Page 64 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

“What?” I ask, feeling as if a bucket of cold water was thrown at me.

“You’re our home. All of ours.” He takes a deep breath then speaks again. “The moment you decided to give Crow and I and all the others a purpose in life. You became that to us whether you failed to realize it. We did not follow you just because we needed a job. We chose to follow you because you gave us something to fight for and through the years you gave us what we never had. A family and a home.”

Crack.

I feel a pang in my chest.

“Ver–” His name gets stuck in my throat and I have to look away before he sees me break.

“That boy too.”

That makes me look at him and our eyes lock.

“What do you think losing the first home he ever had will do to him?”

Azariel.

The hurt in my chest intensifies as I imagine a world where I am no longer here to take care of them. All of them. My sisters. My men. Azariel. Vitali.

“He won’t lose it. Azariel will have everything. You all will be okay. I promise you that.”

“But you don’t get it do you?” he spats, becoming angry now. “Home is not a building. Home is not money or power. Our home is this.’’ He then motions between us and I feel like my heart is about to fall out of my chest at any moment. “If you’re not here then what do we really have?” After he’s done, a deafening silence falls between us and I am left without words. All this time I’ve been fighting this internal war thinking that it’s just me against the world that I failed to see what I meant to my men. Do they know what they mean to me? Do they know that all I want in life is for all of them to be okay? For them to have all they didn’t as kids when they were on the streets fighting for their lives to see the next day? That all I do is for all of them?

“You’ll always have a home, Vernon. Please believe that.” I almost crumble when I see the six feet five tank of a man wiping away a tear. Lost boys.

I think back to that conversation I had with Vitali long ago in the cemetery where he told me about the dark side of Neverland. How the boys never got a chance to grow up and their innocence was taken from them.

You’re our home…

Vernon looks at me and I let him see on my face what my words fail to express. I’m not good at this but I found that actions speak louder than words. After a long minute that feels like an eternity, he nods once and then turns away in the opposite direction.

“Where is he? Where is Azariel?” I ask.

“Outside,” Vernon says over his shoulder before he takes a right and leaves me all alone with my thoughts.

I grew up thinking that it was better to be alone because if you had no one to care for then others couldn’t use it against you. That was a lesson I learned quickly with my sisters. Our father used my love for them against me so I distanced myself as much as I could to keep them safe from not only his abuse but from me. I was darkness when they were the most beautiful light. I didn’t want to dim that light with my pain so it was better that way.

Now I see I did the same with my men.

With Crow and Vernon and the rest.

A pain much worse than the one I felt yesterday hits me at once. Not physical pain but pains of the heart.

I knew this would happen if I let myself feel. I’m feeling the good and the bad and it hurts.

It won’t stop.

God, I never wanted to be like anyone else but at this moment I find myself wanting to be a little bit more like Vernon. Like my little sister, Mila. Emotions and words come so easily to them. They have no problem opening their hearts even when it’s been hurt. It has never come easy for me but I guess baby steps, right?

Taking a deep breath, I pull myself together before I go to find Azariel.

Walking in the opposite direction, I take a few turns and walk through the living room towards the glass doors that take me to the garden. Once there, I open the door and step outside but I don’t see Azariel anywhere. I noticed the grass is no longer wet after it rained non-stop the past two days. Walking the stone path, I pass the fountain and then a few bushes before I see him.

“Azariel…” I whisper almost like a prayer and as if the boy heard me those gray eyes that I’ve come to love so much lock on mine.

Yes, love.

There’s no denying it.

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