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MARA

I dropped into my chair, tears streaming down my cheeks as the bitter, rotten truth destroyed any hope I had of smothering out the past. Javier still held my wrist, but he loosened his grip as he sat down quietly, letting me confess my sins.

My vision blurred with my tears, and Javier finally let go of me, allowing me to shove my hands in my hair as I ranted and raved.

“I triggered a bomb thinking that Raúl would give up and let me go—let us both go. But he didn’t,” I shrieked.

“And he warned me! He told me the only way Jacob would leave the REG was with him, but I didn’t listen .

I never listen! I’m always too freaking stubborn to follow orders, and because I refused to give Jacob up, Raúl pushed the fucking button, and he died !

He dropped to the floor and convulsed and screamed out and then he was bleeding everywhere, and I couldn’t save him! ”

I buried my face in my hands and sobbed, strangled cries erupting from my core. I quaked from the force of it, and after what felt like an eternity of suffering in my own pit of despair, I felt Javier’s heavy hand on my knee.

“What happened to Jacob wasn’t your fault. There was no way for you to know that Tío would go to such an extreme. Nobody could have predicted that.”

I sniffed, hiccupping as I looked up to see the onyx of his eyes shimmer with his own tears.

“Judging yourself for what you did in the past is unfair. You did the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time, and that’s all we can ever expect from ourselves.”

I wiped the tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. “But if I hadn’t pushed—”

“Then you would be dead,” he stated, the cold hard truth laid out like a display.

“You would be dead and Jacob would be Tío’s puppet.

And he would be living every day in misery, knowing that he murdered you in cold blood.

Even if he regained control of his mind, he would be stuck living the rest of his life with the reality that he killed you. ”

I argued back. “But it wouldn’t have been his fault—”

“Just like it’s not your fault that your roles were reversed.

You didn’t kill Jacob; Tío Raúl did. He forced you to make the only choice you could to survive.

He could have allowed Jacob to live if he wanted, but he didn’t .

He chose to kill his son out of spite. That’s not on you, Mara, that’s on him .

Don’t take responsibility for something that doesn’t belong to you. ”

I sat up straighter, mulling over Javi’s words.

I hadn’t thought about it like that before.

I had been stuck on my father’s accusation, that I was the one that killed my brother, and then sank into despair with guilt and shame.

But maybe Javier was right. Maybe this wasn’t on me.

I may have made several other choices that led to disaster, but Jacob’s death wasn’t one of them.

I sniffed, wiping my cheeks with the heels of my hands. “Thanks, Javi.”

He squeezed my knee. “De nada, prima. I’m here for you, and moving forward, nada nos va a separar…nothing will separate us.”

A chuckle mixed with a small sob escaped my lips. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered.

“Y yo a ti.”

I didn’t need a translation for that one. He missed me, too. I smiled.

“So,” he said, slapping his hands on his thighs and sitting up straight, “are you going to get back on the horse? Or are you going to continue to mope around and sit like a wallflower?”

“A wallflower? What’s that supposed to mean?” I watched as he stood. “And I wasn’t moping,” I added for good measure.

“Claro que no, prima—of course you weren’t.” He extended a hand to me, wiggling his fingers. “This is our family, Mara. Our blood did this, and our blood needs to see it undone. The question is, are you ready to do what must be done?”

His eyes burned hot like coals as his hand remained extended.

It was an offering. If I took it, it meant that I had to put my past behind me.

I had to make peace with the mistakes I’d made and decide that I was ready to rise from my own ashes and be reborn.

It would be hard, I knew that. Jacob was always my beacon, my guiding light.

I did everything in this rebellion to save him.

But without him…I was missing my North Star. I didn’t know if I was ready.

I wasn’t sure if I ever would be.

** *

WES

I stared at Nora as she pointed to the southernmost tip of Telvia’s city on the map.

She looked so much like her—so much like Mara.

Same soft features. Same perfect pink lips.

Same deep brown hair with hues of coppery red.

The only difference was their eyes. Nora’s were smaller and a lighter shade of brown.

Nothing as bottomless and dark as the endless pool of doe-brown eyes that gutted me with every gaze.

Fuck , that girl undid me. Unraveled me like the delicate thread from a carefully crafted tapestry.

Peeled back my hardened layers and crumbled my walls of masonry.

I had worked so hard for so long to be impregnable.

To be nothing but solid stone with walls built so high, nothing could penetrate me.

And all it took was a pair of big brown eyes.

When I saw her for the first time, I thought I would cave under their weight. Disappear into the chasm of their depths.

I thought I was lost.

It was only after that I discovered I was being found.

“The site was thought to be abandoned after the riot that broke out two years ago,” Nora explained as she stared at the map, and then faced us. “Leaked Telvian intel says that it’s been rebuilt, and is now the new location of the NIT Labs.”

Giza pulled on the peppered strands of his goatee. “Do you have any access to the schematics of the compound?”

Nora took her seat closest to the map. “No, but I have the next best thing.”

Sasha clasped her hands on the table. “Which is?”

“A former guard of the prison.”

My mother shifted in her chair. “Pardon my ignorance, but I fail to see how a former guard of this reeducation camp is going to assist us in this matter?” Her face was completely unreadable. Firm. Rigid. Stoic .

Nora narrowed her eyes. “Javier was assigned to Apex several weeks before the riot. He knows the layout. He’ll be able to guide us on a plan, as well as guide our team in and out for the mission.”

“It’s risky,” Giza mused. “There’s no guarantee that they rebuilt the compound exactly the same. It’s possible that much has changed from what he remembers.”

“Exactly,” Mother said, cool as a glacier. “All it would take is one former exit to no longer exist and our team could be lost.”

Nora leaned back in her seat as she folded her hands over her belly. “That’s true, Marissa. But I’m afraid you don’t have the luxury of time, now do you?” She tipped her head to the side, and all I could see was Mara.

The way she looked at me that day. The way she gazed at me, hair falling off her shoulder when I produced one white rose. I blinked, trying to clear it.

“In less than two months, Raúl will unleash a massive assault against the North. You want schematics,” she waved her hand in the air, “be my guest. Good luck finding them. But I’m not staying here to watch my team get slaughtered.”

“I’m starting to see where Miss de la Puente gets it,” Giza muttered into Sasha’s ear.

Sasha stared Nora down, a heavy sigh leaving her lips as she muttered, “You have no idea.”

Chin to my chest, I smirked momentarily. Nora really was… spunky . I couldn’t help but wonder what holidays would be like with her if we all survived this war.

“General, we’ll need your lieutenant to provide us with all the information he has about the compound. We can have drafts made to assist us in planning the assault,” Giza said. His eyes whispered hope .

“Done,” Nora confirmed.

“We’ll need to have mission parameters established, and a team selected by the end of the week,” Sasha said, steepling her hands and resting her fingertips on her lips. Then she shook her head lightly. “I don’t like this. These rushed operations are always a recipe for disaster.”

Her words unsettled me. But, then again, what didn’t these days?