Chasing Freedom (Book 2)

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Setting Me Free (Cole)

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Setting Me Free (COLE)

Watching Skylar bound carefully up the old steps, trailing after a very eager Everly, was a bittersweet thing.

I had already told her all the secrets I had in me, and I felt like we couldn't get closer than this but I knew we would eventually find a way out and there was a huge part of me screaming there was an equally high possibility that that was be the last time I would ever see my sister.

If this really was her way out, in this old house, then I'd want her to take it because I'd want her to be happy and free from The City of Lost Souls.

But it never really hit me before that I'd be letting her go.

After today, I would never see her again.

She could walk into this very house and never walk out, leaving me behind to either go back in the city and die instantly, or stick around here and die slowly.

I don't regret my decision for a second, because Skylar's whole journey was about finding herself and finding her way home, and I was glad to somewhat be a part of that.

But I wasn't so sure I was ready to let her go so quickly.

I shake my head, clearing my mind and start roaming the main floor of the old house.

I hear a thump from above and a cutely childish laugh, knowing instantly it was Everly and it hits me once again, that Derek-Skylar's Derek, the one whom she talked so loving about-had a sister here in The City of Lost Souls and he didn't even know it.

Then I start to wonder what it would've been like if I never found out about Skylar, if I lived the rest of my life in this empty pit of my soul with no darkness to artificially fill it, and come to the conclusion that I don't think I'd have been able to do it.

Skylar quickly became the most important part of my life in these few short months, and I can't ever imagine not living with her, even though I did for sixteen years of my life.

My feet subconsciously stop in front of a doorway and I peer into the room to see an old fashioned couch facing the opposite direction and a huge window that reflected this impeccable amount of light.

Sighing, I venture further into the room, dragging my fingers against the rough material of the couch as I round it and fall dead in my tracks; heart in my stomach, when I see that there's someone occupying it.

And that someone was my father.

I look at his sleeping body with wide eyes; taking notice of his immobile body, his hands limp at his sides; his eyes squeezed shut, wearing a familiar outfit.

The last outfit I saw him in before I died.

Once I move closer to his face, I realize his chest isn't moving which means he isn't breathing, or more specifically, he isn't alive.

But his body seemed preserved, looking younger and more peaceful in such a vulnerable state.

Somewhere behind me, I hear a distant scream, instantly identifying it as Skylar's but I'm too frozen in shock of seeing my father to do much of anything.

I walk towards his limp body and kneel down beside him, reaching my hand out to touch his skin and when my flesh comes in contact with him, it starts to burn under my touch.

I squeeze my eyes shut in pain, feeling Malum slip out of my grip and when I reopen them, I'm more than surprised to find myself back in London, back in an old room in my old house. I look around in confusion, not entirely sure what to make of my situation, until my eyes land on a familiar object perched in the middle of a shelf on the other side of the room.