Chapter 345: 1-3

“There’s a library here? Do you want to go there?” Oakley asked bringing me back; I slowly stepped out of his room pulling Tony with me. “If you want,” I heard Kieran answer shocked, I knew he didn’t know how to read; but I went back the way we came silently leaving this house for the second time today. But this time, was slightly different because I had more facts, more answers. “I don’t think we can hold onto memories Tony,” I said as we walked home, each deep in our own thoughts, “He’s – Kieran isn’t a little boy, we won’t get him back, we just have to make new memories…” I said nodding to myself, thinking of the dirtied blanket he brought down with him right now. He doesn’t remember so much, but what he did remember, he was holding onto it. “We are the reason it’s so strained, we want him to remember what we were to him, but she doesn’t…” he stopped walking, “Who?” “Oakley,” I said her name with no real resentment, just honesty, “They fucked with our son and his memories… he doesn’t remember us, but we keep trying to bring him back. But you know what I just realized? To make him remember us, we force him to recollect what was done to him, we don’t know exactly what happened…” . . . Chelsea POV While the others in the room seemed to be here for protection, their eyes filled with caution, I did not read that from Marlon. Disappointment. Betrayal. Philip however didn’t note that, he was still spewing, “You have to be willing to give up your true mate for them, I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t so we had to go on the run, I had to disappear, and Judy came with me. Two years later she was pregnant and Jason found us, saved us. We – I couldn’t let you know who I was, you’d send me back, I had my family to worry about,” he said to Marlon, more than to Gabriel and I. “She innocent in all of this, I swear,” he waved his hands about turning to Gabriel finally, “I’ll tell you anything you want – all of what I know and I can remember and I have with me,” he backed away, running to the couch in his sitting area, turning it over slowly, ripping the bottom of the couch off and reaching in, “hey – hey-” Gabriel shouted, turning his gun back on Judy, “No – No it’s information I took with me,” he pulled his hand out from inside the couch lifting them in the air. Nonno lowered his gun as he went to the couch, dipping his hand and coming back with a small bag. Opening it, he held out documents, as thick as his finger and then three floppy disks. I snorted, floppy disks? To my left Logan appeared, startled I took a step back, he took in the room, before his eyes fell on Judy who was cradling her ankle, the shot removed, blood saturating the floor and her pants, but she had her lips held tightly in her mouth. Tears dripping down her face, she was hurt but at the moment, it wasn’t even directed at Gabriel and he was the one that shot her, no Judy was looking at Philip. He worked with those – those monsters? Her mind was reeling in everything, memory after memory, hurt building worse, when I realized just what was bothering her, “Seventeen years together… you knew what those Elders did to my family, you – you were one of them? How did you – you hid that from me?” her words laced with hate, anger and just sheer pain, that was nothing compared to her gun wound. But she wasn’t the only one feeling that way, Marlon felt it as well, hiding out here as though he were one of them here on the island, people that had to walk away from their home and family and hide from the Elders, when in reality Philip Pascal? He was running from those he once helped hiding with those like the people he hurt… “We ran facial recognition on your face…” I blurted out, “We didn’t find anything – nothing!” he looked from his mate, I’m sorry; I’m so sorry Judy. His eyes pained, “As an Unseen they do everything in their power to never have anything trace back to you, nothing about you is changed, you kill someone, it’s already taken care of before you make it to the place they told you to call home.” “Who takes the blame if caught?” Gabriel asked, lowering his gun, while the others still had their pointed. “Humans…” the Devotees, Philip answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The Elders keep track of wrong doings, of everyone. Pictures, recordings, and when the time is right, they give humans options. Everyone finds out what they have on you, or you take the fall for something, you have a debt that needs to be settled so your family is left alone? They will settle it for you…” “As a Unseen though, you can’t have anything to hold you back, no family, no friends, nothing… if they tell you to have children and settle down, they expect that you would sacrifice those same children for them… you are puppets, I had lived that way for a long time,” I left behind a family, “What?” I blurted out once again, when I heard that thought, just as I was feeling somewhat sympathetic to his situation. My eyes flew to Judy, had she heard him think that as well? No he’s blocking his thoughts from her now, Gabriel answered me and better at hiding his shock. “How did you hide your thoughts from your mate? Hide who you were for so long?” I questioned. “I never once thought of who I was before her, I wasn’t anyone – I was nothing before Judy, just a puppet, an actor, I played roles, but with Judy,” he turned to face her, “With you I was living, I had a life and a reason, and I should have let you go, but you were mine. It was easier to give half truths, tell you that they were after me for another reason,” I blinked, unsure what to do with Philip, did we kill him? Was Judy, Jade, Taryn and Meadow the act now? Was he playing a role?