I knew the house was being watched; Kiran said so, but I couldn't be afraid anymore. I wasn't hiding, and my mission wasn't a secret. If Lucan wanted to watch my aunt work emergency surgery at the hospital and me open the refrigerator and devour everything in it, then he was more than welcomed to.
I opened the door with magic, stumbling inside and holding it open for Lilly. I was so grateful that she was back; I finally had someone I could open up to and would take equally as long to get ready.
We talked almost the entire flight home. We continued to discuss our hopes for the kingdom, and what it would be like if we actually became in charge one day. I told her about Jericho and how something had started to blossom between us. She opened up about the prisons and how truly awful it was for her. Between us, every topic was exhausted.
It was odd to watch her fly a plane. Although s wasn't hurt in any way, she was incredibly thin after her captivity, and extremely exhausted. I was surprised she was able to keep up with my conversation. By the time we landed in Omaha, I thought surely she would have slipped into a coma.
I didn't have many nice things to say about Talbott, but if fatigue was her only ailment then I could forgive him some of his faults. She held to her position that she was only using him for security, which apparently worked, because he ensured that she was cared for from day one of her captivity and visited her with every chance he got.
She admitted his attention made no sense, and tried to pretend indifference, but she appreciated his generosity and was thankful he was around to take care of her as much as he was. She was too sweet to hold anything like opposite sides of the war, or he was my mortal enemy's personal bodyguard, against him and I had to laugh at that. She tried to tell me that Kiran was actually encouraging Talbott to visit her, but I brushed it off, assuming the facts of the story were coming from Talbott. Kiran was playing the same song, more manipulations, more lies.
She didn't know how anyone else was doing. The first time she survived prison, she actually stayed with the other prisoners. This time, Lucan ordered them to all remain separate, so what was happening to everyone else was a mystery. That information was the hardest to accept, no one else had a Talbott to look after them. My memory instantly reminded me of what Avalon looked like when we found him and I couldn't help but worry that everyone else was suffering the same fate.
I knew that Jericho set up camp at Amory's house, or thanks to my inheritance.... my house. But I needed my own room, my own bed. And, I needed Aunt Syl.
I dropped my backpack on the floor in the entryway, deciding that I was home and didn't have to worry about putting my things away just yet. Nobody knew we were here. I thought about calling Jericho just to let him know that we were safe and that everything was fine, but I couldn't find the strength. He wouldn't be in Omaha yet anyway. If everything went according to plan, he would arrive with the South Africa team and everyone else, tomorrow night.
By the time I closed and locked the front door, Lilly had kicked off her shoes and said goodnight to the world. She collapsed onto the couch and covered herself with a blanket. I got the feeling she wasn't planning on moving for a very long time.
I wandered into the kitchen, hoping for something to eat. I didn't really have an appetite, but my stomach hurt and I was hoping food would satisfy it. I rummaged through the kitchen, but on her own Aunt Syl wasn't much for well-balanced, homemade meals. There were a few cartons of stale fried rice, and an expired gallon of milk, but that was it.
I closed the refrigerator door again and leaned back against it. Now that I was home, I didn't really know what to do. It felt good to be here, relaxing and de-stressing, but still, my life had been so crazy the last several weeks. I was constantly moving from one thing to the next, flying across the world and fighting bad guys, that now the normalcy of home was disconcerting.
I checked on Lilly to see if she wanted a glass of water, but she was already asleep. She lay curled up in a ball, her breathing deep and heavy and her red, curly hair, shining even in the darkness, even after all that she went through.
The garage door opened in the kitchen and I turned to greet Aunt Syl, so thankful to see her. She stood in the doorway, half in shock. Her dirty, blonde hair pulled into a ponytail she was dressed in her work scrubs. Tears had already begun to spill from her eyes and her shoulders were shaking with the gentle sobbing of the truly relieved.
“I saw the light on, but I couldn't even hope that it was you,” she whispered and I moved across the kitchen as a lost child would to the mother that found her.
She opened her arms and I knocked the wind out of her, crashing into her and throwing my arms around her waist. I couldn't stop the tears then, she didn't try to pull away or even stop crying herself. Together we stood, hugging one another, finding solace in each other's sadness.
“I've been so worried about you, and Angelica hadn't heard anything. I just, I just wondered if I would ever see you again,” she sobbed into my hair.
“Ugh,” I grunted, wiping at my nose with the back of my sleeve. “I felt the same way; I just had to come home.”
“I'm so glad that you did!” She hugged me tighter, and I wondered if she would ever let go. I was not going to be the first to pull away.
“Lilly's here,” I mumbled into her scrubs.
“Lilly?” Aunt Syl exclaimed, pulling away to make sure I was serious. “How? Where? How?” She repeated, the tears pooling in her eyes all over again.
“I just picked her up, she's sleeping on the couch,” I gestured towards the living room, sharing Aunt Syl's joy.
“Ok, tell me everything!” She patted my shoulder and started moving around the kitchen, getting the coffee pot ready. “I want to know it all!” She pushed me towards the tall chairs at the island and I sat down heavily. This was going to take a while.
Aunt Syl poured coffee and I shared everything with her from start to finish. I told her about Silas, how he had agreed to help and then sent me to Gabriel. I told her all of the details about getting Jericho back and flying in Gabriel's tiny plane to France. I told her about finding Avalon's team and that they were using Mr. Lambert's apartment as a safe-house, which was weird. I told her about Sebastian and how I started to think he wasn't such a bad guy. I opened up completely, telling her about the deal we made and that my part of it was to kill him at the end of all of this. I told her about his mother and how she begged me to keep him safe, and how it broke my heart even though she was my enemy. I shared what it was like seeing Kiran for the first time, and what it was like to have to look at him while he was dying, and how that broke my heart. And because it broke my heart, I felt even worse because I thought I should have absolutely no feelings for him. I told her how I failed that mission and just barely escaped, and then about India and how I found Avalon and healed him, but then lost him again in the explosion. I told her about all of the accumulated magic that was making me go crazy and then about Kiran again and the tent in Morocco and how I just barely got Lilly and I out of there.
I opened up to her more than I could have with anyone else, giving her every detail, every emotion and every tear that I had. She cried with me, laughed with me, and cried with me again. She listened carefully, only asking questions when she absolutely had to, and held my hand during the most difficult parts. She was therapy. She was everything I needed to heal.
“Oh, Eden, I am so sorry you had to go through any of that,” she sighed at the end of my story. “It doesn't seem fair.”
I smiled my bravest smile, knowing that it wasn't fair. I should never have lost my grandfather and my brother and then been propelled into a war I wanted nothing to do with for so long. I should never have had to figure out leading an entire rebellion in only a few weeks, failing at every turn and losing my brother all over again.
Nevertheless this was life. I could wish that life was fair and that things were different, but this is what it was and I was determined to make the best of it. I needed to move forward, and fight the battles put in front of me and cherish the friendships that surrounded me.
“What about Kiran? What are you going to do about him?” She asked carefully, her brow furrowed the deepest with stories about him and I could see the concern etched in her eyes even now.
“I don't know,” I mumbled, gloomily. “I'll probably have to kill him. I hate him, I really do. I hate what he did to my family and to me, how he took away my choice, and how even now selfishness consumes him. But, what I hate the most is this feeling I have whenever we're together! This whole thing isn't even about us, or him.... I mean, it doesn't have anything to do with him, but those are the thoughts I spend my time thinking about. I want to know how I can get away from him, when I should be trying to figure out how to kill him for the good of my people. Which, by the way, I feel like I shouldn't ever have to see him, we're on completely different sides of the war and I keep threatening to kill him, but then I keep running in to him and forgetting my purpose!” I whined, folding my arms with frustration.
“Oh, Eden,” Aunt Syl breathed, pulling me into another hug. “Dearest, your feelings for Kiran aren't just going to disappear overnight, no matter how he betrayed you and especially just because you're not fighting a war that revolves around your relationship. What you shared with him was something deeper than just a crush, really it was deeper than how most people love each other. And you loved each other despite everything that was against you. That builds something that establishes a pattern so that even still, everything is against you and your love is still fighting.”
I sniffled in her arms, realizing she was right. “So what do I do about it?”
“I don't know, dear,” she said thoughtfully, “but I don't think doing nothing about it is working. Maybe you have to choose to accept those feelings, but also decide to move forward, as you said. Don't forget about him, maybe don't even hate him, just know that that part of your life is over and it's time to move on.”
“I can do that, I think,” I agreed, sitting up straighter. I felt better just telling the story, just saying how I felt aloud; so maybe Aunt Syl was right. Instead of running from Kiran and my fears, I would face them, confront them and then conquer them.
“And for right now, just focus on getting Avalon back, hmmm? Everything else will fall into place when the time is right.” She patted my knee and stood up to stretch. The sun was starting to rise outside and the coffee was wearing off. I stretched too, yawning widely.
“I am so ready for my own bed!” I sighed, and we walked up the stairs together. Lilly was still conked out on the couch.
Eventually, I would have to face my real parents. They were here, just across town. I came home to devise a strategy with them, at some point I would have to meet them. But for right now, I wanted to go to bed, knowing Aunt Syl was just down the hallway, and to breathe in deeply the house I grew up in, my real home, with the woman who raised me.
----
I reached out in sleep, my hands coming away with fistfuls of sand. I sat up quickly, searching out my blankets, my bed, my pillows, anything. But they were all gone. I was in the middle of the desert, surrounded by sand dunes that rolled across countries.