Page 35 of Reverie

It was the same place where I took Winter all those months ago when she was so fragile.

Fragile…because of me.

I crush the rose bloom in my palm. I intended to help myself to Misha’s garden and bring a bouquet to Winter—just like our first date. His garden holds several species of plants, but where Amelia Manor features gentle architecture that moves around the natural structure of the green space, Misha’s layout is uniform with military precision. Rows on rows of roses, lilacs, and peonies stretch from the courtyard down to the other end of the encampment.

Still, this space feels alive. It’s as if I’m walking into another dimension.

Leaving Winter to rest in the medical bay felt like the right thing to do for the first few hours. But as dawn morphed into daytime and I was no closer to figuring out how to get out of thismess while keeping everyone safe, my feelings of inadequacy tripled.

I’m doing what Winter begged me not to: I’ve shut her out. I’ve told her to sit down and heal, which, on paper, sounds like a loving, supportive thing to say.

But when looking through the lens of our relationship and what Winter needs, I realize that it’s just another power play.

Control. Be in control.

But how can I when literally every single thing in my life is out of my hands?

I gather a dozen roses in my bare palms and turn to make my way back into the house when I run across Rio. He’s propped up on one of the seats near the entrance, and while he doesn’t look that great, he seems better than one could expect for surviving a gunshot.

From what the report told me, he suffered a pretty nasty hit to the collarbone. Not that the injury itself was terrible, but he’d lost a lot of blood.

So the fact that he’s sitting here, albeit looking like he’s gone several rounds with Floyd Mayweather, gives me pause.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him. I’m cautious. I haven’t had a chance to ask him any questions, like how the hell he got involved in all this, how long he’s been spying on me.

I haven’t had the chance to determine if I can really trust him.

Rio grunts as he sits up straighter. He wears a black button-down shirt with several of the top buttons open and long basketball pants with snaps down the sides.

“I figured you’d have questions,” he says in his gruff, direct tone.

I raise my eyebrow in response. Taking a step toward the tree across from his seat, I lean against it and say, “Who sent you to talk to me?” My voice is flat.

He lifts one corner of his mouth. “Do you really want to know?”

Honestly, no. Because if it’s Misha who sent him, then that will piss me off, especially since he spent way too much time trying to convince me to give my sister over to The Legion.

But if it’s Amelia who sent him, that just might piss me off more. Because if she thinks she can pretend to care about me by sending someone to help me wade through all the shit that’s been set in my lap, well….

Fuck her.

“Actually, it was Luna,” Rio gives me.

“Ah,” I say. “Well, she’s right. I do have questions. My first one is: Will you answer any questions I have truthfully?”

I stare at him hard, and he quirks his mouth again.

“Hunter, I understand why you might not be in the most trusting spirit, but believe me, I—more than anyone—want you to know what’s going on,” he says.

“Why?” I throw back at him.

He looks away for a second and stares at the ground as if he’s collecting his words.

“Well first, it’s because I’ve seen you over the past year. I’ve seenyou.And I know that the things Misha and Amelia were concerned about aren’t actually real. You’re not like that. You’re not like him.”

The air seizes in my chest at the mention of my mother, and he doesn’t have to clarify that “him” means my father.

“How are you here?” I say.