Page 69 of Teach Me How To Fly

I wanted everything to be a dream. A bad dream that I would wake up from soon, but I knew it couldn’t be possible because it was my new reality.

Maksen was Olivia’s son, the woman who took care of us when we were children. Why didn’t she raise him? What was actually happening?

“This was just a little detail for you to add to the entire story of your real life. The new real life that everyone has hidden from you.”

I pinned him with my eyes, trying so hard to find anything in his gaze, but there was nothing. It was a void, where madness was dancing with his demons and not with the answers I neededto find. I wanted to know what was going on in his mind, to understand what made him be like this.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

I wanted to be done with this. I couldn’t take it anymore. I fucking couldn’t. It was too much for me.

“Why did you do it?”

A strange light crept onto his face as if he truly realized what I was referring to.

“To get revenge on your father. You were his first child, even if you weren’t his by blood,” he answered, pinning me with his eyes in a way he hadn’t before. “I destroyed you because I knew that was how I was going to end him too.”

“Goodbye, Sylvian.”

I stood up from the chair and tried to keep in the tears that were getting ready to roll down my cheeks. I looked him in the eyes, and I hugged little Annalise inside of my mind, telling her that this man wasn’t going to do us any harm anymore.

She was safe now because I knew the truth, and with the truth on my side, I wouldn’t ever lose.

“Leaving so soon?” he said as I turned my back on him to leave the room.

“Yes. I got all the answers I needed.”

“I haven’t,” he replied, pinning me with his eyes and offering me a mischievous grin.

I looked at him, trying to understand what he meant by what he said, but as soon as he smiled at me, I knew something was coming.

“You promised me something, Annalisa,”

I smirked hearing his words. Now was my time to make him suffer. “How could you put your trust in me and think for a second that I would get you out of here?”

This time, his lips curved into a grin that sent shivers down my spine. He scared me to the bone.

“Because I know that your fear of me is greater than your ability to deceive me. If you fail to fulfill your promise, I’ll have another reason to escape this place, only to haunt you down, and when I return, Annalisa, you’ll need to learn how to count beyond six.”

I gulped, and the only thing I knew at that moment was how fast I turned on my heel and raised my right hand to have the door opened for me. The nurse opened it, and when I got past the threshold, I felt the warmth of Maksen’s arms, holding me tight, closer to his heart.

“I want to go home. Now.”

And he sighed deeply, placing a kiss on my forehead. I had to take control of my own life, even if that meant risking it too.

22

ANNALISE

Maksen held my hand during the whole trip back to my house. It was quiet and the only sound filling the car was our steady breaths. He didn’t push me to talk about what happened during the time I spent with Sylvian, and I appreciated that. He just kept holding my hand, hoping to take away the pain that didn’t even leave me.

No matter what he would’ve done, he couldn’t have changed a thing for me. I thought about everything Sylvian told me, and I couldn’t deny that it changed my life for good. If I ever thought that I was living a beautiful life, I was fucking wrong.

I wasn’t even mad at myself for only swearing in my mind because I had all the right to do it loudly, as everything around me was being destroyed.

The car stopped and I heard Maksen taking a deep breath in as I instantly opened the door and jumped out of the car. He followed me and the moment I turned on my heels to look him in the eyes, I saw the confusion creeping onto his face as my lips stretched into a soft smile.

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