Page 65 of The Sin

Either way, it had the desired effect.

When she sent me off a short while later, I cycled through the streets of the Bohemian Quarter with the induction pledge I’d given years ago pounding like a drum in my chest.

To the Sisterhood of Capra

I pledge my honor and my loyalty and my daughters

From shadow to light

From ash to flight

United we shall rise

Sisters one and all

I was also thinking about that other thing Rose had said. The First Couple. Was it really a possibility? Were we on the cusp of restoring the future of mankind? I’d been raised to respect what we were aiming to achieve here in Capra, if not all the methods.

I wasn’t just a Sister of Capra, I was a daughter of Capra. The duty and purpose ingrained on my soul chipped away at me now, chipped away at the mutiny that had been building inside me with each new day and each new lie.

If we were a science experiment, should I still resent it so much…if it’s starting to yield results? What did that make me? Selfish? Weak?

I didn’t know.

But I didn’t entirely trust myself right now.

The Sisterhood was cautious, pragmatic and committed. They would work together to raise us all without blowing up the world and the progress Rose seemed to believe we’d made.

I was all over the place at the moment, volatile and reckless, overly emotional. What if I wrecked everything with one wrong move or a slip of the tongue to the wrong person?

20

The next stop on my morning of freedom was my mom. I’d heard everything Rose had said, but she didn’t understand. This wasn’t misplaced trust or a misspoken word. This was my mother, and she needed to know. I needed her to know. I desperately needed her perspective, her comfort, her courage and her wisdom.

As soon as I stepped through the door, Mom pulled me into a tight hug, wrapping me to her bosom like I was still her little girl. Her embrace was soft and strong. Not a contradiction, but a balance, just as she’d raised me to be a dutiful daughter of Capra with just enough fiery spirit to be a Sister of Capra, too.

“When your father told me not to expect you to come around for a couple of weeks…” She pulled out from the hug to look at me. “I didn’t know what to think.”

When a woman goes missing in Capra for a couple of weeks, our thoughts always went to one place only. Rehab.

“Roman would never allow that,” I said quickly, to clear the worry from her brow, but it was also the truth.

She looked at me another moment, and smiled. “You chose wisely.”

I didn’t.

I chose with reckless fury clouding all sensibility. All the rest was Roman. Just Roman.

“Come on,” she said, turning to walk through to the kitchen. “I’m reheating mushroom risotto for lunch.”

She didn’t press me about my disappearing act. That would come. That’s part of the reason I was here, to make sure of it. Now, however, as I sat at the table and watched her fuss around by the oven, Rose’s damn deck of cards hammered inside my skull.

I trusted Mom implicitly, that went without saying.

But I kept thinking about my own spectacular meltdowns, first in the tunnel and then at Julian Edgar’s dinner. The lies I so badly wanted to expose came with an horrendous emotional cost that wasn’t easy to contain.

I hadn’t been able to.

My parents had a close relationship, and I knew my father loved us both dearly, but he was not Roman. I liked to think he’d protect both my mom and me, if she broke down and all my secrets erupted. Ididthink he would, of course he would…but there was a small niggle of doubt as to what that protection might look like. My father was strong and kind and loving, but he also believed the best way to protect the women in his life was to make sure they never strayed outside the law.

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