Page 109 of Choosing Jenny
“Ah. I am not surprised you’re a councilmember. Justice wouldn’t let talent like yours sit idle. And the rest?” His eyes fell on Tiger. “You’re an Orne, aren’t you?”
Tiger smiled, though I could see the sorrow in his eyes for what was to come. “I am.”
I introduced them all. “This is Tiger Orne, Jenny Hollinger, Surge Footwick, and Discord Scrylock.”
“An Orne, a human, a half-size, and a Scrylock as my witnesses?” He chuckled. “I don’t know what I did to deserve such an honor, but thank Justice for me, would you? This is far more than I could have ever hoped for.”
Jenny blinked at him, her brows furrowing. “How are you so chipper about this?”
Buster shrugged, still smiling. “I have lived a long time, little human. I have done many things. When I lost the war, I knew this day would come eventually. I didn’t think I’d get sixteen years until my execution. Every day has been an unexpected bonus and gift and I have been far luckier than most in my position ever are.”
He stood up, and I had half-expected to see his tail wagging, he was so damned happy.
But there was no wagging tail. In fact, there was no tail at all.
My gaze caught on the clean line of his spine, and that strange absence of a tail. A cold prickle worked its way through my limbs, and my curiosity flared into something sharper.
“Did Justice have your tail lopped?” I asked, my voice sounding like gravel to my own ears.
He chuckled. “He would have enjoyed that, but no. I was born tailless, like my parents before me and my son after me.”
“You have a son?” Tiger asked guilessly. “Would you like us to get word to him?”
“You are too kind, Orne, but Justice took my son before he locked me away. I doubt he’s alive by now.” Buster’s smile faltered, a flash of grief bleeding through the edges. “I just hope his execution was fast.”
“How old was your son when Justice took him?” Jenny asked, undeterred by his assumption.
“Twelve. Old enough to remember me if he was still alive…but Justice told me my son would never remember who I was.Something about the palace magician stealing his memories. Some spell…” his voice trailed off quietly.
My knees weakened as the weight of sixteen years of questions threatened to crush me. The impossible thread of truth unraveled in my mind, faster than I could stop it. The missing tail. The age. The timeline. My memory loss.This can’t be…
Jenny glanced at me like she knew. Or suspected, as well, before she looked back at him. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
Buster sighed, true sadness overcoming him. “I always told my son, we do not stop in a storm. My father always said it to me. He was a sailor. For sixteen years, I’ve told myself my son and I will have a reunion on Halla one day.”
We do not stop in a storm.
My mind reeled and the breath left my lungs as everything I believed about who I was,what I was, shattered under that one, quiet revelation.
“Oh, screw this,” Surge muttered, seemingly coming to the same conclusion.
Before I could process what he intended, Surge slashed Buster’s forearm and then mine. I barely registered the pain, too stunned to speak. Too consumed with anger and agony and grief for everything I’d lost.
Surge licked our blood, and his eyes widened as he turned to the tailless man standing before us. “Buster,” he said, gesturing to me, “Meet your son.”
Buster stared at me like he was seeing a ghost, but I was the one who was haunted. Haunted by the past and the future Justice had stolen from me. By the years we’d lost. By the name I didn’t know was mine. My vision blurred, not from tears but from the sheer collapse of everything I thought I knew and the truth I’d been told that was a lie.
I had come here to end his life.
Instead, I found the beginning of mine.
CHAPTER 36
Tiger
“My son?” Buster stared at Mal and both of them looked as shocked as I felt.
“My father?” Mal whispered, his voice hoarse.
