Page 67 of Reverie

I catch it when Misha flinches out of the corner of my eye. I raise my eyebrow at him, questioning.

“Problem?” I ask.

Misha shrugs.

Okay, then….

I inhale and exhale, counting my breaths and tapping my finger on my thigh. It’s colder now, the thick clouds covering the sun, and I shiver as a bird flaps away from one tree to another.

“I want you to understand why it took me so long to reveal myself,” Amelia says. She wrings her hands, and her chin trembles as she looks at me. She straightens her spine, though, and I’m so curious about how she’s navigating life. She’s soft and vulnerable, and yet she’s also hardened and reserved. Scarred emotionally from the fuckery that is life.

She is a dichotomy.

“As you can tell, I got burned. It was bad. So bad. I was left on the hard tile of the veranda floor all night. I was in and out of consciousness. They drugged Hunter…” She chokes on her words, and I gasp.

Misha remains stoic next to Amelia, and his silence irritates me. People think that Hunter is unfeeling when, in fact, Hunter feels deeply. He feels too much sometimes.

But Misha? I’m losing faith that there’s anything beneath the man of steel.

I think about his interactions with Luna.

Maybe he does have a heart…just not one for his mother or brother.

“The sun was high in the sky when I came to, and it felt like I was roasting alive. The night before promised rain, but somehow, the storm bypassed the island entirely. Benjamin came, but he only talked to Hunter. I ceased to matter—to exist.He had some of his men drag me off the veranda and onto a boat. When we were a half mile from the shore, they threw me in.”

She swallows, closing her eyes.

“The salt water stung so badly that I fought to stay conscious. I figured if I could get to the cove on the far end of the island, I could rest and then steal one of the emergency boats that Benjamin kept in case he ever got raided. I didn’t go to Amelia Manor ever—the only time I was there was when I was traded by Misha’s father.”

She cuts off her statement, and her delicate throat bobs as she swallows. “The cove was seven hundred yards away, and I’m a good swimmer, but I was too weak. Right when I decided to give up and let the sea take me, two sets of hands pulled me from the water.”

Amelia’s gaze is unfocused, far away, and I know that she’s back on that island and in that ocean. “I woke up on a dock in Puerto Rico. When I opened my eyes, someone covered me in a blanket and put me in the back of a truck. The next time I woke, I was in a hospital. I was just so grateful to be back on American soil.”

I put my hand on her forearm, and she flinches when my palm makes contact with her burn scars.

“I am so sorry that happened to you, Amelia,” I say. The moment is fragile, and it feels like anything louder than a whisper would break it. Staring at my hand on her arm, she moves her other and places it on top of mine.

“Going back into that Hell…I’d do it for Hunter and Ella. I wanted them to get out, but I was terrified to try again because taking Benjamin down then felt like my one shot. My only shot. I don’t think Hunter betrayed me that night. I wanted him to tell his father what he knew. He needed to, to save himself. I wanted him to live, so I went into hiding. I prayed that my childrenwould be okay and that one day, karma would return with a vengeance on Benjamin Brigham.

“But then I learned of his killings. Of how many people Hunter killed. They called him The Huntsman, did you know that?”

I feel ill. I shake my head no.

“Hunter’s father and his friends called him that. I—we—had connections on the inside. It was over a decade ago, but that first time I heard that he killed someone, I wasn’t sure who Hunter was anymore.”

My stomach clenches, so I force my hand from where it’s cemented to my hip and place it over my abdomen.

Breathe, Winter.

I know Hunter has killed people. In fact, he’s killed peoplefor me.But the fact that he’s been unaliving people for years? He did that…why?

“Why did he kill them?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.

“You’ll have to ask him that,” Misha grinds out.

Amelia shifts, her movements telegraphing discomfort. “So you see why I had to be sure about him? Because if I brought him in…it would have jeopardized everything here if he wasn’t who I hoped. We are the last hope for humanity. There’s nowhere else to turn. The FBI, the CIA…the whole Department of Justice are intheirpockets. So, no matter how much I wanted all my children with me, I had to wait. I couldn’t.”

I think Amelia knows that if she started crying right now, I would snap. Instead, she tilts her chin up to look at the cardinals. The clouds move, and a shaft of light breaks through the trees.