Page 27 of Tag
Another pause. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s alive.”
I watched her shoulders lift as she inhaled slowly—trying to steady herself.
“I’ll text you the address,” she said. “Please, Faron. Come.”
She hung up without waiting for more.
“He’ll meet us there,” she said, voice clipped. “We’re doing this as a family. I told him our mother died from cancer; he already hated her for leaving him and our father. He didn’t need to know she ran off and left me alone when I was thirteen.
Aponi
I stood on the front steps of the shelter, my hands sweating inside my gloves, heart hammering like I’d run ten blocks instead of driving five.
Tag stood to my right.
Faron pulled up in a black SUV, stepped out, and stalked toward me like a storm ready to break.
His face was unreadable. But his eyes—they were fire and pain and disbelief all wrapped into one.
“You said she died from cancer.”
“I lied.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, voice gravel-low.
I nodded. “Malik said her real name. Said she changed it. But it’s her.”
Faron’s jaw flexed. “Why the hell would she leave me first and then you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my throat tight. “But we’re going to find out.”
He looked at me for a long second.
Then pulled me into a hug so fierce it nearly broke me.
“I’ve got your back, Little Hawk,” he whispered.
I gripped his shirt and nodded against his chest.
We walked up the steps together—me, my brother, and the man I hadn’t let myself love until now.
The shelter’s front door buzzed open.
The woman behind the desk smiled. “You here to see Ms. Hartman?”
The last name hit me like a slap.
She’d taken her maiden name back. The same one I’d gotten rid of after everything.
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward. “Tell her that her daughter and son are here.”
22
Aponi
Ididn’t remember our walls ever being so white.
Sterile. Safe. Painted with peace and soft music. The kind of place designed to look like hope for the broken.
