“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I almost answered.
Then I stopped.
Because the truth was uncomfortable.
“I tried.”
His face tightened.
“When?”
“After I came back.”
Silence.
“You were seventeen,” I said. “You asked why I was acting strange.”
Cole remembered.
I saw it happen.
A memory returning.
“I told you I had nightmares.”
He looked down.
“You said I was making things uncomfortable.”
His face went pale.
“I was a kid.”
“I know.”
And that was the painful part.
I did know.
Cole had been young.
But my parents had not.
My parents had watched me return from something impossible and decided the easiest explanation was that I was broken.
Colonel Knox looked at his phone.
Then his expression changed.
That worried me.
“What?”
He hesitated.
“Natalie…”
I knew that tone.
“What happened?”
He turned the screen toward me.
A message had appeared from an encrypted channel.
One that only a few people in the world could access.
My stomach tightened.
Because I recognized the code.
BLACK LANTERN PRIORITY ALERT.
But Black Lantern had been shut down eleven years ago.
The message contained only one sentence.
WRAITH SEVEN HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED.
Then another line appeared.
THE PERSON WHO BETRAYED HOLLOW RIDGE KNOWS SHE IS ALIVE.
I looked up.
Colonel Knox was no longer looking at my tattoo.
He was looking at me.
“Your family celebration wasn’t the reason you were found.”
My heart slowed.
“Then what was?”
He turned the phone around.
The final message loaded.
And the name attached to the sender made every person in the room freeze.
Because it was not an enemy.
It was someone who had been standing beside my brother all night.
For full cooking steps, turn to the next page or click the Open button (>) and don't forget to SHARE with your Facebook friends.
