Epilogue

 

Melissa sat in the common room of the village cell house, her hands clasped in her lap, trying to still a slight tremour—the only sign that she was nervous.

Nick peered at her through the door to the stairs, the only other visible occupant of the house.

Richard stood outside, on the front step. The air had cooled considerably after the storm, as though the pounding rain had robbed summer of its fuel. He looked over the ridge to the bay, sparkling beyond the village in a clear, glorious day.

He wanted to be happy.

Certainly it was a day for it.

And the central event of the day—introducing Melissa to the rest of the cell she was going to call home—was a happy one. She had not wanted to meet them right away. Her own struggle had not ended with her realization, in April’s cave, that she could not side with the hive. She had needed time, and space, and asked for it.

Today, they had planned her introduction to the cell in a way that would allow her to bond with each one individually and to know their forgiveness, one by one. They had vacated the house before Richard brought her here, and they would come, one at a time, to sit with her and welcome her.

At least, most of them would.

He smiled faintly at the sight of Mary coming up the road. She carried herself a little differently now—with even greater dignity, if that were possible. Her journey into David’s heart had both exposed and absolved her of guilt.

They had delivered David back to jail, along with Clint—though it was unlikely that the police would be able to connect the old, broken man brought to them by the Oneness with the young man they had charged. Alex was in juvenile detention. With Clint stripped of his power, at least temporarily, and David betrayed by the demons he had tried to control, Richard was confident that the hive had been destroyed.

Mary walked straight up to him when she arrived. He smiled at her.

“It’s good to watch you coming up that hill,” he said. “Like a million times before. Like nothing has really changed.”

She nodded, and looked toward the house. “I can feel her presence. I’m glad you talked her into coming.”

“She didn’t need much talking into. Just a little time.”

Mary smiled again, gently, and pushed her way through the door.

He knew she could read his heart—the reasons he couldn’t quite be happy today, no matter how much the sun sparkled on the bay, and no matter how much they had won an impossible fight.

Two reasons:

That Melissa had come home, yes, but she had come home to die.

And that Reese had not come home at all.

It had been a week. There was no sign of her, no message, no reaching out. They tried to connect with her through the Spirit, but she was, he suspected, deliberately avoiding them. He was glad Tyler was with her.

Less glad that as far as he knew, so was Jacob.

Their one-time exile had gone renegade, and he did not know why or when she would be back.

“Godspeed, Reese,” he whispered, listening to the murmur of voices inside as Mary greeted Melissa and the reconciliation began.

His eyes strayed to the cliff where Chris’s cottage was, where the boys had brought Reese after they pulled her out of the sea. He knew Chris was up there, packing his new truck—bought with insurance after the wreck of the old one—to go after her.

Richard wished him godspeed, too, and a homecoming to the Oneness of his own.

 

The Oneness Cyle continues in Book 4: Renegade