“Is this how it always looked?” Vash asked.
Wren swallowed and looked back at the waiting vehicle. “I… they must have left… they…”
Lowering her body to the sludge below, weakness weighed her down. She was about to give up when she felt Lucas’s hand rub against her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. We couldn’t have known they torched the place.”
“This entire time, I gave into the illusion that they were waiting for me,” she said, tears dropping like rain from her smooth cheek. “Nobody is waiting for me.”
“We have all lost something great,” Killian said.
Wren reached into her holster and pulled out the revolver. Despite the alphas’ efforts to stop her, she ran into the ghost town in search of her old home. What she found was a mirror version, not quite the same, but close enough that it left her confused and tired.
Cautiously, she touched the bricks that still barely held the foundation up. A great horror was felt here, and Wren wondered why she had felt the need to come back. It should have been obvious that they were all dead. Why wouldn’t they be?
“We should go,” Vash said, placing his hand over hers.
She pulled her hand away and walked through the front door, facing the inner hallway that she remembered so well. But as she walked farther, she noticed that the home was different. There were extra rooms.
“None of this makes any sense,” she whispered.
In the corner of the main room was a small chest. Vash immediately knew what it was: the chest that housed his father’s old belongings. And he knew who had left it here as bait.
“Cassian,” he whispered.
This wasn’t Wren’s home. It was his. He recognized it now, the home he grew up in before his father took him away forever. Suddenly, the rooms felt alive again. He could see his mother near the stables outside. She was walking toward him, arms outstretched to hug his boyish body. She looked so beautiful. But then, the vision fragmented back into reality.
Cassian had programmed her for this. It was the only answer to his problems. Program the women with false memories until they acted out certain behaviors. But why would he use Vash’s memories?
“Wren, we need to leave,” Killian insisted.
Vash was transfixed by this place. “I will not go. Not without knowing what happened to my home,” Wren said, turning with hurt.
Walking to the chest, Vash bent down and ran his hand over the gold filigree. The design, murderous as it was in nature, was the old insignia of the snake growing in a pit of hot coals.
Vash wasn’t like the slave traders in his “adopted” family. Sure, he was raised to be a soldier. That was the only life he knew. But it wasn’t him. And the hard truth was that none of the people standing in that room with him knew what it was like to be themselves.
“Is it inside?” Killian asked, eyes narrowing.
Heart pounding against his sternum, Vash opened the chest and stared at a small vial of liquid. He quickly took the glass chamber and held it against the foggy lighting of the window.
“He has decided to keep me alive,” Vash whispered, throat strained with apprehension.
“Or kill you faster,” Killian said. “Better to throw it away. We will find a doctor in—”
Vash crashed his fist against his chest. “There is no doctor!”
“You could die, Vash,” Lucas said.
“And who would care?”
Vash stood and nervously cracked the glass over his mouth. Small drops of fluid dissolved into his tongue, quickly distributing the contents through the active muscle tissue. Gulping thirstily, he licked the excess off his lips and growled.
“You fool!” Lucas cried.
Vash tongued at the inside of his lips and proudly smiled. “We will find out in a few hours if I pass,” he said.
Wren lost control. Her voice dropped, deep and raw. “You… you brought me here to trick me. This… this isn’t my home. It’s a trick!”
Watching as her eyes darted between the three tormenters, Vash took her arms and swung her off her feet. “We’re going,” he said.