CHAPTER 81

CHAPTER 81
The words hung between us and the quite air felt so loud at the same time. “He was never my brother.”

Dan’s voice was soft and low when he said these words but there were stern enough that I collected my thoughts for a second unable to speak.

I straightened up, Sigurd’s heat pressed against my chest. 

“When did you know that he was never your brother? Even if that is, so you will leave him to bleed out to death out there?”

Dan didn’t answer. His jaw worked, muscles ticking. Victoria looked between us like she was calculating the odds of how the conversation will go.

“Enough,” she said finally. “Arguing won’t find Tyson.” She grabbed her keys off the counter. 

“Lila, stay here with the baby. Em, you’re with me. Dan, Luca you are also coming with.”

Luca didn’t move from the armchair. He just stared at his hands, scrubbing at the dark stains like he could erase them. 

“There’s nothing to find. I walked away. I left him.” Dan crossed to him in two strides and hauled him up by the shirt. 

For a second I thought he’d hit him for leaving Tyson out there alone. Instead he pressed their foreheads together. Well that is disappointing, I thought maybe the thought of his brother’s death could make him feel something.

“You didn’t leave him, you weren’t thinking straight. And we’re going to find him, alive.”

Dan’s words cracked something in Luca’s mind because he nodded, once, and let Dan drag him toward the door.

I shifted Sigurd to one arm and grabbed my jacket. The flame on his finger snuffed out as I zipped it up. “I’m coming.”

“No,” Dan said, without looking at me. “It’s not safe.”

“Neither is staying here with Elias clouding minds and hunting us,” I shot back. 

“You don’t get to decide what’s safe for me. Not after deciding Tyson’s fate in your head.” I said looking at him.

He finally turned. His eyes weren’t gold this time. They were human, tired and scared.

“If I lose you too, Emerald…”He didn’t finish.

Victoria broke the moment. “We can have this conversation in the driveway.”

I turned around to look at Lila and for a second my mind didn’t allow me to hand over my baby to some stranger.

“I don’t think I will be coming with you, guys.” I said still looking at Lila who was now looking at me with wide eyes. “Good.” Dan said and immediately turned around to leave.

He probably knows why I am saying this. “Or I am coming and I am bring Sigurd with.”

“Emerald you can’t be outside at this hour with a baby on your arms.” Dan said looking at me with a stern look. 

“I will stay in the car, I don’t want to stay here. I’m scared.”I said the last part, he sighed and nodded before walking out the door. I inwardly clapped for myself for being able to calm him down.

The night air hit like ice. Flashlights swept through the trees at the edge of our property, blue and red seeping through the branches. 

We drove in silence. Victoria, Lila and me in the back with Sigurd. Dan and Luca in Dan’s truck ahead, headlights cutting through the dark toward where Luca said the car had gone off the road.

Every bump in the dirt road felt like a countdown. My heart hammered against Sigurd’s tiny back. What if Tyson is dead?What if Elias really caused the crash?

Dan’s voice crackled through Victoria’s phone: “I found tire marks. Going off the cliff side, I haven’t seen a car yet.”

Luca’s voice followed, hoarse: “I remember the tree. It was split down the middle.”

Victoria glanced at me, her face pale. “Elias,” she mouthed.

Sigurd stirred and let out a soft cry. I softly patted his back trying to get him to false asleep. He hasn’t taken a nap the whole
day.

The air in the car suddenly got warmer. On his finger, a spark jumped to life and floated for a second before dying.

I pulled him closer. “We’re not giving him up,” I whispered, echoing Dan’s words from earlier. 

“We need to come up with a way to stop this, this baby is too young for this. Who knows what it could do to him?” Lila said with a shaky voice.

“There’s nothing we can do, and you out of all people can’t say that. When you chose to walk out of your baby’s life because she had the same gift.” She immediately looked away, cowered back into her seat.

Up ahead, Dan’s truck stopped. He jumped out before it fully halted, running toward the treeline with Luca right behind him. 

Victoria killed the engine. “Stay in the car,” she ordered Lila and me. 

But I was already unbuckling. I wasn’t going to lie to myself anymore. I needed to see what was at the bottom of that cliff.