I couldn’t help but laugh. "Scaring people isn’t exactly my idea of fun. But you? You’re a different story entirely. It’s been forever since I had your homade fruit juice I was actually starting to miss it. Is that why you’ve been avoiding ? You don’t want to make any?"
The ntion of fruit juice sent color rushing to her cheeks. "Don’t you dare bring up fruit juice! You’ve already stolen my son. Isn’t that enough?"
The Erald Dragon organization had all but crumbled, and with it, a Chapter none of us wanted to revisit. Yael the one the Blackwells had once sheltered like a secret had quietly returned to campus. He’d show up at the house with new toys he’d carved himself, each one placed into Everett and Everly’s hands like small offerings. He wasn’t as closed off as he used to be. All that talent had found an outlet he’d started livestreaming his carving sessions, face always hidden, hands always moving. I’d tune in sotis, more out of curiosity than anything else.
His streams pulled in tens of thousands of viewers. Mostly won, and the comnts were sothing else entirely.
"Kyah, your hands are perfect!"
"His voice is so calming!"
"Even without seeing his face, I’m pretty sure he’s got abs!"
"Ehehehe, please lift your shirt so I can screenshot your abs for my grandma. She’s never seen anything like that!"
"Sisters, this is the comnt section, not a wishing well! Hey cutie, I’m 56 years old with 30 years of cleaning experience. I make 450 dollars a month, can take care of kids and handle hard work. I’d love to date you not for your body, but to help clean your sculptures."
I lasted maybe three minutes before the comnts completely broke . If Lewis caught watching, he’d never let live it down he’d assu I was obsessed with so bodybuilder’s livestream and never believe the truth.
What nobody knew was that the man behind the screen was blissfully unaware of all of it. Simple. Unhurried. Completely untouched by the quiet chaos he caused just by existing. His hands were always busy carving figures, assembling little crafts, or on quiet afternoons when the world felt lighter, sitting with the kids while soft notes drifted from his flute. Our house had filled up with his creations. Every toy was more than a gift. Each one was a piece of him, shaped carefully and given without expectation.
Watching the kids play, my thoughts drifted, and before I could catch myself, the words were already out.
"Amber, have you heard anything about Vito?"
The worry had never really left . A year since she disappeared, and I still couldn’t let it go. Amber and Dominic exchanged one of those long, loaded looks before Amber spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. "We’re still looking. Sotis I wish we’d put a tracker on her, so we’d always know where she was."
Her words landed like a stone in still water. My chest tightened. I pulled in a slow breath and steadied myself. "Since you’re here for Jeffrey, go ahead and do what you ca to do. He asked us not to make a fuss. After today, there’s no need for visits."
Dominic shifted quietly beside her. He’d never directly hurt anyone in the Hale circle, but his history with Wisteria’s darkness clung to him like a shadow he couldn’t shake loose. "No," he said, his voice low and even. "He probably didn’t want to see us. It’s enough that we ca."
Amber let out a short, bitter sound. "I don’t want to see him either. If it weren’t for him, my sister wouldn’t have "
"Amber." I cut in gently. "This was Brynn’s doing. Jeffrey was a victim too."
Dominic sighed and looked sowhere past all of us. "Look around. Who here isn’t?"
He wasn’t wrong. The truth Lewis had eventually told was darker than anything I’d let myself imagine. How does soone choose cruelty so deliberately, so completely, without flinching?
I swallowed it down. "Amber," I said, steering us sowhere steadier, "the organization is falling apart. You’ve already helped dismantle so much of it. What cos next for you?"
She laughed hollow, distant. "Whatever life throws at us. Wherever my mate goes, I go."
It was nothing like the fierce, driven woman I’d once known. Sothing in Amber had quieted. The fire was still there, but banked low, settled into sothing more subdued. The change was impossible to miss.
I turned to Dominic. His expression carried the particular weight of a man who had long since stopped fighting what he couldn’t undo. "People like us don’t get normal lives," he said quietly. "We’ve protected a lot of people. But you can’t scrub the past clean. Not really."
I looked at them both for a long mont. "Yael just wants his parents to love him. You left him once already. Are you really going to do it again?"
The words settled between us and stayed there, unanswered.
..
The Hales finished their ceremony, and Lewis appeared through the quiet, pushing the kids in the stroller with that steady, unhurried presence he always carried. "Amber," he said, his voice warm as he nodded.
Her whole face changed the mont she saw Everett. She leaned down and cupped his small face in both hands, her smile going soft in a way I didn’t often see from her. She pinched his cheek gently. "Wow. He looks just like you. I missed all of this when you were a baby. I’m glad I didn’t miss it this ti."
"Amber, co ho with us," Lewis said, quiet and steady. "You’re family."
We had all been broken by the sa things. That was exactly why family mattered so much. Amber’s faults were small argunts, distance, the kind of friction that lives in any bond under pressure. Nothing unforgivable. But in the weight of everything we’d grieved, we’d overlooked sothing important: Lewis had been carrying the most.
He’d lost his mother too early. His father had always kept him at arm’s length, never offering the warmth a child deserves. Even now, with Jeffrey gone and everything being laid to rest, Lewis still hadn’t felt what it ant to have a father who chose him. Everyone saw his composure and called it strength. No one saw the hollow space beneath it. He wanted family the sa way the rest of us did maybe more.
Amber held his gaze for a long mont, sothing shifting behind her eyes as she saw what he wasn’t saying. Then she relented, her voice soft but dry. "Fine. I owe you. I’ll watch the kids for a while."
Lewis’s smile was quiet with relief. "Thank you."
We walked away together, easy in the way that only people who’ve survived the sa storms can be. Nobody looked back. Nobody noticed the woman who stepped out from behind the trees once we were gone.
She pulled her silver hood down and let it fall. Her face was wet, tears catching the moonlight in silver lines down her cheeks.
"Damn you, Jeffrey," she whispered, her voice cracking at the edges. "Even in death, you still think of her. Did you ever love ? Not even once?"
The wind moved through the trees. Nothing answered.
She sank to her knees, and the smile that crossed her face was the kind that hurt to carry bitter, final, turned inward. "I should go," she murmured. "Cross over, drink from the river of forgetting, and find the other side. If there’s a next life may we never et."
She took the wine from the tribute left behind and drank it slowly, deliberately, like a vow.
"I solemnly swear I do not want to see you, if there’s a next life."
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