Dominion

Chapter Twenty Five: Inspirations

Chapter Twenty Five: Inspirations

It was like a dream.

All the times I had dreamt about this moment, my sister standing right in front of me. Alive. Perfectly her despite drastically different. No words were needed, just a hug that could somehow make up for over a decade of lost time. Just a smile that still made it impossible not to give in. Just the little girl who used to ask me about the stars.

A family reunited after so long apart. Perfect.

But this wasn't a dream. This was real. And it wasn't perfect.

She was standing in front of me. No words were being spoken. But there wasn't a happiness between us. There was something far different.

"Hello Gregor." Her voice was soft, quiet. But definitely hers. She smiled a small smile, but it wasn't impossible not to give in. She stepped toward me, but I stepped back. Not intentionally, but I did. Her small smile faded, and her eyes looked back and forth to either of mine.

"I watched you die," the words poured from my mouth, leaving something distasteful in their wake.

"Gregor-"

"You begged me to let you fall!" Anger. It drowned my words as the moment flashed across my mind. Her hand in mine, her words pleading me to do the impossible. "After that, you let me believe you were dead," I didn't know where these feelings were coming from. Maybe I had buried them, pushed them down as far as they would go. Maybe I didn't know they even existed. But they clearly did. I was so angry, and I wasn't even sure she had done any of that intentionally. But she was here, she had been all this time. She knew I was coming, she cleared me from being scanned. She knew I was alive, but she didn't let me know she was.

A look of regret crossed her face, but it didn't lessen what I was feeling. "It was the only way to get you here."

"The only way?" I demanded. "All you had to was ask!"

"I did!" An anger of her own was thrown at me, daring mine to match it. It had the strength of desperation behind it. "You have to understand how desperate the Coalition is, Gregor. It wasn't my plan to fall off that mountain. And I had no idea you were going to be there. I asked you the only way I thought I would have the chance to at the time."

"You let me think I was honoring your last words," I shook my head. "All you had to was reach out. I would've come running."

"You think it's that easy?" She asked. "I didn't know where you were and even if I did, it's been too dangerous for us to go beyond The Wastes since that day," Lake Michigan. The day everything changed. "Yeah, I was rescued. I survived. So did you. We're both here now, together, after what feels like a lifetime apart."

I stepped further away from her, unable to process her words. Her. I understood what she was saying, why she couldn't reach out, but it didn't make the anger subside. Everything I had felt after I thought I had lost her - again - came rushing back. The heartache, the rage. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to yell. I also wanted to hug her, forgive her, but my body wasn't letting me. Because she was right. It felt like a lifetime we had been apart. Here we were now and I couldn't handle it. I hated myself for that. I turned away from her, facing the door.

"Apart from..." I hesitated, unsure why my words were going. I felt so powerless, out of control. "Why did you want me here?" Apart from my being your brother, the words left unspoken.

"We're family," She replied, with such an open heart.

I still couldn't make myself face her. I felt a tear run down my face, but when I reached up to wipe it away, it wasn't there. "I'm not sure I believe in that word anymore," I spoke slowly, as if distant from myself. "I was raised to move past my family... past you," I still faced the door instead of her. It felt more real to me. "When I found out you were alive, I wanted nothing more than to find you. But I should've realized that even if I did-" I finally turned toward her. "Even though I did-" I shook my head. "We're strangers, Ash," those words broke my own heart, but I spoke them anyway. They were the hard truth as much as my next words. "We're related. That doesn't make us family," the tear was there now, running down my face. Perhaps toward her, perhaps away from me.