Page 118 of Without a Trace
I stared down at the flickering candlelight between us, then lifted my glass. “Well. Here’s to being the chaos no one saw coming.”
Rhett clinked his glass against mine. “We saw it.”
I let the wine linger on my tongue, then looked up again. “So how long do I have before you stop pretending this is a vacation?”
Trace spoke first. “You’re not safe here.”
“I figured,” I said. “But why now? Why bring me? Why hide me with you?”
Alden answered, finally. “Because you were already in it, Scar. You just didn’t know yet.”
And there it was.
The truth that didn’t settle — it detonated.
I set my glass down. Smooth. Intentional. The weight of it matched the one tightening in my chest.
They watched me. But no one interrupted.
“Most of you have known me for years. You crashed my birthday parties. Slept on my couch. Acted like my friends. And through all of it… you kept this from me.”
I looked at Trace. “You trained me. You kissed me. And you still didn’t tell me.”
His stare didn’t waver. But it wasn’t defensive—it was resigned.
I turned to Alden. “You were there for everything. Every breakdown. Every night I thought I was going crazy. And you didn’t think I deserved to know the truth?”
Rhett shifted forward, elbows on the table like he wanted to fix it but didn’t know how.
Zeke finally spoke. “It wasn’t about trust.”
“No?” I shot back. “Because from where I’m sitting, it sure as hell looks like it.”
Trace’s voice came low. “We didn’t choose the rules.”
“And I didn’t choose this,” I snapped.
I stood, pushing my chair back without flinching. “So what am I to you? A liability? A loophole? Some prophecy no one wanted to deal with?”
Alden rose too. Not to challenge me. To face it.
“You were already in it,” he said. “Before any of us ever met you.”
I stared at him. “So I was born into thisthingand you still decided to keep me in the dark?”
Zeke’s voice cut in again. “We didn’t know everything.”
“But you knew enough.”
I let that sit, as I sat back down in my chair. Just long enough for the sting to land.
Then I reached for my wine again and raised it slightly. “Here’s to secrets.”
Rhett tapped his glass against mine. “And whatever the hell’s coming next.”
I didn’t drink. I held his gaze, then looked down the table at the rest of them—each one trying not to flinch, not to fold.
“I’m going to ask one more time,” I said. “And I want the truth. No deflections. No riddles. No more treating me like I can’t handle it.”
