The Six: Genesis | A Reverse Harem Novel

Thirty-Seven

Chris' question rattles around in the back of my brain, and I gasp, clenching him tightly.

I don't want to talk about this. I don't. But I know if I don't, it'll never leave me alone.

As I raise my eyes to his, his hands restlessly squeeze my waist and hips. He's as nervous as I am, but there's light in his eyes. He's happy.

Happy I've chosen to give him another piece of myself. Happy to learn something few others have heard. He knows if Ryker buried what happened to my parents, only a partial record exists about their deaths.

It should give me peace to know the binds guarding my secrets are taut and will not fail, but it doesn't.

I want the world to know what Janus SolJourner did to my family. But what would it solve? It wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't change what he did. And it wouldn't comfort the little girl deep inside of me who still begs for her mother's hug.

Sadly, I'll never have those again. She won't be here to protect me. The safe haven she made for me, shielding me from the strength my father demanded, disappeared with her.

Ryker has done his best to make sure I can create my own safe haven, but every child wishes for a parent to shade them from the sun's unforgiving rays, and I am no different.

"Blue," he shifts closer, "who did you see first?"

"The men he hired." Sniffling, I hide my face in his shoulder. "I was sitting on the window sill, watching the snowflakes. Three of them came out of the trees, running across the snow."

He doesn't respond, but his fingers burrow deeper. I'll have bruises tomorrow, and not because of the reason I want. Is it fucked up how much I want him to hold me even tighter?

"At first, I thought it was a game." A dark chuckle escapes my lips, and I shake my head. "So, I didn't say anything. Then, more and more of them came out of the trees, like pepper from a shaker. They covered the grounds, pouring in around my jungle gym and the outside pool.

But the time I called my mother and father, it was so many of them, there's no way we would make it out alive. My father knew it, and he rushed my mother and me to the panic room upstairs."

There were three separate ones in the house, and a fourth in the guest house off the back. My father, the doomsday preparer, wanted to make sure we were safe. He'd always say eventually someone would come after us.

He never said who.

And I guess he didn't need to. It didn't matter who came for us. They died and I'm alive.

When I sit too long in the silence, Chris pulls back far enough to catch my gaze again. Cerulean jewels study mine intently, begging and pleading for me to continue. The words I'd had before dry up in my throat and I nearly choke, coughing to cover the rasping in my chest.

If I close my eyes and think really hard, I can smell my father's cologne and the floral lift of my mother's perfume. They'd been drinking and their normal scents mixed with whiskey and the warmth of firewood. It wasn't long until blood ruined it, turning my nightmares into crimson floods.

"But you didn't stay there?"

Tears leech down my face, and I shake my head. My throat is on fire and face won't stop twisting into an ugly mess. Why... why... why?

"No," I confess. "My mother stayed with me. She turned on the cameras in the panic room and made me sit down on the couch. I remember her pushing a bottle of juice into my hands and sandwich before returning to watch the scene downstairs."