbed onto the windowsill. She studied the tree’s broad limbs, her cheeks puffing as she inhaled a large, contemplative breath and let it out slowly.
Violet Jasmin Royale would do it. Vi would leap out, spring-loaded, shimmy down the big magnolia, and be gone, vanish, never to be heard from again.
Elodie flexed her fingers and reached out. She grabbed the fat tree limb and pushed off the windowsill. Air squished out of her torso in a wheeze as her stomach hit the massive branch.
Not quite spring-loaded, but a leap toward freedom, however temporary.
Elodie swung her leg over and straddled the branch before shimmying backward down its sharp pitch toward the trunk. She winced as the rough bark clawed through her leggings.
She should have climbed more trees when she was younger. She should have climbed any trees when she was younger.
The trunk met her back, and she peered over the branch she straddled. When she’d looked up toward her window from the ground, the first of the tree’s many branches had never looked this high. But now, sitting on top of it, she was pretty sure she was fifty feet in the air.
You’re naïve, Elodie, and I’m trying to protect you.
She huffed.
“Your eyes are five and a half feet higher than your feet, so it’s not actually as far as it seems. Stop scaring yourself and jump off the damn thing.” Without another thought, she did just that.
Pain flared for an instant as her ankles complained, but she stuck the landing.
Elodie didn’t give the nagging echo of her mother a chance to pull her back to the house. Instead, she jogged down the street along the same path she took every morning. The familiarity of the walkway and each house lining up between her and Gwen buffered a bit of the pain, but her mother’s words were branded across her flesh, and no amount of I love yous would buff away the scars.
No one looked up as she leapt through the closing doors onto the MAX and skidded to a stop in the middle of the train car. Bursts of purple light from the other passengers bobbed around her. She looked at the button on her cuff.
Elodie had left the house without putting her shield up.
Blair didn’t look up from her holopad when Maxine entered her office. She continued to scroll through the mind-numbing bar graphs and various inpatient, outpatient statistics as her faithful assistant stood quietly, calmly, respectfully in front of the onyx desk.
Bored with testing Maxine’s unwavering resolve, Blair tapped off her holopad. “You have exciting news, I hope. My last few hours have been supremely dull.”
Maxine’s features smoothed into an unreadable mask. The girl was actually quite pretty—which would serve them both well. “It’s about your brother.”
Bad news, Blair suspected, shaking back her curly mane. Good thing she could weather any storm.
Maxine flipped up her holopad, glanced at it quickly, and set it back against her hip. She nodded tightly before continuing. “I know you want him to be reassigned as an entry-level Key Corp soldier, but I am having trouble. The highest chain-of-command level I’ve been able to reach is just a standard anybody officer. Anyone with a higher title just referred me to one of the peons I had already spoken to. I’m sure I could gain a bit more traction if I told them this is for you—but I won’t.” Maxine’s cheeks reddened as she let out a tight sigh. “I’ve exhausted all avenues, though. Without the truth, that is, and I refuse to tell the truth.”
Blair settled back into her seat.
Maxine, my faithful little monster.
It was nice not being the one who ran around