Page 47 of Shattered Home

I had no clue where Warner was, but I didn’t worry about him. He knew how to take care of himself. Although, I did begin to worry when I also didn’t spot Rainer.

“What happened to you?” His voice startled me and I rolled my body, sitting up. He was sitting at my back, his gun tucked in his lap and his stare stuck on the dried blood on my legs.

Covering the wounds with my hands as best as I could, I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

And that was the truth. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Aiden, and I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone else. I didn’t want to relive that night.

“I wanted to come after you,” Rainer spoke quietly, his words harsh, as if he hated them as they left his lips.

“You needed to stay here and protect the rest of them.”

Rainer glanced up at me then, so much pain in his midnight blue gaze. He pressed his lips together, his brows furrowing. His mouth opened once, twice, as if he was struggling to say something.

And then, instead of speaking, he did the last thing I would have ever expected, and pulled me tightly into his arms. His face burrowed into my hair, my own finding the crook of his neck. I didn’t know how long the two of us sat there in each other’s embrace, the beat of his heart soothing against mine.

Eventually, he pulled back, turning his head so I couldn’t meet his stare. I knew it was on purpose. That he was hiding whatever he was feeling from me. But that was okay; there were a lot of things all of us were hiding from each other.

“Murphy blames himself,” Rainer spoke, gazing at his best friend. “He fell asleep on watch that night. I haven’t recognized him the past few weeks.”

The statement shocked me and I found myself glancing toward Murphy as well, looking at him with scrutiny. He smiled at something Sasha said, but the grin didn’t encompass his face. It could have been the moonlight, but there was a shadow in his eyes I didn’t recognize.

“I’ve tried to be there for him,” Rainer continued, and I wondered why he was telling me this. Until he turned and finally met my gaze, too many emotions in them for me to pinpoint even one. “But I realized I’m no longer the one he needs. He needed you.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ifell in and out of sleep the rest of the night, waking fully when the sun dusted the sky pink. Birds chirped in the woods and it was hard for me to believe that the woods I once was so desperate to leave now felt like salvation.

The others were still sleeping, aside from Warner, who was taking a shift as guard. When our eyes connected, he smirked with a nod, immediately going back to scanning the area. On the other side of the clearing, Emmanuel was up and gathering the fishing gear.

Without thinking twice, I fell back into the familiar routine and prepared to fish. Emmanuel didn’t seem surprised by my companionship and handed me a line of my own. The two of us crept silently through the woods, the sound of rushing water closing in on us.

Hooking a lure to my line like he had taught me, I cast into the water, standing close to him. This was my opportunity to ask him questions, and yet I didn’t know where to start. Surprisingly, Emmanuel was the first one to speak.

“I want to thank you again for keeping my children safe. Part of us thought we’d never see them again.”

His words were so heartfelt, so open, so different from the gruff and quiet man I was used to. Because of this, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Did you know my father?”

Emmanuel didn’t seem shocked by my question, his wise brown eyes knowing. “I did.”

“Did you recognize me?”

Emmanuel cast his line again before responding, turning his body my way. “Not at first. But, eventually, yes. Your brother looks exactly like him.”

I smiled slightly at that. I had always looked more similar to Mom, but Alex and Aiden were nearly a copy of Dad.

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why keep it a secret?”

Emmanuel sighed like he knew I wouldn’t stop asking questions now that I had a glimpse of an answer. “Your father and I worked in the same department at the university. However, I wasn’t a professor, I solely worked in the research department.” He paused, reeling in a fish he had caught. “Were you familiar with your dad’s work?”

Shrugging, I looked at my empty line, pulling it back in to recast. Guess I didn’t magically get better at fishing. “Not really. I know he focused on space rocks.”

Emmanuel chuckled. “That’s one way to put it. We tracked meteoroids and asteroids, trying to decipher any patterns and also their location to Earth’s atmosphere. A year ago, we stumbled upon a large meteoroid. We began tracking its path. Not even a few weeks later, the government raided our department, taking all the information we had gathered.”

“But why? Why did they care about your research?”

He didn’t mince his next words, although I wished he had. “Because Alessia, the meteoroid is going to destroy the Earth.”

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