The Lost Daughter (Denali #2)

Chapter 18

I just stare into the familiar but new blue eyes. "Denali," the bearded man says. "You're still unwell, you need to rest."

My mind gets fuzzier as my mom helps me to the bed. The wood floor panels seem to shift below my unsteady feet. "But no, I have so many..." I say. Just before my mom pulls the quilt over me, just before the world gets too fuzzy and my mind disappears, I see the Captain standing in the doorway.

**

The morning is cold. The kind of morning that reminds me of coffee commercials—mugs warm between your hands, as your face awakens to silky smoke coming upward.

I swish in my sheets, thinking about it all, until my fingers are able to pry them off me, despite my desire to stay cocooned.

My bare feet hit the wooden flood. Slippers about my size are laid out for me. With my feet protected and enveloped, I get up and venture out of the room. What do I want? What am I looking for? Do I even want to find the bearded man? Do I want to talk to my mom?

The steps creak with character as I journey down them. The downstairs is empty, a few dishes in the sink, more quilts folded or draped over furniture. A small fire twitches in the fire place. I'm alone.

I open a screen door out into a backyard with grass that rushes up to dense woods. The overcast sky creates a light shadow over the whole world. Sitting on a wooden bench, the kind you usually see in parks and public places, two men talk. Their backs are to me. Their voices are low. I can hear, but I cannot understand.

My slippers hold up well enough against the morning dew as I creep quietly toward the conversation.

The quiet voices stop. The bearded man turns around. His body tenses as he takes me in and slowly stands. Next to him, the Captain stands up too.

"Denali, how are you feeling?"

I squint at him and find my body shaking. "I'm okay."

The Captain looks back and forth between us, me, the bearded man. The bearded man, Liam, my dad.

The Captain nods, mostly to himself. "I'll leave you alone to talk."

The Captain walks by me, but neither of us watch him leave. We stare at each other.

The bearded man clears his throat. "Please, sit down."

I swallow and walk over to the bench. I don't want to settle in, I want to perch, ready to flee if need be. But my wound won't let me do that. So I take as deep a breath I can without hurting myself and lean back, settling in.

He stares at the woods and drums his fingers on the metal railing of the bench.

I could stay still, quiet. I could wait for him to start this. But I won't. "So was it you all this time, with the voices," I ask.

He nods. "It was the only safe way to keep connected to you." He tilted his head, something like pity creasing in his brow. "I'm sorry if it was confusing."

"If it was confusing?" I ask.

He smiles. "I mean, I'm sorry." His eyes level on me. "That much have been confusing."

"It was," I say. I could tell him all the theories I had over the years, but, to be honest, the main theory was always that it was my dad somehow or another. And here he is. He's wearing jeans and tapping his fingers on the bench like any other live real person might do. He has eyes, pale blue like mine, that look at me pleadingly. He has skin and he has a voice, one with mundane vocal chords, one that sounds both strong and weary.

And he is my dad, right here, before me.

"I know you may not ever forgive me," he says. "But I want you to know I really thought I was doing what I had to. I didn't know what the council would do to you. The worst case would be kill you as an example. That might sound extreme, even for them, but I wouldn't put them past that. I couldn't take that risk. But even if they let you live, they'd use you."

"But they have been using me...." I say.

"Yes, well sort of, but not with the Captain—"

"Yes, I understand now, the Captain was protecting me."

The bearded man, my dad, nods.

I look into the forest, the clearly defined trunks and swaying leaves giving way to a dark unknown.

"And you were protecting me, in a different way," I say.

"Yes, you and Eli. The council was after me, they're still after me. Being on the run is no way to grow up. My sister, the woman who raised you, she's been....she's...been an amazing aunt." His voice cracks as he looks away.

"Mom," I say. "She's been an amazing mom."

He nods and wipes his face. "Yes, you're right." He breaths in. "Your mom... I mean, the woman who gave birth to you, if she was alive, she'd—"

"My mom is dead?" I ask. I guess finding my dad, learning all this, it hadn't all come together in my head yet that if my mom isn't my mom, some other lady must be. And now, whoever she was, she's gone. I held my side and winced. That's what Miss Violet had meant. The Captain lied to me. My mom, my biological mom, is not okay.

"What was she like?" I ask. "Was she psi too?"

He smiled. "Yes, she was one of the most powerful psis that ever existed. But that wasn't why I loved her. I loved her because she was brave and she had a good heart. She wanted to overturn the council. She wanted to do whatever we could to help volks."

I blinked and rubbed my knees. Something heavy seemed to press inside my chest. Of course. Liam, my dad, he heads the KBK. The head of the KBK used to be married to the woman who started the cause, before she was hung. Before their daughter, a baby girl, was lost to the world.

"Oh..." I say. "I'm the...I'm the...." Tears run down my cheeks. "But, no, they took a blood test?"

"The Captain switched it," my dad says. He reaches for my hand, his thumb curling over my knuckles. "You are the lost daughter."

I wipe my eyes. That's why my dad couldn't raise me. The council has been after the lost daughter all this time, a symbol of what was lost, a symbol of the threats to come.

The council told me the KBK was evil. But the council killed my mom.