Page 237 of Scarlet Wars
The tone wasn’t mocking. It was tired. Bruised. Like the world had hit her one too many times and she’d stopped expecting the blows to be poetic.
Her shoulders rose and fell in a slow, uneven rhythm. “She used to say that trying to breathe through that grief almost killed her. And that meeting my dad that same year, sent air back into her lungs.”
I shifted my weight, careful not to make a sound sharp enough to break whatever thin thread she was following.
“I didn’t get it back then,” she continued. “I sympathized, sure, but I didn’t truly understand. I don’t know if anyone really can unless they’ve lived through it themselves.”
Her gaze finally lifted to mine, quiet, raw, clearer than her voice had been. “My father once told me he’d never seen her cry. I used to think that was courage. Strength.”
A faint, bitter laugh slipped out of her. “Man, was I wrong. There’s nothing braver than letting yourself feel that kind of pain.”
I didn’t reply, but I shifted to a nearer branch—slow, careful—and sat down, keeping my attention on her as if looking away would break her open.
“I caught her crying once,” she said softly. “She thought she was alone, sitting in her car. I was there by accident, walking around the neighborhood to meet up with Lisa.” She paused, lips trembling. “I didn’t go to her. I didn’t try to console her. At the time I’d convinced myself she’d needed that moment to herself.”
I leaned forward, elbows braced on my knees.
“So I walked home instead.” Emma shook her head in regret. “She came in fifteen minutes later, makeup perfect, smile radiant. And I was grateful for it back then. Grateful she pretended she was okay. Grateful she spared me from…the pain of being a daughter watching her mother break.”
She swallowed hard. “Now all I can think about is how much she must’ve been dying inside. How much pain she carried just to protect me.” Her voice cracked, barely. “And how much of a selfish idiot I was for never asking her about it.”
Her tone was flat, as if the emotion had burned itself out before it ever reached the surface. Like she was still too scared to feel the full weight of it.
Then she closed her eyes for a single, shaking heartbeat.
When she opened them again, the wall was gone. And what replaced it hit me like a punch: raw, unguarded hurt, sitting right there without a shield to hide behind.
My chest tightened so much, it felt like something inside me snagged.
“I’m broken, Caden,” she whispered. “So broken I don’t even know if I can be repaired. I’m in pain every single day…”
My fists curled uselessly against my thighs, every instinct screaming to pull her into my arms, to fix what I knew I couldn’t touch.
“Except when I’m with you.”
I went still—completely still—every thought in my head dropping out at once.
Her voice barely rose above the sound of the wind. “You take my pain away. And that scares me shitless. Because if I lose you…”
She shook her head, fear stark on her face so real it scraped something raw inside me. “I let my mom pretend. I don’t want to make the same mistake.”
Emma locked on me, burning through the tears. “I’m done pretending, Caden. I’m done hiding. I want to tell everyone what we are.”
I didn’t think, I justmoved. One heartbeat I was standing there, the next I was crouched in front of her, closing the space between us like instinct had overridden every conscious thought. My hands cupped her face, gentle, desperate to hold something I was terrified to lose.
“Emma,” I rasped, my own voice fracturing around her name. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t want to hide you anymore,” she whispered, the words trembling out of her. “I don’t want to hideus. Not from the Chiefs, not from Collabs, not from anyone.”
I kissed her hard, tasting salt and snow and the truth she’d finally let herself say.
“Then let’s not,” I murmured against her mouth.
“I want to tell the world you’re mine,” she breathed, her words finding their strength again.
I kissed her once more, softer this time, like I still couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud. “And I’ll tell them I’m yours.”
She burned—beautifully reckless. “And I want to fight the United Chiefs. Kill them all if we must.”
