Existence

Chapter 29

"Back at home, when you said you didn't remember the stories I used to tell you, I chalked it all up to you being too young. But then Alex explained your first encounter with the others, where you barely recognized him and..." Jared rubbed the back of his neck. "My ability requires control, finesse, precision. But that day, when I told you to forget Adventia, I didn't think to specify what I wanted you to forget."

"So, I just forgot everything connected to Adventia. And Alex's death?"

Jared winced. "It might've been part of it... but I repressed the memory of Alex after the burial. He kept popping up once in a while, and you had varied reactions each time, thinking he was gone."

Sarah crossed her arms and glared at Jared. "I'm sure there's some rule against such mind manipulation."

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I know it was wrong of me to keep things from you, do this to you, but I... I just wanted to keep you safe."

"And now we're stuck in a cell underground." She understood his worry for her. She'd felt the terror her seven-year-old self had gone through when she'd been lifted up into the air by a pair of eagles. But she wasn't about to go easy on him so quickly.

Jared sighed and sat down in front of her. "I told Alex I'd try to fix it when I got out, bring the memories back the same way I erased them. I told him not to force it, because who knows how the binding might react, but I didn't think he'd keep from telling you anything at all!" He leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "You shouldn't have felt the need to get answers from someone else."

"Adam tricked me. He had a notebook..."

Jared frowned up at her. "My notebook?"

"It did say 'property of Skywalker.'" At the look on his face, she asked, "So those stories were true?"

"Mostly true. I used to write down the adventures we went on, maybe with a little creative embellishment, but yeah, true events. Back then, Alex had this crazy idea to use codenames. They didn't stick, but I decided to keep using them. Soon, those were the bedtime stories I told you every night." Seeing the confusion on her face, he added with a chuckle, "At some point you kind of guessed the cousin duo in the stories were me and Alex, so you wanted to be a part of it."

"That's why you added Sweet."

He nodded. "I'm not sure how Adam got a hold of my notebook, or how he even knew about it. But again, it isn't your fault for believing him.

"He didn't think you'd be on his if he'd told you about his parentage in the first place," Sarah said, observing her brother.

Jared blew out a breath. "And I can't even blame him."

"So, you would've—"

"No, Sar, of course not. We were just pretty upfront about our views on Shifters. But Adam had fought by our side for years. We'd built up trust in each other. I could scarcely believe it when I discovered he'd switched sides. I hesitated when he came to Earth that day with a team to capture me... and in the end it cost me greatly."

"Is that why you called a meeting at our house? To tell the others about Adam?" Sarah remembered what Byron had said about Jared's news being a huge game changer, so important that he couldn't risk telling them through a message. When he nodded, she added, "Were you really going to tell me everything then?"

A huge sigh left his lips. "I'd been putting it off for far too long. I thought maybe... you didn't have to know about Adventia until after the Shifters were defeated. But the others were right. This world needs the complete set to be put to rights."