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Elias
My mother stared at me from behind serious eyes as we stood together in a field of sunflowers. Sunflowers had always been her favorite flower.
She looked the same way she had the last time I’d seen her... the night she’d died. She wore a red and white sundress. Her dark brown hair was pinned into a bun that rested on the top of her head. And then there were her eyes. She had the same warm golden brown eyes as Mila.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” I asked after staring at her in disbelief for a few moments.
“Elias, you must get revenge,” she said softly.
She didn’t need to explain what type of revenge she was talking about, because I already knew. I needed to avenge my mother’s death. I needed to take down Natalia Farrow, once and for all.
“I know. I should have done it years ago,” I replied sadly.
“It’s not too late. How will you get revenge?” she asked.
“I-I don’t know. I need to come up with a plan.”
“You can’t wait any longer, Elias. You’ve already waited too long,” Mother insisted. “If you had done something to stop Natalia Farrow before now, Jax wouldn’t be in this predicament right now. He would be here.”
“I know,” I replied, darting my eyes away from her. I couldn’t help but blame myself for everything. My mother was right. If I had done something before now, then Jax would probably be here with us. He would be here with Camryn. Both of them would survive this.
But he wasn’t here. There was no knowing, for sure, if we were going to win this game or not. The outcome was uncertain, the future entirely unpredictable.
“You must start by telling the others,” Mother told me firmly. “It’s the only way, Elias. I know you’ve tried to protect them by keeping it a secret, but it’s time for you to tell them. You’re going to need their help.”
I swallowed hard. “I know.”
The truth was, it was something I had been thinking about a lot lately. My mother was right – I had wanted to shelter my family from knowing the truth. They didn’t know that our mother was dead, let alone that Natalia Farrow was the one who had killed her. It was a secret that I had kept from all of them for too long, a secret that I could no longer keep buried within me.
“They’re going to be mad at me,” I told my mother. “Once they realize that I’ve been keeping a secret like this from them for so long, they’re going to hate me. They’ll never be able to trust me again.”
“They will be mad at you. They might even hate you at first. But they will get past it. You’re family, Elias. Your brothers and your sister love you. They’ll understand, but you must tell them as soon as you can.”
I nodded. “I will.”
“Good. That’s the boy I raised.” My mother reached out and brushed a hand against my cheek.
“I miss you, Mother.”
“I miss you, too.” She smiled at me.
At that moment, I felt myself being shaken. My eyes fluttered open, and I found Alexander kneeling on the ground next to me.
“Elias, she’s gone!”
“That’s because it was a dream,” I whispered. Even though I knew that it had been a dream, I couldn’t help but think that it was real. In fact, I was pretty sure that it was real – that my mother had actually visited me in my dream to deliver the message she had given me.
Alexander just raised an eyebrow at me. “A dream? I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’m talking about Mila. Mila is gone. We need to find her.”
I bolted upright. “Mila’s gone?”
“Yes, and I’m pretty sure I know where she’s gone. Come on.” He began to lead the way.
Rising to my feet, I followed after him. He moved fast, like he was running some sort of marathon.
“Where do you think she is?” I asked once I had caught up to him.
“I think she tried to find my pack members,” Alexander explained, glancing over at me. “She kept asking me about them. She wanted to meet them. I told her she couldn’t, so I think she went looking for them on her own.”
“Why didn’t you just introduce her to them?” It annoyed me to know that this whole situation could have been diverted. If Alexander had just introduced Mila to his pack members, she wouldn’t have had to go sneaking off in the middle of the night to find them.
“Because I wanted to keep her as far away from them as possible,” he replied. “But it looks as though I may have failed.”
He began to run through the woods at lightning-like speed. I trailed behind him.
Once we reached the stone path that led to the Black River of Death, I grabbed Alexander’s shoulders and turned him to face me. “Why did you want to keep her as far away from your pack members as possible?”
What was it that he wasn’t telling me? What hadn’t he told Mila?
“My pack members...” Alexander trailed off, his jawline tightening. “They’re not good people. They used to be, but they’re not anymore. Being stuck here in Devil’s Falls and away from civilization for so long... It’s driven them mad.”
As the realization of what he was saying set in, I swallowed hard. “Do you think they’d actually do anything to hurt Mila?”
He looked me straight in the eyes. “There’s no telling what they would do.”