Page 165 of Seeking Shadows

Her shoulders slump, the last shred of her strength seeming to slip away with those words. She’s lost, defeated, the mother who once hoped to shield her children now realizing she never stood a chance. And that realization, that surrender, fills the air between us like a suffocating fog.

I felt my heart break for them both. They had been through hell and back, and the weight of it crushed me.

“He wanted a pure heir,” Katie continued, her voice hollow, heavy with the pain of a life she never asked for. “Because his older brother didn’t consider him worthy of the cartel because he was a bastard. He used me for that.”

I looked at Mia, my heart aching for everything she had never known, for everything she had to carry alone.

How old was she when she had Seth and Mia?

“How old were you?” I ask.

Katie’s voice broke again. “Fourteen,” she whispered. “I had them when I was fourteen.”

It hit me like a punch to the gut. Mia just turned twenty-four, which meant Katie was no more than thirty-seven or thirty-eight now.

I turned to Mia, but her eyes were far away, lost in a storm of thoughts too heavy for her to carry alone. Her world was shattering, piece by piece.

Katie turned back to Mia, her eyes soft with a love that had never faded, no matter the years or the pain. "I love you, Mia," she whispered. "I love your brother too."

Mia’s voice was small, broken, when she asked, "Why didn’t you tell me One was alive before?"

“Because our head is not a safe place,” Katie replied, her voice thin with the weight of unspoken truths.

Mia’s eyes were wet now, but she refused to let herself break. "You said you would run away and find a way for us to leave. But you never intended to do that."

At that, Katie's eyes dropped to the floor, and she seemed to collapse in on herself, her shoulders heavy with the weight of everything she had failed to do. "At the time, I didn’t believe it was possible for us. But I see now… it’s possible for you. You need to go with it.”

Then she whispered, her voice breaking into pieces. "Nico didn’t stop trying, unfortunately fate was cruel to him, and took away my ability to have children after her."

“Her?” Mia asked softly.

Katie’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. "My baby. He has my baby."

She pointed toward the corner of the cell, but there was nothing there. Nothing except the filthy walls and the overwhelming sense of loss that hung in the air.

"She’s beautiful," Katie continued, her voice hollow, the love she felt for the child she could never have carrying every word. "Just like you when you were little."

Mia’s voice cracked as she tried to speak, her emotions too raw to keep inside. “Mom…”

But Katie wouldn’t let her finish. "Let’s get you out of here, come on, Mom," Mia insisted, her voice desperate.

"No!" Katie screamed, and her cry echoed through the hallway, sending a jolt of fear through me. "You’re not taking me away from my baby. No."

“Mia, I don’t think your mom is coming with us,” I said urgently, pulling her back toward the gap in the wall. "We need to go. Now. Or we’ll end up inside too."

Mia’s face crumpled with the weight of her pain. "No," she cried, tears streaming down her face. "She has to come."

I heard the footsteps before I saw the guards. Panic surged in my chest.

"It's just Number Twelve," one of them called. “She’s been louder since the dementia was discovered. Get someone to sedate her.”

The guard didn’t come any closer, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

"Dementia?" Mia whispered, her voice breaking even more.

“Mia, we need to go.” My voice was strained, but Mia was lost in her own thoughts, her heart breaking in ways I couldn’t even begin to understand.

"Mia!" I shouted. “They’re going to kill us!”

---