Page 87 of Dark Island: Rescue

Yet everything about him indicated an old soul.

How could that be?

Esag tried to focus on Elias and understand what made him different, but Tula's attention kept drifting to Tony's hand squeezing hers, to Tamira who was sitting beside Elias with a complicated expression that Esag couldn't quite read, to the guilt that never stopped churning in her gut, to the worry for the life growing inside of her.

"You're quiet today," Tony said, sounding concerned.

"You know that I have trouble sleeping." Tula reached for a slice of bread. "I'm always tired these days."

Across the table, Elias watched her with those too-old eyes of his. Did he suspect? Could he sense that something was off, that Tula was hiding secrets that affected his future?

If he did, he said nothing. Just smiled and turned his attention to Tamira, engaging in a quiet conversation that was too low for Tula to hear.

The lunch felt endless. The food tasted like cardboard in Tula's mouth, making her nauseous. Each exchange required tremendous effort to maintain the façade. The guilt pressed heavier on her with every passing moment, crushing the air from her lungs.

I can't do this, Tula thought desperately.I can't leave them. I can't?—

But she could. She would. Because the alternative was letting her child be taken away from her and living with that loss for eternity, becoming another broken mother in a harem full of women who'd lost their sons to Navuh's army.

She'd made her choice. Now she just had to find a way to live with it.

Esag felt tears burning behind Tula's eyes, felt her throat constrict with emotion she couldn't show. The guilt was going to eat her alive before the rescue even happened.

I'm sorry,Tula thought again, her gaze sweeping over the table, over Tamira and Tony, over Elias and the ladies scattered around the dining room.I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Please?—

The vision wavered.

Esag tried to hold on to it, but it was like graspingsmoke. The dining room began to fade, colors bleeding away, sounds becoming muffled and distant. The vision was collapsing, and his consciousness was slipping away from Tula's.

He found himself back in his workshop, gasping for air as if he'd been submerged underwater.

Esag's hands, his own pale and familiar hands, were clenched on the edge of his workbench. His heart raced and sweat beaded on his forehead.

The vision had been like no other he'd ever had.

Overwhelming, intimate, intrusive.

It was nothing like his previous visions where he'd observed from a comfortable distance. This time, he'd been inside Tula's head, feeling what she felt, drowning in her guilt and fear and desperate hope.

Esag recognized all of it because he'd lived it himself. Different circumstances, different choices, but the same fundamental agony of impossible choices, of being unable to save everyone.

He stood on shaking legs, steadying himself against the workbench. His tools lay scattered where he'd dropped them when the vision hit. The figurine he'd been working on lay broken on the floor.

None of that mattered right now.

He needed to tell Wonder about this vision. Needed to share what he'd learned about the people Tula would be leaving behind—Tamira and Beulah and Sarah and Liliat and Raviki. About Tony and about Elias, who was something other than what he appeared to be.

Most importantly, he needed to tell her about Tula's guilt. About how this rescue was going to breaksomething inside her sister and leave scars that might never fully heal.

Esag grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. The short walk to the café felt like it took an hour, his thoughts spinning with images from the vision.

Wonder needed to understand that saving Tula and her baby might not be enough. She would need to help her sister live with the guilt of survival, too.

Esag knew from experience that, sometimes, living with your choices was harder than making them in the first place.

Tula was about to learn that lesson in the cruelest way possible.

When he got to the café, only a few patrons were sitting at the tables and the kiosk was closed. It was Saturday, he realized. There was no service on the weekend, and people made use of the vending machines.