Page 98 of Always Eros

“Mom. Dad. I need you both to come with me. It’s time to leave this place.”

“What?” Dad asks. “We can’t leave. It’s not allowed.”

“Dad…”

Eros is right next to me. “Your leader will be killed tonight,” he says calmly. “By morning there will be no more Nightsky. You must come with us to live.”

“Who are you?” Mom asks.

“He’s my boyfriend,” I blurt, then smile proudly. “Yeah. He’s my boyfriend.”

My dad stands, gripping my mom’s hand as he approaches us. “We can really leave?”

His question surprises me. “You want to?”

Mom sobs, pressing her forehead to my dad’s shoulder. Dad rubs her back.

“We’ve wanted to leave for years,” he says. “But we were threatened. If we didn’t keep you in line…” He shakes his head. “Death to us, to you, and…” He shifts his gaze to my mom.

“You have a little sister,” she says.

“What?”

“We had to provide a second child after you were caught…” She gives me a pained expression. “Oh my son. I’ve missed you so. I was so happy when you got away.”

“Really?”

“I hate to break this up,” Eros says, looking over his shoulder. “But we have to hurry this along.”

“Right. Let’s get you both out of here. Take anything important because we’re burning it down.”

My parents hustle, packing a couple of bags while me and Eros communicate with the surrounding rooms. Surprisingly, many of them are just as happy to leave as my parents. Apparently, there’s a lot more I didn’t know about this place.

“Your sister is in the children’s room for ten-year-olds,” my mom calls out to me.

“Okay. Let’s go get her.”

As we move into the hallway, people are screaming and rushing from one room to another. Children are being pushed along to the exits, and Raphael and Midnight are taking out guards and resistors left and right. It’s a mess, but a necessary one.

We get to the ten-year-old room, and there on a bed is a small, confused-looking girl with long black hair and big eyes who looks exactly like me. She starts crying as soon as she sees my parents, and as my dad scoops her into his arms, her eyes land on me.

“Hi. I’m your brother, Justice.”

She nods, her cheeks wet with tears. “I’m Destiny.”

I smile. “Yes, you are.”

Chapter Forty-Two

EROS

Now that Justice’s family is safely reunited and heading for the exits, I can focus my attention on helping the others get the children out, and there are many of them. I scoop up several of the smaller ones at a time, while Justice grabs two more, and we usher them to safety.

When we hit the front courtyard, two buildings in the distance are already burning as streams of people run towards us.

“How the fuck are we gonna transport all of these people?” Raphael mumbles, appearing next to me.

“Steal some buses?” Bowie offers.

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