When Liana Davis moves to Massachusetts, she brings her only daughter, an emergency fund, and what may be her late husband's most valuable and dangerous secret.
When Dominic Carter moves into his fourteenth foster home, he is given an ultimatum: ge...
─── Seems like I needed you more than I needed myself ───
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Aurora
She doesn't turn back. She doesn't see him reach mindlessly for her wrist but then stop himself, force himself just to watch as she walks away from him and through the door which is too heavy and too old to slam behind her; she turns and leans her back against it, anchoring her feet against the ground and forcing it shut.
She tugs anxiously at the knitted scarf until her neck is finally bare, then shrugs Dominic's jacket off next, throwing both into the coat closet by the front entryway of her residence hall, until she is left in only her school sweater and dress. And yet, she still feels unbearably warm.
She is a blur of gray and blue, passing quickly through the study room downstairs, with the stained glass and steadily burning fireplace, no one but Junie sat peacefully in front of the crackling embers.
"Where've you been all day, Rory?" the blonde girl asks curiously over her shoulder, but Aurora doesn't answer. Almost mindlessly, she paces through the empty front hallway toward the back patio door, which rattles along the doorframe as she shuts it behind her. She trudges quickly through the fresh snow, soaking her thick stockings almost instantly as she walks toward the dense forest of trees ahead.
The air settles beneath the canopy of leaves where the snow falls less heavily, catching on the branches high above her. Once the forest engulfs her completely, she quickens her pace to a run. The towering woods of her and Caspar's "shortcut" seem to reach up and wrap around the dark sky, blurring together in one mass of color as she sprints past. The few loose branches which do nick at her freezing legs hardly bother her; it was winter anyway, and her stockings would cover anything. Cuts and bruises would be fine. She can handle that.
Scrapes leave ugly marks, Aurora.
She can hear her mother's disproving tone and sucks in a sharp breath, running until she reaches Walden river, nestled peacefully in the shadows of the surrounding trees which tower so high and grow so densely that one could easily get lost in them.
Gripping her small hands to the sides of a familiar tree, she uses all her strength to lift herself up, her shaking legs swinging around each branch like second nature as she climbs.
Once again, her mother's voice resonates softly in her mind.
You'll wreck your pretty little hands, climbing trees all the time.
She climbs until she is too far up to jump down, swinging her legs over the branch and watching as they dangle down.
Look. Ugly bruises all over your arms. What will Dominic say?
