Forever Hers | 18+

C h a p t e r 3

They may have been my dad's family, but they weren't mine. My family was stripped away from me, and then ruined my chances of ever wanting them back.

"That's not why you're distracted, though." Kiana cuts off my thoughts when I suddenly feel her at my back, respecting my space but not understanding how much I didn't want her words either.

It was the truths that hurt so much fucking worse.

"My father—"

"Alec, Madelyn." She says the one name I didn't want to hear right now. "This is about the possibility of Alec being dead, because that means you'll never get to see them again."

Them, not him.

But I didn't want to see them again.

I couldn't want that, because if I did, I don't think I'd be able to survive it.

"He's not dead." I shake my head, slipping on my jacket before walking even farther away from her touch. "This is just their plan to lure these people in so they can annihilate them all at the time and place of their choosing."

It didn't matter how real the photographs looked. This was just Xavier's way of gaining control of a situation he has no control over.

"I know you want to believe that, but what if he is?"

"Then he's dead, Kia." I say, raising my voice just slightly, hoping to mask the shakiness of my words. "If Alec Sawyer is truly dead, then that's that. Nothing I can say or do will change it."

With that, I leave, closing her door behind me and only letting myself feel a shred of guilt for the way I spoke to her when I know she was just trying to care.

Unfortunately for the both of us, I wasn't capable of much of that. Not anymore.

_______

"You're late." Cameron murmurs as he holds the elevator for me, letting it go once I was inside and hitting the button that would take us down to the core of quadrant seven.

Whenever my father had something big and new that needed to be discussed, this was the process that happened. The five of us—myself, Natasha, Cameron, Lev and Alessia—stood in a line right behind a slick black podium where Marcus Caddel, leader of the Resistance would be front and center, explaining how we were going to change the world.

It was the only place in this maze of hallways that could fit all five thousand of us in a single space, people gathering around just to get to hear what new things were occurring.

Today, I had no doubt who and what this meeting was about.

"And you're a kiss ass." I fire back, bending down to roll the cuffs of my pants for the sole reason because my dad thinks it makes me look too "improper" for these important events.

In my opinion, having the white material damn near dragging with each step is worse.

"And you're sad about a dead man who never even loved you in the first place." He smirks just as the elevator doors open to the much too large platform, walking out with myself still bent close to the ground.